Viagem Macabra

Having never heard of Break before, I didn't expect much. But in the end I found it a satisfying little movie. Four girlfriends get together for a hiking trip in the Canadian mountains and run across two sadistic redneck killers intent on ruining their day. But these women don't go down without a fight. I'm a horror buff and would be remiss not to admit this movie has some clichés and does follow the format of films like "Wrong Turn" and the like. However, you do learn to love these women quickly and especially feel the bond between Rose (Esther Maaß) and Sarah (Lili Schackert.) It takes 40 minutes for the gore to begin but that time is used wisely for character development. Once the action starts it doesn't stop and there are truly gory and sadistic moments worthy of the genre. The scenery is beautiful and the actresses gave stellar performances (particularly Maaß)and the film was over before I knew it. And I was pleased with the outcome without it being cheesy or entirely predictable. So on a boring, rainy day give this little film a try. I don't think you'll be disappointed. It's better than most out there these days!

The girlfriends Anna (Marina Anna Eich), Clare (Thelma Buabeng), Rose (Esther Maaß) and Sarah Carter (Lili Schackert) travel from Washington to Bellingham to spend the weekend camping in the backwoods in Glacier Rocks. They meet a gentle German hiker and they unsuccessfully ask for direction to the retarded redneck Phil (Sebastian Badenberg), but they find the paradisiac spot. On the next morning, they are hunted by the sadistic rednecks Phil and his partner Samuel (Ralph Willmann) and they have to fight to survive.

"Break" is another absurd and sadistic slasher that follows the style of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Wrong Turn", "Simon Says" and other films of this sub-genre of horror. The actresses and actors have very realistic performances, and the rape sequence is impressive; but the plot excessively uses the clichés of the genre. The most irritating is the invulnerability of Samuel that is shot twice and still tracks the girls; and Rose that walks with an open fracture and helps Sarah. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Viagem Macabra" ("Macabre Voyage")

I was lured in by this 2009 movie's cover. I mean, a movie that brandish a pair of severed feet hanging from the end of a rope got to have potential. Right?

Well, one would think so. Turns out that "Break" from writer and director Matthias Olof Eich wasn't really as interesting or entertaining as one might have hoped for. Especially since the first 50 minutes of the movie could easily have been trimmed away, as it was nothing but filler, trying to establish the mood and setting. Especially more so since the character gallery in "Break" was just bland, so horribly, horribly bland. I mean, the women characters were essentially just copy and paste from any other generic horror movie where you have lunatics running around in a wooden area chasing them.

With 50 minutes essentially wasted, the movie had lost its momentum, and it never really did recover fully from that. But yeah, the movie did get better after 50 minutes, but by then, I must admit that my interest was dwindling and whatever director Matthias Olof Eich dished out, just couldn't cut it.

For a movie with the young-women-in-the-woods-stalked-by-redneck-maniacs theme then "Break" was very, very mundane. And there are far better movies readily available out there, if you enjoy this particular subgenre of horror movies.

There was a good enough amount of mayhem and blood in the movie, after that 50 minute curve. But again, it just didn't suffice. The damage had been done.

My rating of "Break" is a less than mediocre four out of ten stars.

Just when you thought there was no original take on the slasher genre, along comes 'Break' to completely confirm your suspicions. Let's check out the Slasher Index Checklist-Kit of Observations, or SICKO for short. Four nubile chicks: Brave chick, annoying chick, resourceful chick, relationship-issue chick (Check). Remote wilderness region (check). No phone contact (check). Creepy mutant-like red necks introduced early (check).

Ok, on with the show.... You need to watch the movie now.. I'll wait.... Thanks for watching. What did you think? Did you like the boring 7 minute prelude where the relationship 'break' is established? No? I didn't either. Confession: I fast-forwarded this scene. Did you like the driving-to-Canada scenes (actually Somewhere in Chermany)? No? I didn't either. Confession: I made a cup of tea during this part. Did you enjoy the walking-through-the-Black Forest scenes? Yeah, they were ok. Did you like the black chick constantly photographing everything? Yeah, it got annoying pretty fast, huh? But, you get the notion the camera will be important later. Did you like the finding-the steel-trap scene? Nice foreshadowing, huh? Did you get a Deliverance vibe from this flick? No? Go and watch Deliverance immediately..... It's good isn't it? Squueeal Piggie! Finally, did you enjoy the black chick saying 'you have a secret as-admirer'? OK, English is not her 1st language, but I admire a director who keeps flubbed lines IN the final movie.

Like night following day, or like a German horror film being derivative, things then follow the time-honoured slasher narrative. Swimming in undies scenes, things-that-go-bump-in-the-night scenes, Meet the Mutant scenes, run from the Mutants etc. I won't spoil it (in case you really have not watched the fillum). I will just say I especially enjoyed the women's heroic nod to the Slasher trope of NEVER EVER picking up dropped knives and guns that could later be USED by the Killer.

Conclusion: On the Deliverance Redneck Exploitation Knock-off (DREK) scale, I give this movie a 4.

Break is a movie in the vein of Deliverance and The Hills Have Eyes, but not as good, not by a longshot. It's clearly an amateur film with an almost non-existent budget, but the reason it's bad is mostly due to a multitude of bad decisions made.

The choice to make a cast of germans pretend to be Canadian is one of them. The cast are not the best actors, even in their mother tongue, but to hear them struggle with their broken english makes the dialogue even worse. The scripted dialogue is the kind that probably looks good on paper, but when said out loud, just sounds ridiculous. All dialogue is recorded on set, and is sometimes hard to hear atop of the accents. There's not much music in the film, but there's a couple of songs in the beginning of the film and one at the end that are hilariously badly written, performed and produced and doesn't fit the scenes at all. The song that plays during the ending credits is the best one, but it's so cheerful and bouncy, it nullifies all the gore that took place just a couple of minutes earlier.

Another problem is the cinematography. The camera used is a Canon XH-A1, a camera that was bad already in 2009. The lens is bad, almost blurry, and the colors are weak. The camera is handheld, without any form of stabilizer, neither digital, nor mechanical, and the image is seizure-inducingly shaky. It's not a "found footage" film, so it's unnecessary and there's absolutely no logic to it. Angles and the positioning of actors are equally bad, and you get a lot of shots of butts and backs and car doors and other interesting stuff.

Furthermore, the editor has added a yellow-ish video filter that stays exactly the same throughout the movie, which makes it even uglier and sometimes too dark, even though the entire film is shot in the daytime. Just about every shot is too long and slows down the tempo almost to a standstill. I see why, because a properly cut film would have been around the one hour mark. Now it's barely 90 minutes. The filmmaker even manages to make a rape scene boring.

One of the funniest drawn out scenes is where one of the girls is trying to drive away from a bad guy who's shooting at her with a hunting rifle. Firstly, the car of course doesn't start. Super exciting! When it finally does, she slowly and very carefully backs up and then drives away like there were a pile of priceless porcelain on the roof of the car, all the while being fired upon by the bad guy, whose aim unsurprisingly is on the level of imperial stormtroopers.