I guess that’s seven years bad luck, then.
Main Cast: Lena Heady, Richard Jenkins
Director: Sean Ellis
Each year there are movies produced that are never seen by the public. Their content is considered too graphic, too disturbing, too shocking for general audiences. This is one of those films.
Sometimes a writer/director can take an old idea and recreate it in such a way that, while totally predictable and wholly unoriginal, it’s still interesting to watch, completely satisfying, and full of tension and anticipation. That’s what Sean Ellis did with his 2008 movie THE BROKEN, starring Lena Heady (just three years later she would begin her run as Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones). The idea is an old “what if” in spec-fic:
What if you accidentally called your own house one day, and someone answered–what if it was you on the other end?
While there are several different takes on this (the one I remember most clearly was during the 1985 re-launch of The Twilight Zone, the Shatterday episode starring Bruce Willis), Ellis’s is a well-made version in which Gina McVey (Headey) sees herself drive down the street one day. She follows the woman to an apartment, where she sees a picture of herself and her father (Richard Jenkins), then takes the woman’s car, which is Gina’s car, and leaves the building, only to then be involved in a near-fatal car accident.
While she can’t remember anything about the events leading up to the accident, once she’s released from the hospital, Gina begins to suspect maybe her boyfriend isn’t really her boyfriend anymore. She experiences flashbacks in her dreams, seeing that woman who looked just like her on the street, and begins to wonder if maybe Stefan (Melvil Poupaud) has been replaced by a double. As Gina tries to piece together her memory and solve the mystery of the suddenly strange behavior of her boyfriend, Stefan isn’t the only one who’s suddenly acting very strange.
THE BROKEN is a very well-made movie. Ellis knows how to frame a shot for maximum effect, and his use of sound for that same affect is also masterful–or rather the lack of sound, as Ellis is using a lot of silence to heighten tension. THE BROKEN is the first movie in a long time where, even though I knew what was going on, had predicted the movie’s plot twists ten scenes ago, I was still kept in suspense, my heart was pounding, literally, during long stretches, based solely on how Ellis chose to stage and pace his shots. Excellent work.
Headey turns in a pretty good performance as the woman confused by her life, wondering what’s going on, who can she trust–and can she even trust herself. She overplays the serious Spock look a bit, but for the most part it works.
If it’s gore you’re after, there’s a few dead bodies and a murder or two shown, but only one really bloody scene, and personally I thought it felt way out of place and gratuitous. The terror in this movie should have been left to the atmosphere and mood being created, as that’s where THE BROKEN shines the brightest.
There’s no real climax to speak of, just a predictable reveal, then an ending stolen from a 1978 movie, but even with the path of this movie’s plot laid out almost from the beginning, it’s still well worth the 88 minutes just based on how well it’s made.
I think there are definitely some ideas in this movie left unexplored, tons of questions left unanswered, but I’m not so sure answering them would make for a better movie. Maybe what we don’t know about this story works in its favor. After all, there are times when telling the audience everything is just going to lessen the impact to such a degree it ruins everything you’ve built up. I think this is a problem with the majority of the horror movies you see lately, the pointless expository dialogue that explains the how and why, but doesn’t, in the end, work for the benefit of the story. In the end, I find myself liking this movie despite itself. It’s deeply flawed, only half-made it feels like, but man, the part that was made was done so with expertise for sure. Ellis has an excellent eye for mood and pace and THE BROKEN showcases those talents wonderfully. This was definitely a “horror” movie that delivered, in my opinion.
Read more 8 Films to Die For reviews
C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
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