Broken

Saw this film at a horror festival in Scotland, while we were visiting Britain this year.

A poorly made, SAW rip-off, that makes me want to run out into a forest with cheap camera and show these guys how to make a movie.

It's amateurish, not in style (which would be clever) but in execution (which isn't clever in the slightest) which leads me to believe that the director could have recently been lobotomized, or more likely still, lack any talent or eye for film-making in any way, shape or form.

The no-budget, no-time film projects at college had more thought, script and flair than this does. How a movie like this ever got made is truly remarkable.

The director, not only has no idea of where to put the camera, the dp has no idea where to put the lights, the effects department don't do too badly, but are let down by the performances, which are utterly horrendous.

I would usually blame this on the actors, but in this case, they have been directed into the toilet.

In summary, I would like to say that I'm usually a huge advocate of low-budget films that buck the trend - but in this case, it's a low-talent film that rapes the very idea of storytelling and reduces it to simple mongoloid utterances.

The film-makers should find new careers - this one is over guys.

After dating a wonderful man, Hope (Nadja Brand) comes back home, sees her daughter Jennifer and goes to sleep. She wakes-up in the woods with a psychopath (Eric Colvin), fighting to survive for more than forty days and asking information about her daughter to the stranger.

"Broken" is a sick, unpleasant and disturbing low budget movie. In spite of having a reference in the beginning of the movie that it is based on a true event, the pointless story is completely flawed, the character of Hope is a total idiot and the schoolgirl is very stupid and annoying. There is no explanation about where they are and how the women have been kidnapped and transported to the middle of nowhere; Hope is an imbecile, and I do not understand how her character does not kill the sadistic maniac when she has the chance and after being tortured the way she had been; the schoolgirl screaming all the time is really irritating, provoking the nasty situation with her tongue. I did not like this gross movie. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Jogos Sangrentos" ("Bloody Games")

BROKEN (formerly THE HEARTEATER) is a taut survival thriller shot on a low budget in the UK. It's slick and simplistic story will grip you, intrigue and in some cases out right disgust you!

Hope wakes up in wooden box buried under the ground. After a day the box is dug up and she is removed by a man who ties her to a tree asking her "Will you continue?" The twisted game begins. The man has stitched a razor blade inside her which she must dig out in order to cut her ropes. Impressed by her resilience the man fixes her up but continues to keep her bound in chains and turns her into a slave, washing his pots and tending a small garden for food. Hope has no idea how she got here, or why or where her six year old daughter is.

Directors Adam Mason and Simon Boyes deliver the goods here. The film was made over a period of 18 months with Adam's own wife taking on the lead role in a bloody impressive acting turn that would shame the hell out of some big earning actors out there. The whole film has an air of reality which makes it all the more disturbing. The Man is soft spoken, polite and that makes him all the more dangerous. He could easily live next door to you.

The fact that this movie is shot on Digital Video isn't even noticeable. I know that puts off some people ( why i don't know but you'd best get used to it cause it's the future) but the story will grab you and you'll be lost for 89 minutes. And the endings a peach.

If one of your top movie of the last year or so is WOLF CREEK then BROKEN will be for you. And watch out for Adam's new feature THE DEVIL'S CHAIR.

I just can't agree with the nay sayers on this title. I watch an average of 40 horror films a month so for my taste I can instantly spot something that rises above the crap. True, there are many mysteries and perhaps because of that holes in the movie. The how's and Why's of the situation are never explained but then again a real life victim that is kidnapped,tortured and condition seldom gets a pat answer. The acting is convincing as is the gore and while the story is simple it's never boring.I think some people might have a problem with it's raw non Hollywood feel.SOme may link this to the current trend of "Torture Porn" but this is a far cry from the slick and premeditated madness of Saw or Hostel. THis is actually closer to the seventies horror survival films like Alive,Man In THe WIlderness,I spit on Your Grave and The Town That Dreaded Sundown. With such awful films like the remake of The Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers,The Boogey Man,Hide And Seek and Hostel 2 I am continually perplexed to hear people trash a film like this so indiscriminately. What is your cup of tea,Final Destination 3?

This movie begins with a brutal opening scene which sets a very dark and horrifying tone for the rest of the movie. I think what I loved most about Broken was the connection between the victim and villain. I don't want to get too much into the plot but the deeper and unspoken aspect of how the relationship worked between the two seemed so realistic to me that it made it much more real and creepy. This movie made it seem like this situation could happen to just anyone.

I loved the main actress and thought she did a wonderful job playing the victim and then adjusting to her surroundings in order to be able to survive. Another thing that made it more realistic was she was just a normal woman. Gone was the Hollywood girls with big hair, short skirts and huge fake boobs. This was your average attractive woman, single mom, lonely and looking for love. She was human… not some airheaded college student who runs upstairs when the door is downstairs. She made this movie seem that much more real to me.

I also found the camera work to be dark and despairing. They were outside, yet the atmosphere was dark and gray. It looked cold and everything looked sad and morbid.

I truly enjoyed this movie. A very nice surprise for a movie that is super low budget. One thing I would like to add about this movie was that they were comparing it to Saw. I think that this comparison ruined the movie for some folks as they watched it expecting a Saw type thing and ended up watching something completely different, not even comparable. I don't know why they would make that comparison, it only seemed to hurt the reviews.

Overall a great film that pulled me in right from the beginning.

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