Customer Reviews

Broken (Unrated)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I was watching the previews on the DVD for "Black Sheep" when the trailer for "Broken" came on. In that week's rentals I had a film called "Broken," but it was an Indie film starring Heather Graham and Jeremy Sisto and not this film, which turns out to be another example of the torture porn horror film, albeit with pretensions. What is interesting is that that both "Broken" films came out in 2006 and that apparently both have just been released on DVD in the past month. This brings to mind the possibility that somebody would recommend the Heather Graham "Broken" and rent this one by mistake (Don't laugh, I recommended the Academy Award winning "American Beauty" to a co-worker once and they went to the video store and picked up "American Pie" and could not figure out why anybody would give Jason Biggs and the gang the Oscar). But the thought of people watching the wrong "Broken" was enough to make me check the other one out to see how much damage could be done to the psyche of some unsuspecting soul.

At the start of the film a title card informs us that "The slave girl is reared in an atmosphere of fear." The quote is from Harriet A. Jacobs (1813-1897), an American abolitionist who wrote the 1861 book "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl." Written and directed by the tag team of Simon Boyes and Adam Mason, this movie is about Hope (Nadja Brand), a woman who puts her young daughter to bed one night and wakes up trapped in a coffin-like box. We know from the opening scene of the film that whatever is about to happen to Hope has happened to another woman, who clearly has been pushed beyond her limits. Consequently, given the Jacobs quote the implication is that the title of this horror film has to do with a woman's broken spirit. However, in the final analysis most of what gets broken here is physical rather than spiritual.

Hope is being held in the forest by a man (Eric Colvin), whose goal in dragging women out there is not to torture, rape, and kill them, but to help them get their minds right to being his domestic slave (unless the tending the garden bit is supposed to reference "Candide" in some way I have not yet figured out). So when his victims are required to use a pointed stick to open up an incision in their abdomens while bound by the neck to a tree while balanced on a perch nailed several feet off the ground, it might involve blood (and sometimes guts), but it is not torture but a test. One of several as the man attempts to break Hope. But unlike previous victims, who have not worked out as the man has intended, Hope has something to hang on to: the possibility that her daughter is still alive.

This is a low budget film and if you go through the DVD's special features you will find out that Boyes and Mason came up with the script as something that they could afford to film: if you shoot in the forest you do not have to worry about building sets and if one of you is married (at the time) to the lead actress that explains how you get somebody to make a movie like this when you are shooting outdoors in England during the winter. If the movie delivered more of what it promised, it would have gone over better with me, especially given that opening quote which put me in a particular frame of mind. "Broken" is different from most splatter flicks in that it takes place over several weeks, which is appropriate to the psychological dimension. Just do not expect to understand how this nut gets his victims out there in the first place, because that is not part of the game here.

For all of its shortcomings, the end game of "Broken" is probably the best part of the movie. What happens to Hope and the man, respectively, struck me as being different and quite possibly original for this type of genre, and I ended up rounding up on the movie because of that (usually the ending of a splatter flick is the weakest part, especially when they contrive some stupid way for the killer to get killed). There are other decent parts of the film as well: the parts that are suppose to revulse you in this movie do so, the cinematography does not look low-budget, and there were several nice cuts to good effect, so this is not a case of just wallowing in blood and gore. "Broken" is not the torture porn film its trailer makes it out to be, but there is enough here to recommend checking it out.

Description leads you to believe there's lots of torture and sadistic scenes in this movie, but the "series" of events is over in like the first 10-15 minutes of the film. Then you're treated to an hour of the most trying, dull scenes in horror film history. The people who gave this 4 or 5 stars must've never seen a decent horror flick, because this failed on the psychological front as well as the violence front. Two cringe-inducing scenes and that's it. They were pretty cool though, hence the two stars rather than one. Some annoying whimpering that we could've done without. The kidnapper was a cross between Crocodile Dundee and Indiana Jones dress wise. Personality wise, he was just dull dull dull. I dunno, man. This premise could've worked, and should have. The lead woman was sexy enough, but we never get to see her naked. Disappointing. So many scenes just rang untrue, and bringing in the 2nd girl was ridiculous. Only one person dies, and she's a minor character. I thought the ending was hilarious! This should not be in the horror section on the rental store. It should be in gardening.

BROKEN is a brilliant movie. Made on an extremely low budget, it looks as good as / better than most of what is cranked out today. The story is simple and agonizingly well realized. However, this is about more than just a maniacal captor (Eric Colvin) and the treatment of his captive, named Hope (Nadja Brand). This is about the undying love of a mother for her daughter, and the incredible ordeals she will endure in hopes of seeing her child again. We are put in the chains and subjugated along with mum, never knowing what new horror might come next. My favorite part is when Hope finds a flower. It is the only beauty in an otherwise blighted environment. The man destroys the flower once, but Hope will not allow him to do it a second time. When another young woman is brought into the desolate camp, things get even more interesting, as she is the innocent, new fish to Hope's more hardened, experienced victim. This allows for terrifying brutality, as well as the only brief moment of humor (the potato incident). BROKEN is not for anyone who must have a happy ending at all cost. I myself am no fan of the end of this movie, as it is the final, heart-destroying insult. Still, The Hope character is so well-defined and lived by Brand that I can't give this movie less than five stars...

Not the worst low budget movie I've seen, but Broken is pretty bad. The acting of the lady playing the main character is not good. I can deal with a bad actress as long as I'm convinced she's doing her best. What I can't deal with is a plot that's totally pointless. *SPOILER* There's a scene where the lady is holding a knife over her sleeping kidnapper, instead of stabbing him in the neck or chest, she gives him a flesh wound on his leg then stumbles off in the forest to allow him to sneak up on her a few moments later. Just about every scene in this film is either unnecessary, pointless, or just lame. The crap in the beginning with the digging the razorblade out of your stomach to free yourself from the tree?!?! That was just stupid. Now I do understand that a crazy guy has to do crazy stuff, but there should also be some sort of crazy logic to it. I mean, why not make her dig the blade out of her bum? That at least would have been just as stupid, but hilarious and worth talking about. Now the last scene could have been sooo much better, but alas this is Broken we're talking about. Who...the hell....screams like that stupid dark haired lady and then regains her composure AFTER getting her tongue cut out?.....Look, that's it, I'm not wasting anymore time on this movie

Amazing horror filmmaking on a shoestring budget. I absolutely disagree with the "reviewer" who gave this superbly shot, directed, edited and scored near-masterpiece only two stars.

What is further astonishing about this incredible cinema acomplishment is that it was shot on DV for next-to-no money. A nail-biter every step of the way. The ending will leave you stunned.

The extras are excellent. Kudos to all involved, especially the writer/directors Adam Mason and Simon Boyes.
And to the male lead, Eric Colvin, all I can say is: Sir, your performance chills to the bone.

RE: Commentary. This film deserves far better. Loud church bells can be heard throughout and this makes it difficult to pay attention to what the directors have to say.
On the other hand, the Making of Doc. tells you plenty, almost more than you care to know. Q & A with lead female (Nadja Brand) is fun and informative.

Also, the box the DVD came in is cleverly designed.
A job well done.

Dark, vicious, relentless, brutal, violent, sadistic, grueling, startling, twisted, horrifying....some of my favorite adjectives when attached to horror cinema. BROKEN encompasses all of that and then some. This is a vicious low budget affair based on a true story, supposedly (I searched Wikipedia but couldn't find information on any actual events).

A woman wakes up trapped in a wooden box. Not sure how she got there, she's just there. Man, talk about freaky! After a day of inconceivable fear and frantic attempts, she breaks free only to realize she's in the middle of the woods. Her sadistic captor is there waiting with one sick agenda--break her spirit. What follows next is a series of the most gruesome tortures, some sick depravity that is incredibly hard to watch.

Yes, it makes SAW look like HEEHAW. The harsh bloody events grate on your mind and turn your soul into shredded cheese. Brooootal.

This movie is extremely effective in pulling you in to this of vortex of isolation and unspeakable cruelty. It touches on the effect of the prolonged desperation and victimization, Stockhom Syndrome kicking in.

FINAL GRADE 3.5 Stars

A great job by the director, however the extended brutality is bound to offset many viewers. I subtracted 1 star due to the most ridiculous ending. Still a solid dose of sickness brought to us like only Dimension Extreme can.

This movie is not anything they say it is! I was very disappointed when watching,,,I kept waiting for the stomach turning scenes& they never came! The only thing that made this movie upsetting was finding out it's based on truth.

As a fan of gory horror movies in general, I found that this one really disappointed.

It is of course necessary to suspend disbelief to a certain degree with most movies especially in this genre, but several times I found myself disagreeing strongly with stupid decisions characters made apparently for the sole purpose of increasing drama without serving the story in any way.

I also found the ending to be very disappointing which only served to make the movie even less enjoyable.

Additionally, if you are a fan of straight up torture porn there certainly is some to be found here but other movies have done it better and if that is really all you are looking for in a movie I'd stay away from this one.

Overall I wouldn't recommend this movie for anyone.

Broken (Simon Boyes and Adam Mason, 2006)

I've watched a depressing number of movies today that have scenes which can only be called unapologetic filler. In the same vein, there were points during Broken that gave me the idea that the entire movie was filler. This is a movie that wanted to be an absorbing look at Stockholm Syndrome through the filter of the Splat Pack (and the Wolf Creek influence is writ large here), but we never connect with the characters enough to make it gripping. The story itself is not enough; we need the people in the story to be people we want to spend time with (either because we sympathize with them or because they repulse us, either will do). That is not the case here.

We start out with Hope (The Devil's Chair's Nadja Brand) out on a date with a guy (Eric Colvin, whose entire film career has been working with Adam Mason) who seems like the perfect date; he's courteous, he's a listener, he knows all the right things to do to make Hope think she's the only woman in the world, or so it would seem listening to her gush to a friend after she gets home. All well and good... until she wakes up tied to a tree, her daughter missing and her needing to injure herself quite radically in order to (she assumes, and we with her) avoid ending up like the corpse on the tree facing her. Okay, so maybe the guy wasn't all snips and snails and puppy dog tails...

Both Brand and Colvin actually do a passable job here (though Abbey Stirling, who plays a third main character introduced halfway through, is somewhat less accomplished), so there's no blaming them for the mess that Broken ends up being. No, for that we have to go to the script, written by Boyes and Mason, who also collaborated on The Devil's Chair. I liked that one, but I liked it for its silliness and willingness to go over the top and parody itself when the material called for it; Broken has no such aspirations. It takes itself deadly seriously, and that is ultimately its downfall. Some humor, however black, would have been entirely welcome to mask the fact that Boyes and Mason, as many filmmakers confronted with overly difficult material do, simply gloss over the really important parts of this story--the events that would actually cause a captive to start siding with her captor. We get this story in snatches, and the events that we need to see to make this movie really worth are time are all happening in between those snatches. It's deadly frustrating, and it's the main reason I had that feeling I mentioned above, that the entire film is actually filler rather than movie. A great disappointment, this one. * ½

If you liked Wolf Creek or more importantly, the Saw franchise, then this might be worth checking out (it "borrows" from both). It's one of those movies that I've been hearing and reading about forever but seemed to never get an official release date... well, thanks to Dimensions new EXTREME (gotta go caps... it is EXTREME after all) DVD line it has been brought across the pond from the UK and released to the masses. Broken is torture horror in it's most base form (although it does attempt some depth, for instance; our heroine is named Hope... yeah, that's a groaner) with any genuine tension or scares replaced with scenes of depravity and cruelty. These setpieces are all done incredibly well and were pretty uncomfortable to watch even for a seasoned horror fan like myself, oddly enough though; there really aren't too many, especially after the first 20 minutes or so which show nearly the same scene (just happening to a different victim) right after the other?! The production values, including the music, camera work, cast, and effects all seem far above the miniscule budget that they had to make this with, which if you watch allot of direct to DVD horror dreck you can certainly appreciate. Although unoriginal and unscary, Broken did succeed at keeping my attention, even after 1 a.m. while being half in the bag... I guess that's gotta be worth something right!? So a solid independent effort that offers enough to warrant a watch but not quite enough to buy for the collection (though the packaging is incredibly slick with a picture of a womans stomach with stitches across the middle that you can pull apart to reveal a razorblade mixed with her intestines... yep it's as gross as it sounds!).