Really Surprised!

Excellent, a Must See

Am I Missing Something?

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

An abysmally poor entry into the 'torture porn' genre, a British movie shot out in the Cambridgeshire woods somewhere with the writer/director's own wife playing a central role. I have two questions after watching this: who told the writing/directing team they could direct, and who told the main actress she could act? BROKEN is the worst kind of horror film, a repulsive exercise in sadism designed to cash in on the popularity of the SAW franchise, which it rips off throughout (and most notably at the beginning). The opening credits play out over a montage of a young woman trying to retrieve a razorblade sewn inside her stomach, and if that sounds like your idea of entertainment then you're welcome to it. The repetitive self-mutilation continues for another twenty minutes or so before the film settles down into a plot less affair which tries to depict a supposedly tense relationship between hostage and captor.The truth is that BROKEN is entirely void of original idea and intent, so instead it ups the ante in terms of on-screen gore and general nastiness. Not that the special effects are good, because they aren't, but there's a general undercurrent of depravity and sadism which makes it an alternatively gruelling and boring watch. Despite the unpleasantness, there's never any suspense or tension in any of the hackneyed scenes, and the intensely irritating Nadja Brand fails to elicit one iota of sympathy for her character's plight. The villain is a nobody, there's no motivation or backstory for any of the characters, no attempts at characterisation or realism. Just endless repetition and padding until the final, merciful moments.

Broken (2006)* (out of 4) Yet another mean-spirited SAW wannabe with this one coming from Britain. In the film a woman (Nadja Brand) goes out on a date and goes to bed but when she wakes up she's inside a coffin. She doesn't know where she is or how she got there but soon she's tied up to a tree where she must rip a razor out of her stomach in order to cut herself down. She's then introduced to the man (Eric Colvin) doing all of this stuff and from here on out it's one torture after another. The SAW movies have had some major ups and downs but I think you can view those films as at least well-written and made but that can't be said about BROKEN as it's one confusing mess that never really adds up to much and in the end it's pretty pointless. The pointless aspect would mean I would have to give a spoiler to the ending, which I won't do here but I'm sure most will came to the same train of thought after sitting through this thing. It's never made clear why the man kidnaps these women unless the only point was for them to grow a garden for him and keep his pots and pans clean. If that was the reason for everything going on then the screenplay is worse than I thought. If the entire point of this movie is to just see the woman tortured then that's simply not good enough. We've seen this type of film so many times that there's nothing fresh or original done here with the exception of the killer constantly being by the victim. There are a couple interesting scenes where he's taking care of her as if he cares but sadly this doesn't last too long and this emotion never comes back. The torture scenes are all rather cheaply done but we do get some special effects and this is especially true during the scene where the women have to remove stitches, dig into themselves and pull the razor out. Most of the other violence is rather bland and really doesn't get too hard to watch. The performances really aren't all that bad with both Brand and Colvin fitting their roles nicely but once again the screenplay really doesn't give them too much to work with. A third character is introduced and is so annoying that you'll be cheering for the killer. BROKEN is yet another entry in the so-called "torture/porn" genre that keeps delivering hit and miss flicks. This one here is certainly a miss and it's the type of film that will keep making you more and more frustrated as it moves along. You sit there watching just to finally get to the point but that point simply never comes.

I must admit I was put of by the first 20 minutes of the movie, which play out like a crappy torture porn movie (just like all torture porn movie). A unnamed assailant played by Eric Corvin (apparently based on a true story) has a knack for kidnapping young ladies and putting them to a test. In order to survive they need to open there bellies, pull out a razor whilst making sure the intestines don't fall out and then cut themselves free from a rope that would make them suffocate in time.If she survives this test the contestant is asked "Will you continue?". Hope (Nadja Brand) is the first to say yes. It turns out that getting past this test will allow you to join the assailant 'house', which is placed in the middle of nowhere in England's forest land. The strange man introduces Hope to her new house/prison - chained to a tree she is ordered to tend to the garden. The movie turns more into psychological warfare and less gorno, which works out for the best.Acting is OK, but the low budget shows and not in a good way. Gore is believable but some of the camera-work is poor.

Here's the simple plot summary..."After dating a wonderful man, Hope comes back home, sees her daughter Jennifer and goes to sleep. She wakes-up in the woods in a box in a hole, and a psychopath, fighting to survive for more than forty days and asking information about her daughter to the stranger."It says its based on a true story, and wow, what an ordeal that must have been, because the movie is extremely nasty and disturbing. The short back story of Hope was an add on according to the filmmakers, they were going to start the movie with Hope waking up in a box in a grave, and you don't know who anybody is, which I actually think would have even been better. But moreorless, you still don't know who anybody is, nor do you really care, because this movie is about survival against extremely long odds. The psychopath woodsman, apparently is kidnapping women and putting them through extreme tests to hopefully for him, find one that can be his companion. After waking up, the women are placed hanging on their tiptoes tied by the neck to a tree, and a razor blade has been implanted in their stomachs. The object is, they have to dig out the razor blade through the stitches, cut the rope, and then they are free to pass his other tests. For Hope, the tests don't go much further than that, because the woodsman is impressed with her, and she learns how to cope with the madman, until she figures out a way to escape. The whole beginning credits get the movie off to a very excruciating start, as a previous woman is scene attempting to dig out the razor blade to free herself, with her guts falling out of her belly, and then pleading for the woodsman to kill her. She grabs the trigger of the shotgun in her face, and pulls the trigger, and wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, we are off to the races. It seems the woodsman doesn't actually think he is killing anybody, because he gives them a chance to survive, and if they don't, well, it's their fault for being so weak and stupid. While Hope is being held captive, the woodsman brings in another woman who does not stop crying and begging, which irritates even Hope. Simple enough, he takes a nice long hunting knife and cuts out her tongue and vocal cords. Yea boy, that will fix that problem every time. Wonder if that would have saved one of my marriages?? I'm talking about the wife of course. This movie has been compared to SAW, which is totally misleading. Nothing about the two are similar, except for maybe the tree and razor blade thing, which Jigsaw should have thought of. This movie is very good, very depressing, and even the ending which looks promising, delivers a gut punch that is totally unexpected all the way around. You see, all through this, Hope is concerned more for her daughter than herself, because her daughter disappeared with her, and the woodsman only says her daughter was too weak. The movie is never boring, and very interesting as this strange bizarre woodsman, seems to be only looking for a mate. It does not fall into that idiot genre name torture porn, which I hate, because after the initial scenes, it comes down to a cat and mouse game, with the mouse slowly figuring out how to trap the cat. This is the one with everybody saying how terrible the commentary is, and for only the few minutes I listened to it so far, it does seem to be very annoying.