The title most obviously refers to the numerous broken mirrors in the film, but it could just as easily allude to a number of other things, such as the main character’s car, or her lost memory. The film’s plot involves strange pod-person-esque doppelgangers - maybe The Broken of the title? - entering our world through mirrors and immediately setting out on a mission to kill their double. Once done they take their place in the world and act like unemotional automatons. Quite why they do this is never explained, but the film vaguely hints that this phenomenon is more widespread than just the characters under scrutiny here, and that the mirror people assist each other in carrying out their mission.

There’s a suggestion that the reason for the appearance of these creatures is because a mirror has been broken. So “deary me Jimbo, now you’ve broken that mirror you’ll have 7 years’ bad luck” becomes “curses Jimbo, after carelessly breaking that mirror, you’ll now be hunted down and killed by your double, who’ll then live your life for you, but take absolutely no pleasure in doing so”.

Lena Headey plays central character Gina. While enjoying a surprise birthday party for their father, Gina and family witness the dramatic shattering of a large mirror (see previous paragraph for why this is significant). Soon after we’re shown Gina’s bathroom mirror shatter, and high heels walking purposefully out of the bathroom. Gina then sees herself driving her car home, has a confrontation with the driver, manages to drive head first into a taxi while driving the car she previously saw someone who looked just like her driving, and wakes up in hospital with a nasty case of amnesia. Are you following this?

The film then takes what feels like three years focusing on Gina’s steady realisation that the mirror people are replacing her family members, starting with her boyfriend. But of course nobody believes her, least of all her mysteriously accented psychologist (Ulrich Thomsen), who just seems to blink out of existence during the film’s later stages. They all think her suspicions are simply caused by the trauma of the accident. That, and the fact that her boyfriend is a terrible actor, and nobody notices he’s been replaced, other than him suddenly taking a dislike to his own dog and frowning a lot.

Along the way we’re treated to such over-used horror staples as the dreaded dripping leak in the bathroom ceiling, the double dream sequence, and the M. Night Shyamalan “unexpected” twist. Except the twist here is probably obvious to anyone with half a brain from very early on, and results in there being absolutely no tension - or interest - in the remainder of the film. The audience can therefore amuse themselves playing spot the bloodshot eye, as Lena’s red contact lens seems to come and go with each new scene, laughing in the face of any sort of continuity.

Director Sean Ellis does a pretty good job. The film is usually nice to look at, and features some stunning views of our nation’s capitol. It’s the film’s look that brings me to prefer this over the day’s first film From Within.

But chunks of the film are repeated ad nauseam, such as Gina’s slow-mo crumpling Jeep Cherokee, and flashes of her confrontation, and despite being visually interesting it becomes quite tiring. I realise this is all intended to show Gina’s memory slowly returning, but after seeing the same red Jeep crumple in extreme slow motion for the fifth time I was contemplating what to have from Burger King after the film.

There’s an extreme sense of vagueness that seems to permeate the whole thing, and while it’s possible that this was the intention given the film’s themes, it doesn’t make for a terribly compelling horror movie. I’m not sure whether it was heavily recut or not, but it just seems to chase its own tail for a while and then resolve things in a predictable yet confusing and nonsensical manner which I’ll not spoil here. It all feels rather pointless when the credits roll.

Ultimately, The Broken’s biggest fault is that it’s very, very dull. I like Lena Headey, and I like the idea of another world inside our mirrors that somehow spawns evil beings. But the concept is under used - why not allow the mirror people to use the mirrors to move around, or offer some explanation as to what they wanted? - and instead the film depends more on confusing its audience, throwing in a gratuitous shower scene complete with over the top death, and hoping that the final twist is enough to make people think this is a good movie.

Which, I’m sorry to say, it’s not.

But fear not, because the remaining four Frightfest reviews are all of great films, and will be gracing these very pages soon.

© Dan for Is there food?, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: frightfest, Horror, Lena Headey, Mirrors, Review

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Elizabeth Rice plays Lindsay, a teenager in a small religious town, with an alcoholic mother, and a bible bashing boyfriend. During the film’s first few moments, Lindsay is exposed to the suicide of a local goth girl, who in turn has just been covered in her boyfriend’s brain matter after shooting himself in the opening scene. It soon becomes apparent to the audience - albeit not the characters - that something is travelling from the last suicide victim’s body to whoever discovers it, causing them to be stalked by, and ultimately forced to take their own lives at the hand of a zombified mirror image of themselves.

The film soon reveals that suicide number one was the son of a local witch. A witch who just happens to have been burned alive by the town’s people after having a hand in the drowning of a popular member of the community. The town folk decide that it’s the witch’s remaining son, played by Sarah Connor Chronicle’s Thomas Dekker, who must be the cause of all the suicides. Queue predictable building of the town folk’s aggression, culminating in them all but taking up pitch forks and flaming torches, and invading Dekker’s home in the film’s final stages.

It’s the same kind of religious insanity which was so brilliantly expressed in Frank Darabont’s adaptation of The Mist, but in this film it feels unoriginal and uninvolving. I didn’t feel enough of an attachment to the protagonists to really care that they were about to be set upon by psychotic Christians.

If you’re a young teen looking for a slice of acceptable, light weight, inoffensive horror then this is probably for you. There’s very little real gore, and plenty of teen angst. Dekker is in full on emo mode, grunting his way though the film in a manner more annoying than anything I’ve seen him in before. He’s a crap John Connor, and he’s an even worse emo son of a witch.

Our teen heroine is clearly being forced into a religious belief that she perhaps doesn’t totally feel comfortable with and I’m sure that’s something with which younger viewers could identify. All the characters are so two dimensional and lacking in complexity that this just doesn’t feel like it was ever intended for grown ups.

The evil twins aren’t scary, there’s absolutely no tension thanks to telegraphed scares that you can see coming from a country mile, and there’s an ending that’s insultingly explained for any morons in the audience. Nothing is left to guesswork here. Papamichael might know how to get a great shot - although I wasn’t as impressed with the look of this particular film as certain other reviewers seem to be, which could be the result of the pretty awful print we were shown - but when given free reign to build up atmosphere as a director he fails very, very badly. After several scenes failed to provide any kind of tension, I started to lose interest.

I’ll admit that I liked the ultimate outcome of the film, and it’s not really in keeping with the light weight nature of what’s gone before. There’s also a comparatively nasty burning alive scene, which feels a little forced and seems to come out of nowhere. These positives are few though, and can’t redeem what’s gone before, sadly.

From Within also features one of the most unintentionally hilarious scenes in recent memory, as Thomas Dekker applies a curse suppressing waxy witchy goo to various parts of a fully clothed Elizabeth Rice’s anatomy. “Does everything need to be covered?” she asks. Dekker then uses the “Try not to sweat” line, which is, if I recall correctly, shamelessly nicked from Mimic.

There’s a kind of Final Destination vibe developing mid way through the film, but this is dispelled rapidly and doesn’t really go anywhere. With a director who better understands the genre, some extra meat on the anaemic bones of its characters, and some more imaginative kills, this could have been OK. As it is, this is really “my first horror film” territory.

© Dan for Is there food?, 2008. | Permalink | | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: curses, Film, frightfest, Horror, Review

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I’m going to post reviews of the 6 films over the next few days, but for now here’s a summary of my Twittering throughout the day:

• “Frightfest Sunday begins. Think From Within might be today’s turkey, but keeping an open mind.”
• “Unimpressed by Frightfest’s first offering of the day. Heavy handed, predictable, and lacking suspense. What say you, other Frightfesters?”
• “Let The Right One In: Morrissey would be proud. Beautiful, moving Swedish vampire awesomeness. Want to see it again. Will settle on the book”
• “Broken: Lena is pretty, but cannot save such a boring, boring film. Seems the #frightfest back channel agree!”
• “Autopsy: fun gore-fest with some gloriously colourful lighting and imaginative gore. Nothing too deep, but sometimes that’s what you want.”
• “And next is Martyrs. Which is all about teddy bears, chocolate biscuits and marshmellows. Or something.”
• “Martyrs: cannot do this justice in 140 characters. Quite special I think. Deeper exploration on blog later. Challenging film though.”
• “Jack Brooks: good stuff. Think Brain Dead, Bad Taste, Evil Dead. Decent effects, good laughs (Howard) and the perfect end to my FF trip!”

© Dan for Is there food?, 2008. | Permalink | | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Film, frightfest, Horror, twitter

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

It is, quite simply, the most distasteful, depraved and nihilistic film I have ever had the misfortune to sit through. I freely confess that there were times I felt physically ill simply watching it. Certainly, I would have walked out long before the end had I not had to write about it.

Donkey Punch is the vilest film Ive ever seen, says AMANDA PLATELL | Mail Online.

If that’s not enough to harden the resolve of any horror fan to see a film, I don’t know what will. The Mail’s spectacularly point-missing review is an entertaining read for all the wrong reasons, so I thought I’d chime in with my thoughts.

The aforementioned Amanda Platell claims the film falls firmly into the “torture porn” category, and manages to cram in a mention of real life knife crime to prove her point. Apparently Donkey Punch:

has no redeeming features whatsoever. There is not a single shred of humanity, imagination or creativity detectable anywhere among its 99 long minutes.

And I’ll admit, it’s not the most original film in the world. It is, essentially, Dead Calm with a higher body count, and without Nicole Kidman or Billy Zane. But it’s a well shot, well acted Brit thriller and actually attempts to serve as something of a morality tale for today’s youth.

The story revolves around three girls from Leeds (one of which is played by the daughter of Beowulf himself, Ray Winstone) who, while on holiday in Majorca, hook up with the crew of a luxury yacht; a group of (mostly) posh British lads with sex and drugs on their minds.

The first third of the film plays out like a music video (which is perhaps unsurprising given director Olly Blackburn’s previous career), as the girls dance around, drink, and take drugs to the tune of various dance tracks.

When the yacht heads out to see, the crew decide to go swimming. Oddly, the girls all seem to have their swimwear, despite only nipping out for a night of clubbing.

After their dip, a brief discussion of various sex acts (one of which being the titular Donkey Punch) ensues, and things inevitably turn fruity as two of the girls head off down to the yacht’s master bedroom with three of the boys. During said fruitiness, one of the boys administers said violent sexual act with undesirably fatal effect.

And then things start to get interesting.

The final two thirds focus on, psychologically, what happens to a group of people when faced with something horrible. It’s not really gore-packed enough to be considered full-on horror - even the film’s most gruesome kill is far tamer than, say, the final kill in Switchblade Romance - but does manage to build up an impressive amount of tension as things progress. This may in part be thanks to the score by genre favourite François Eudes (former work includes À l’intérieur and Switchblade Romance itself).

Now, to return to our friend Ms Platell: Donkey Punch features a cast of characters who take drugs, drink, and indulge in group sex, and they all end up in pretty horrific circumstances as a result. In my book, that’s about as moral as you can get. It’s a return to the old “ah, the teenagers are screwing around, Jason will almost certainly come and behead them” school of horror morality that served the genre so well in the past.

In short, screw around, take drugs, and the nasty man will chop you into little bits. Frankly, if today’s youngsters took this to heart, the world would be a better place. It’s the distinct absence of fear that’s resulted in the culture we have now - there is no boogeyman any more. And if there was, he’d likely to be too scared to make an appearance for being knifed or shot himself.

This film doesn’t glorify anything that takes place within its 99 minutes. It doesn’t even revel in its gore, and doesn’t result in the kind of “am I really watching this?” discomfort that something like Hostel 2 does. Don’t get me wrong, I rate Hostel 2 quite highly, but for its own reasons. I can’t remember if I’ve discussed that on these pages, but either way that’s a debate for the future.

So then, Donkey Punch. Or Donkey Punch (say it like it’s a kind of drink served out of large wide glass bowl - that’s how the ticket guy at the cinema said it - anyone for Donkey Punch? Yummy!). It’s a pretty good, Brit made thriller, with some great cinematography and strong performances. It’s got sex in it, and people get killed in a variety of ways.

I’ve seen a lot worse.

© Dan for Is there food?, 2008. | Permalink | | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: british, Horror, Reviews

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I might have to get a Wii again just so I can play this.

One of the most interesting looking titles I’ve seen in a while. And also one of the goriest and most violent. Not what you expect from the Wii really.

© Dan for Is there food?, 2008. | Permalink | | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: e3, Games, gore, madworld, wii

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Tune in for the next exciting installment on July 17th, with the concluding part available on the 19th.

Warning: characters may burst into song at any moment. Viewer discretion is advised.

That is all.

© Dan for Is there food?, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: awesomeness, dr horrible, joss whedon

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh