The Broken (2008)

You didn't imagine it.

Your own reflection is watching you.

The mirror isn't empty. There's something demonic hiding on the other side. But don't fret. It doesn't want much. Just your life.

Sean Ellis' THE BROKEN deals with one of the most resonant and relavent themes that the horror genre likes to explore (and, also, one of my personal favorites): identity.

You may think you know yourself. You may think you know the people around you. But do you really?

Identity. It's a fragile thing.

Starring the salaciously scrumptious Lena Heady, who got her backdoor stuffed full of Gerard Butler's's Scottish sausage in the Spartan siege epic 300, and also plopped the future savior of the human race out o' her sin-hole in T.V.'s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, THE BROKEN is, to be perfectly frank, ...much, much, much, much better than any third generation After Dark Horrorfest release has any right to be. Heady headlines as a radiologist who gets in an auto accident, then begins suspecting that her family and friends aren't really who they say they are, aren't who they used to be. She keeps finding shards of shattered mirrors all over the place, and begins to wonder if something sinister really is going on around her, or if she's just slippin' off her rocker. Is there seriously a bunch of diabolical doppelgangers taking the place of her closest loved ones, or is it all in her head? How much is a result of the car crash, and how much is reality? Is some kind of trauma-born psychosis to blame, or is an unholy supernatural evil afoot? And could it be that nothing is any different within the world around her, but, rather, within herself? Maybe it's not her friends and family who have changed. Maybe she has.

All that is well n' good, but I've got an even more important question ask.


What if Alexandre Aja's MIRRORS hadn't sucked mondo schlongo? What if, and I know this is a stretch, but what if MIRRORS... had actually been, I dunno, a good movie?

Well then, it'd probably look a lot like THE BROKEN.

Quiet, cold, and creepy, this film is an extremely well-made, albeit imperfect, example of a slow-burn suspense chiller done very right. Not 100% right, but mostly right. 87% right, give or take. It's more than a little Lynchian, and more than a little Kubrickian (the most obvious influence being THE SHINING), maintaining n' balancing a melancholy mood and a menacing air, along with powerful imagery and a hint of the bizarre. Ruthlessly nightmarish, yet only gingerly surrealistic, THE BROKEN is a picture that blends a bleak, downbeat outlook together with a delicate, eloquent, almost monochrome visual style, placing more emphasis on atmosphere and semi-subliminal suggestion than cheap chairjumpers and blaring shock cues. Quite simply the best thing about this flick is the way it builds a towering wave of grim gloom and genuine dread, little by little, behind you, so that you don't even know the horror's coming, but by the time you pick up on how disturbed you feel... you're already soaking in it. The slowly increasing levels of suffocating, claustrophobic trepidation remind one of what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night, the remains of a bad dream still howling and spitting and screaming for blood inside your head, with a chill sweat clinging to your skin and a decidedly apprehensive attitude towards the shadows surrounding you.

Beware, however, if you have a short attention span. This is one of those movies where "nothing ever freakin' happens" (supposedly), so those among us who can only enjoy a film if it includes a cheap jolt scare, boots-knockin' sex scene, melodramatic emotional outburst, bullet-blastin' shootout, C.G.I. ghostie bonanza, or over-the-top gore gag every five minutes on the mark... should probably pass on giving THE BROKEN a look. The rest of us, meanwhile, would, I'm sure, benefit from taking the hour-and-a-half out of a lazy Sunday afternoon needed to watch this flick.


To say that THE BROKEN is beautifully directed is an understatement, and the score that accompanies the on-screen images is subtle but effective. The picture's odd, dreamlike nature puts it into another class of horror film, and, in that class, it comes within shouting distance of being on par with the brilliant masterpiece that is LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH. So if you liked that movie then there's a ghost of a chance that you'll dig this one too. In terms of other movies to compare THE BROKEN to, a faint yet detectable trace of JACOB'S LADDER can be uncovered in this flick's D.N.A., not to mention a smidgen of influence from 1980's BOOGEYMAN and several heaping spoonfuls of THE MAN WHO HAUNTED HIMSELF. Also a little bit of J-horror thrown in there too, as well as pretty much any/every version of THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. As somber and elegant as this picture is though (and choked with the heavy, oppressive, ever-present threat of certain doom), its bark is not without some bite. While the movie maintains its poise and grace at every moment, it doesn't have any reservations when the time comes to for it to sneer, snarl, and sink its teeth into you throat. One noteworthy blood-slathered fist-through-the-face kill scene in particular can attest to that fact.


Nonetheless, it may, at times, be a bit too muted in the overall scheme of things, and the final "surprise" twist is kind of lame. On the other hand, it is executed perfectly all the same and, in a way, the filmmakers actually manage to make the trite twist poignant despite itself. So that much deserves a modicum of applause.


On the acting front, Lena Heady's performance is both haunting and hypnotic. She commands your attention every minute she's on-screen, and even when she's shiverin' in her booties she retains an aura of class, intensity, intelligence, and strength. It's wonderful to see her convey a greater degree of vulnerability than usual though, as she does here. I must say, of the projects I've seen her in, I think this film offers up her best performance to date. Unfortunately, aside from her tortured n' terrified protagonist, the characters are all rather one-note, though that's less because of poor acting and more because of flawed scriptwriting.

Ultimately, the movie's biggest faux pas is that, when all is said n' done, the whole thing is a case of more style than substance. All that provocative imagery, technique, and ambiance doesn't really amount to much more than imagery, technique, and ambiance. In other words, THE BROKEN is awful durn nice to look at, and on a visceral, emotional level it works, but it fails to connect on any deeper level. The horrors of identity confusion and "everybody's out to get me" paranoia are engaging ones, but, other than that, THE BROKEN doesn't have a thought in its pretty little head. At the same time, there isn't necessarily that much wrong with a pretty little head. In fact, I generally enjoy getting head from pretty little things. Ba-dum-bum!

As I already mentioned, the film's final twist isn't exactly up to snuff. The same could be said about the whole climax in general. It's acceptable, but not especially impressive. Yes, the ending leaves us with questions (something that I'm always in favor of), but not the right ones. It answers some of those it should've left ambiguous, and it gets all tight-lipped n' mum in regards to others that are more deserving of satisfactory attention. As a result, instead of an open-ended finale that demands serious discussion and analysis (like the aforementioned LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH had), THE BROKEN gives us something that tries to be mysterious, but, in reality, is much more cut-and-dry than it thinks it is (and more so than it should ever be). At the end of the day, what we have here is a sad, mostly graceful story. Only irregularly clumsy, it still could've use a little more spit polish to buff out the bumpy bits.

The whole thing is all rather fascinating, but not entirely fulfilling.


Still, as far suspenseful supernatural/psychological horror hybrids go, THE BROKEN is a pretty good one. Not great. But good. Perhaps "psychological horror" isn't quite the right wording. After all, THE BROKEN is less concerned with the machinations of human intellect, than with the primitive fear reflex of the lower lizard brain. It's the cinematic equivalent of ambient mood music.

An enchanting attacker, THE BROKEN coos and whispers dirty-sweet nothings and purses its lips at you, the spitting image of lead actress Heady herself. Then it wraps its arms around you... and slides its silvery, serrated fingers into your brain stem with surgical precision. There, it begins tugging at the strands of paranoia and primordial panic that lurk within the primal parts of your soul. It won't scare you so bad that you shit your pants, but it will send a marching army of tingles up and down your spine. In fact, it might go so far as to play a funeral dirge on your vertebrae, as if your backbone was a xylophone. And, if nothing else, it will linger with you long after the end credits have faded to black.

For maximum effect, watch THE BROKEN alone, and in the dark.

Until next slime...
Stay sick!
Your pickled pal,
William Weird.



Rating: 3 out of 5
Recommendation: rent it
Best moment: nocturnal mindfuck freakout caused by leaky ceiling fixation