Directed by Sean Ellis
Review based upon the Universal Pictures DVD release
In 2004, Director Sean Ellis was Oscar nominated for his short comedy “Cashback”, which he would transfer into a full-length flick in 2006 to jump-start his career in feature films. However his next project was to be a horror entry, and one that would revert back to the days of old, allegedly generating an adult sense of impending dread. This was Ellis’s promise for “The Broken”, but is his claim valid in the final product?
Gina McVey (Lena Headey) is a radiologist in a London hospital with a seemingly idyllic life; a close-knit family headed by her father John (Richard Jenkins), doting French boyfriend Stefan (Melvil Poupaud), brother Daniel (Asier Newman) and his wife Kate (Michelle Duncan). At a birthday party for John, A mirror in the house suddenly breaks, causing Gina and Kate to talk at length about 5 years of bad luck. The following day, Gina leaves work only to see herself drive past in her own car. Pursuing this strange woman she has a serious car accident and wakes to find things are far from right, not just for her but her family too. Why do the mirrors keep breaking around her family? Who is her strange twin, and does Gina want to know the truth?
“The Broken” is an impressive piece of work for many different reasons. The key to this impression lies in the way that it manages to ramp up the tension to almost p
alpable levels with relative ease. Director and screenwriter Ellis uses some incredibly interesting techniques in the cinematography, combined with very long shots in order to build tension that really does engage an audience. The scenes towards the end of this movie are very taut, and all as a result of the work that Ellis does much earlier in the picture.Lena Headey (coming straight off the brilliant “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) plays the part of Gina with perfect understatement and believability. We actually feel her confusion and distress as reality begins to unravel around her, making the surprise ending (not for this viewer, however!) scarily plausible. All other actors come across very well indeed, making “The Broken” feel like the movie that “Mirrors” should have been; one that explores the whole bad luck idea with an interesting bodysnatcher-esqe edge.
“The Broken” uses very little gore to create its scares. Like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “The Exorcist” (which Ellis copies in one sequence, with crazed dogs fighting when Gina visits the scrapyard), this film prefers to put the viewer on edge by implying more violence than is ever actually seen. However, there is a real humdinger of a shock in this movie about an hour in, but one that’s made even more shocking by the way Ellis reveals almost nothing before it.
What this picture does, arguably more than any other movie I’ve seen recently, is that it always treats the audience with a great deal of respect and intelligence. “The Broken” is far from clear at any given moment, l
eaving the viewer with almost full control over their interpretation. For the casual horror fan this would be a problem, inevitably resulting in frustration and misunderstanding. Yet for those of us with a real love of the genre, “The Broken” is a picture that works beautifully due to the cryptic nature of the entire piece. Ellis deliberately unravels things slowly, teasing us while also gently drip feeding the tension and sense of dread as the narrative moves towards its conclusion.This is definitely not another slasher, zombie or vampire movie (speaking of which, I will be reviewing “Twilight” shortly), but is something that perhaps works even better. “The Broken” empowers the hardcore horror fan; giving them a Hitchcock flick with very post-modern chills, whilst never pausing the suspense to drop in a pointless piece of exposition to clarify things for the mentally under 12’s. This is a beautifully shot work, which will justifiably enable Sean Ellis’s career to go from strength-to-strength. He did indeed deliver on his promise, making a very creepy adult chiller that deserves to gain widespread recognition. See it, recommend it, and repeat. “The Broken” comes very highly recommended for those of us who like their horror to play with their mind as well as their nerves.
9 out of 10
“The Broken” is anything but… an intelligent, frightening and stimulating experience that should not be missed
