The Brøken

Decent cinematography and some creepy buildup can't hide the fact that there's very little content beneath the surface. Things are kept too vague, the editing is clunky at times and there's very little payoff. There's barely a story here, and what little we have never comes alive. An actual ending would've been nice as well.

the underlying concept of the story is quite good, but Ellis doesn't manage to really develop the plot and tries to fill the 90 minutes with dragged out scenes, as a result the movie suffers from pacing issues. While his ability to render the tension is admirable, he squanders the chance to make something memorable by leaving the story somewhat unresolved. Some good photography, expert use of repetitive sounds also give the movie character, but not more.

Underrated! Slow-boil suspense with brilliant visual flair. The script is not perfect, but this is a case of the "journey being greater than the destination".

Psychological horror with a dash of sci-fi. Lena Headey is great, and I enjoyed the patient build-up of the first hour, but the climax is seriously frustrating. I don't need every single element explained and accounted for, but the film finishes by offering no reasons or motivations for anything that just happened. What was the point? There are a bunch of neat ideas, but no thread to tie them together.

It might be a decent psychological horror movie, but I hoped for much more from Sean Ellis after his brilliant Cashback. Artsy cinematography with a focus on detail, acting and overall atmosphere is good enough and the film made me feel very uneasy, but the script, the story seems unfinished, some good ideas scrapped together without any outcome of explanation.

When you're making a pet in The Sims 2 and give it doofus intelligence, it's still smarter than this.

Pretty solid thriller with idea that breaks all your expectations. There is no sense in this story.

The edits and directing style reminded me of TV. The whole movie has a TV movie feel to it and if you keep your expectations on that level this is a decent enough movie.

Ellis does a great job building tension and atmosphere around what has to be one of the dumbest scripts I've ever seen. The hilariously stupid premise and Ellis's modern, dark, elliptically-edited style combine to create a complete tonal mismatch, resulting in several unintentionally laugh-out-loud funny scenes. It's such a shame, because I really did love Ellis's direction (hence my score being probably higher than the movie deserves) but it's in service of complete nonsense.

A fairly good psychological thriller/horror movie whose sole stumble is telegraphing the twist way too far in advance. Aside from that, the film offers a new take on a familiar story that I won't outright spoil.

Psychological thriller wannabe.

* Casting, Acting : 6 * Script : 2 * Directing, Aura : 7 * Ease of Viewing : 5 * Naked Eye : 5

What was that? Well at least it was a bit different, not sure it made any sense though.

Psychologically, this scared the shit out of me. The actor carry the film well and though the plot is not very complicated, it's better than most of the trying-to-be-complex-thrillers... it's a bit sick too!

A suspenseful British thriller, very light on substance.

This was horrible. It was so painfully slow, painfully boring and painfully stupid. This was the supernatural equivalent of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. A good scene here and there and Richard Jenkins make this worth watching at all.

You can skip the first act but from the 50 minutes, you will not regret the experience.

"It's not a stalker flick or a ghost story, although it's sort of a combination of both."

Passes the time.

Worth a watch

"There's lots of style, there's no substance, and no matter how much people praise his work, I still think that Sean Ellis is all smoke and mirrors."

"I was on board with The Broken through the first three quarters, but the sucker punch of nothingness at the end soured me on the whole thing."

Pretty strong.

"Ponderous, confusing, and melancholy, it is a Kafka-esque nightmare of coincidences, paranoia, and slow descents into madness."