Broken Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
Horror Has A Human Heart
After dating a wonderful man, Hope comes back home, sees her daughter Jennifer and goes to sleep. She wakes-up in the woods with a psychopath, fighting to survive for more than forty days and asking information about her daughter to the stranger.
| Eric Colvin | The Man |
| Atesh Salih | |
| Nadja Brand | Hope |
| Abbey Stirling | Schoolgirl |
| Simon Boyes |
5.20 out of 10 (681 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Better then it looks
posted on 16 Aug 2009I started watching this movie because I read a review of another film that made mention of it. The first 15 minutes made me really want to turn it off, it was that bad.What I will say is that if you can look past the lackluster acting performances - and you can stick with this film I will say you will eventually find yourself taken with the characters. I won't ruin the movie with spoilers, but I will say that as the movie moves on you will connect with all of the main characters.The gore is not too over the top and the scenes of violence, there are several, work and aren't there just for the sake of violence. Give this a look if you enjoy the genre, and don't give up on the film - it's worth watching until the end.
Don't waste your time watching this movie.
posted on 16 Aug 2009.It seems the Directors were in way over their heads. Poorly Directed, Poorly Filmed, Poorly Written, and Poorly Acted. I understand it was low budget and all that, but come on... First year Film Students could have done better. Small wonder it went straight to DVD. And another thing... the "Special Features" part is one of the most Inane, Juvenile ramblings from a "Director?Writer" I have ever seen/heard. He even goes as far as threaten physical violence against critics that have posted negative reviews of his film on the web. They should stick to making Music Videos....
Broken/ Grim and twisted
posted on 04 Aug 2009I 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?
A brilliant movie!
posted on 07 Jul 2009I loved the beautiful woodland setting, (though apparently it was just a thicket, as explained on the extras on the DVD, which is kind of sad really, making it seem as though nowhere in the UK can you find a really secluded woodland that is actually far away from a road!) it was a shame that the scene which showed the woman driving her car with her daughter present also, and the man turning up in the middle of the road, making her stop the car, was deleted, without that it makes it seem as though she must have gone to bed and woken up in a box in the woods. It's only when watching the documentary on the DVD that one realises what actually happened.I would have preferred the film to have told the story from the perspective of the first woman, rather than the character of Hope, I found Hope intensely irritating, in the scenes in the restaurant with her 'date', she was acting in a cringe-making, annoying coquettish manner, and even worse back in her home with her tell-all mentality giggling with her girlfriend who had babysat her kid. Her character started off by being such an irritating, silly woman, that it was hard to feel any sympathy for her or to care much about what happened to her. As the movie progressed, I warmed to her a little more, but not much, her acting seemed rather contrived and not exactly believable, but apart from that, I very much enjoyed the movie, I thought the hiding of a certain object inside people's bodies, (which they had to dig out to enable their escape) was similar to what occurred in the "Saw" movie, but this film was way, way better than "Saw" in my opinion, far more entertaining, and unlike "Saw", this was very visually beautiful to look at, owing to the lovely woodland setting.According to the information contained in the extras on the DVD, they made the movie for somewhere between eight and ten thousand pounds. Incredibly low budget and therefore all the more praise necessary to the cast and crew and makers for achieving such a good piece of work but I guess having such a beautiful setting helped a lot here! I was absorbed throughout, even allowing for Hope's annoying behaviour in the restaurant. The movie had such great atmosphere, and I loved the touch of showing the delightful little robin singing on his branch! Great movie. Well done to all concerned! Oh, and I loved the ending. She didn't see that one coming! Way cool.
I'll stick to Japanese horror
posted on 27 Jun 2009Horror is an acquired taste of mine in much later life, found through certain Japanese foreign-language gems, like Battle Royale. I usually stay away from the B-grade Hollywood awful stuff designed for the teen girl sleep-over market, but some of them are so bad, they can still be fun anyway.Not this one.I expected better of the British, and was majorly disappointed. 'Broken' was way beyond awful. Despite some decent attempts at acting (they get a point for trying) & some great camera-work (if you like still shots), there was no story-line,no script, no characterisation other than thin stereotypes, no plot for the actors to work with. Its nothing but a collage of still photos of blood and gore, and boring, boring, repetition of the same blood & gore at that - just how many times do we need to see the guts with the razor-blade being cut & sewn??? Got it the first time, duh! Here we go again, and again and again and again... besides the repeat looping of the same old boring blood & gore, and the crying, it was just way too unrealistic, implausible and too predictable...and nothing to empathise with in the characters, the women especially were unbelievably stupid.
Solid horror flick
posted on 20 May 2009Upside: I enjoyed this movie throughout. The box art always caught my eyes and I do say, break the stitches to see the sight for sore eyes. When I watched the movie, I made a comparison that this movie was a combination of 'Saw' and 'Wolf Creek'. If you have ever heard of 'Stockholm Syndrome', this movie's plot fits its very definition. Downside: The camera angles are a little strange at times, I wanted to say something like a soap opera. I will also point out that sometimes the lead actor overacts her part, to the point where I laughed. Considering the circumstances at the time and the horror around her, I really should not have even chuckled.Overall: I gave it a 7/10. I would say watch it, put it in the dusty DVD rack and break it out from occasion to make a few friends lose their lunch. If you cannot handle or understand a grizzly horror film, don't waste your time.
Yawn
posted on 30 Apr 2009I think you'll find they misspelled the title of this movie. Only a few letters out, but it should've been BOREDOM, because that suits it down to the ground.It did start off with a nice dark tone, but never went anywhere and budget restrictions can hardly be blamed because there's no problem with the look of the film, it's simply the screenplay that's lacking.That's about it really, barely worth even a rental as you're not missing anything.P.S. I'm sure that by now most people are aware that IMDb reviews are a breeding ground for hype from the people involved in the film itself, if not then beware of all the high ratings/reviews a lesser known film receives, especially early on when the film's newly/barely even been released. You have been warned!
Definitely worth watching
posted on 26 Apr 2009Honestly, this movie has virtually no plot. The ending is nothing more than a deus ex machina of enormous proportions. Dialogue is virtually nonexistent sometimes, including a section in which nothing but screaming is heard for several minutes. At least a few noticeable errors in continuity were committed. The cinematography is horrible; it looks like the whole thing was shot on a Mini DV Camcorder inside a warehouse. (It just might have been) The premise is unoriginal and uncreative, and a few parts seem to borrow from Saw, The Blair Witch Project, and Silent Hill. By no means is this film a work of art.So, why is Broken worth watching? It's absolutely hilarious.This is definitely the type of movie you would watch with a bunch of friends to make fun of. The sound effects and visual gore effects are either so badly done or so overdone that one can't help but chuckle at the low-budget-ness of it all. The acting is also laughably bad.Basically what I'm saying is that this film is in the "so bad it's good" range, which is really is. I seriously had a good time watching it.You can watch Broken either for the horror side or for the (unintentional) hilarious side. Either way, you'll be entertained.
Another over ambitious wannabe
posted on 24 Apr 2009This movie is yet another that has been poorly made by a fan of films, who cannot execute one properly. A film student maybe? OK, the camera work is good and the overall quality of the picture is good, but this film has no real point. The acting is terrible and this film is full of moments that will have you shouting at the screen in annoyance. Moments where the actress has ample opportunity to escape her captor but just cries and wails constantly. The worst unrealistic part of the film is where the girl gets her tongue cut out. She covers her mouth and collapses, only to be fine and eating food the next day! Surely someone with their tongue cut out in some woods and chained to a tree, would bleed to death rapidly? The movie is full of these inconsistencies and is very unrealistic and pretty pointless, solely relying on lots of fake blood and a few gory bits to carry it. I got the feeling that maybe the director has tried to make this film very arty, with funny camera angles and out of focus parts. It doesn't work. I wouldn't recommend this film unless you enjoy watching pointless unrealistic gore. Surely in 2006 we are past the need to be entertained by lots of fake blood and people having their legs broken etc? It takes more to make a great movie than cheap gore. A coherent storyline and an overall ending point perhaps?
Bloody, bruised and .... Broken
posted on 18 Apr 2009BROKEN (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.
broken
posted on 06 Apr 2009Adam Mason's Broken recently screened at the Dead by Dawn horror film festival in Edinburgh. It managed to get the Audience Award Hope(Nadja Brand) and her young daughter are abducted and brought to a remote, terrifying forest by a mysterious and nameless man. As Hope is forced to undergo humiliating, violent and degrading trials she fights desperately to escape and discover the fate of her missing daughter. But the forest is an endless maze and the man is cruel and uncompromising.When the man reveals the death of Hope's daughter, she develops a plan to exact her revenge and make her escape. Sacrificing her dignity and humanity, Hope is forced to initiate a series of drastic events which send the delicate balance between captor and slave hurtling out of control. Hope's actions lead to a devastating and terrifying conclusion, and a secret so dark that it threatens to destroy Hope entirely. Will Hope escape the clutches of evil, or will she be Broken?
Superb Indie horror flick!
posted on 29 Mar 2009OK, with all the saws and hostels in production today, it appears it would be hard to compete in the horror industry. Well, Simon Boyes and Adam Mason stepped up,and brought it! This little movie is GREAT! Great cast (for unknowns), very well acted for the minimalist script they had to work with, excellent effects (once again, minimal, but very well done). I am one HARSH critic when it comes to movies, but for the life of me, I can't say anything bad about this. Of course, it has it's moments (the same ones ALL horror films have, you know, the ones when you yell at the TV "geez, why didn't you kill him/her/it why you had the chance, you moron!!)Otherwise, it's just a plain great movie. I can not believe it only has a 5 on IMDb. I'm giving it an 8, cause it's great!
A woman wakes up in a wooden box in the middle of a forest, scared for her child she undergoes painful tasks.
posted on 19 Mar 2009I'm not going to write a long summary because I don't want you to see this movie and be disappointed. I really don't understand why there are people who like this movie. Yes there is blood and guts but the acting was TERRIBLE, thanks to that the whole movie gave off a cheap vibe, I think that the whole "wheres my daughter" was a reasonable plot but they don't even show how the people were kidnapped and why the guy does tortures them. If you want to see a movie with a good storyline, blood and gore and good acting try the Saw series at least they can make low-budget movies that are entertaining. Overall this movie makes a low 2 stars for me.
Just torture garbage..
posted on 17 Mar 2009Oh joy,, another foreign torture/bloody movie that sadistic gore hounds try to convince themselves and other people that it has value or merit. To anyone with an IQ higher than a rock this is NOT a good horror movie, it's just another mindless, silly gore fest.While the movie "Inside" at least had suspense in the first half of the film, in the end , the movie Broken is just another excuse to show how much the human body can take getting ripped apart and how much an audience can stomach it.Storyline takes another back seat to "special blood effects".. (yawn) It's not scary people, it just fossil fuel for the sick. I really think those men that get excited over movies like this should have a" I love tortured women" printed on their forehead, so that we know to keep our daughters and sisters away from your twisted selves.. :) LOL
A Very Feminist Film
posted on 25 Feb 2009BROKEN begins like another version of SAW or HOSTEL, a flick of misogynistic torture porn seemingly only existing to titillate the gorehounds. However, should a viewer stick with it and stomach the terror, viewer will be rewarded with one of the more emotionally resonant horror films.Recently, France has seen its share of very well made, critically lauded horror films, i.e. INSIDE, THEM, HIGH TENSION, and FRONTIERE(S) where human stories take precedence and violence exists only to push the story forward and because humans are violent creatures, especially toward one another. Even American terror filmmakers have successfully transitioned past the Eli Roth School of torture for torture's sake to tell stories of human fortitude against overwhelming odds. HATCHET, TEETH, THE MIST, and even CLOVERFIELD have attempted to humanize their characters, slow down the action to build character where the deaths and violent resonate with the viewer. BROKEN is one such film, crafted by Brits for the world, which almost perfectly creates a metaphor for the historical male/female, man/woman, and husband/wife relationship.However, many of these films seem to fall apart in the third act, causing an expert buildup to become spoiled by a lame dénouement or implausible coincidence.Of the aforementioned, only the third acts of INSIDE and BROKEN fulfill the promise purported by their previous two-thirds.BROKEN introduces Nadja Brand as Hope, a seemingly older single-mother who awakens one night to find herself buried alive and ripe for a series of tests that attempt to break her physically and mentally. These tests are visited upon her by Eric Colvin's character known only as The Man who seemingly wants someone to simply help around his campground--wash pots, tend a garden, agree with his every decision--only that person should be female and chained to a tree with only enough play to create a closed world of day to night work, fear, and worry.Worry about her six-year-old daughter about whom The Man refuses to speak. He simply says, "You have no daughter. I am your family now." BROKEN not only mirrors the man/wife relationship but it resonates with the blended family matrix as The Man uses daughter Jennifer as a bargaining chip to ensure Hope's complacent cooperation. One can almost imagine stepfathers across the world using stepdaughters in this way. Moreover, the ambiguous sexual nature of The Man creates suspense as to whether he has hurt Jennifer in ways more than simply killing her.To avoid spoiling any further plot points, my advice is to see BROKEN and watch the film through a feminist theoretical lens. What appears as misogyny will rise as feminist rhetoric on a grand scale.Also, do not neglect the special features where the filmmakers discuss the re-cutting and re-shooting of the film when actor Nadja Brand began to notice that the film was somewhat bad and did nothing to deny viewer expectations. Apparently, she had a lot to do with constructing the film into what BROKEN eventually became. Therefore, do not return the disc to the store without watching the documentary. The somewhat unlikable and whiny directors have no idea that they've crafted the film they have; however, the actors--Brand and Colvin--seem to understand completely what they've accomplished, even dropping the name of Germaine Greer a famous feminist writer from the 1970s (The Female Eunuch) whose writings have pushed forward the idea that women are the strength of Western society and that men often crumble under pressure and that men's "mid-life crises" get in the way of practical thinking, often thought missing in women.See BROKEN and let me know what you think; were it not so graphic, BROKEN is a film usable in the college classroom due to its symbolism and resonance.
What a piece of Junk
posted on 17 Feb 2009First, I love horror films including slasher flicks but there is nothing here. They seemed to have had a decent director of photography and the acting isn't bad but sadly the problem is the film as a whole is pointless, senseless garbage. The point (if in-fact there is one) of the film seems clearly just to shock you with over the top gore and mindless violence, a theme I'm entirely sick of and in my opinion a total waste of film-making dollars. Maybe if they spent at least 5 minutes working out a story and characters it would be a decent film. But they sure as heck did no such thing here. Could have been good but this film will not be remembered.
Boring story, bad acting....
posted on 13 Feb 2009Please ignore the planted reviews here at IMDb. This movie is in fact a boring exercise in watching people scream for about 90 minutes. There is no tension, climax, resolution, or even a plot for that matter. Who are the characters and why should we care? We never find out. Ten minutes into the movie and the two major characters are just tossed together without any explanation. What you then get is a lot, and I mean A LOT, of crying, moaning, and screaming. Every now and then some meaningless dialog is delivered. All of the character development happens in the first ten minutes. Once the main part of the movie takes over it becomes really, really, really predictable. I mean, it's more predictable than an M. Knight Shamalan (sp) movie, but even less fun to watch. Skip this movie for your own sake.
Everyone has to start somewhere.
posted on 05 Feb 2009I am not very far through the move yet, but am literally in the process of watching it. I decided to look it up on here just to see what people have said about it, because most people that I know don't like low-budget films, but I happen to love them. But I like to see what the people who do like them have to say about them.The way I look at it is everyone has to start somewhere. I guarantee that even someone like Steven Spielberg had to find out what made people click, and he had to establish a name for himself.I think that this movie is fantastic for being a low-budget film. I mean, I've seen special effects that look worse on films that were allocated way more money and by more famous people. Plus, I have a wonderful imagination, so I don't have to have great special effects to appreciate the movie as long as the plot is good and the actors are decent.anyway I'm done with my rant. I'm enjoying the movie a lot.
Fantastic effort from the Mason/Brand team
posted on 05 Feb 2009I'd enjoyed Mason's previous efforts, The 13th Sign and Dust, and was eager to see Broken. I wasn't prepared (in a literal sense) for what I was about to see. Broken isn't just a step forward for Adam, its a quantum leap. The only thing I didn't care much for was the music over the ending credits! Otherwise everything else was a joy and a horror (in a metaphorical sense) to behold.First the joy. The film is stunning to watch. Its seems every camera angle has been carefully calculated for maximum impact. The colors are simply gorgeous. You can tell this project is someones baby lavished with love and attention. I know there are several different cuts of Adams previous film Dust in existence, indicating perhaps a change of thought at various stages after shooting was wrapped. With Broken, they seem to have nailed it. Everything is as needs be. We understand very quickly the predicament the characters are in. Everything is finally crafted, building to a climax with a twist at the end... And of course, a superb performance from the female lead Nadja Brand (also in The 13th Sign and Dust) who's work in this film is exemplary, providing us with heart wrenching insights into the human condition.As for the horror, I think the true underlying horror is the breaking of another person by enslavement, although in this instance, the two, mental and physical cruelty are hand in hand and interwoven throughout the film, right up to the last frame of the film. For a low budget film, the makeup/effects aren't just good, they're fantastic! If this film doesn't establish Adam Mason (and crew), then there's no justice in the world. I'm already looking forward to his next film, The Devil's Chair.
boring, stuipd, awful
posted on 20 Aug 2009hey kids, you ever hide in a closet and watch your grandparents make creepy sex for about an hour and a half? well, thats about what this movie going experience is like. the first 15 min. are repeated again and again, and the victim has downs syndrome........... yuckthe acting is awful, the story is retarded, and there is only one good gore gag in the whole film, which they use multiple times. don't waste your time, stop trying to pass this crap off as horror go watch saw, you'll have a much better time and not feel bad about wasting $25 and a hour and a half of your life.....or just go watch the fly, cuz it rules....