The Broken Tagged Articles at Cinematical

As last year, I want to use this space to highlight some terrific films that came down the pike in the first six months of the year -- and merrily continued down the pike without anyone giving much of a damn. This happens to a host of deserving movies every year; given how much of a miracle it is when an indie actually takes off, there's no avoiding it. But these seven are eminently worth your time; at the very least, I promise they're interesting. Give them a shot.

1. Two Lovers (James Gray) -- Actually my favorite film of the year, this melancholy character study is carried out with such painstaking attention to detail that it becomes akin to one of Henry Selick's stop-motion miracles -- watching it inspires a sort of awe. This is James Gray's follow-up to We Own the Night, and Gray has announced himself as one of our most important newcomers, a master at creating living, breathing, populated, real universes for his characters to inhabit. [Now on DVD.]

2. Julia (Erick Zonca) - This movie barely saw theaters at all -- I saw it in a one-week run courtesy of our local Film Society -- but it might have been a decent investment for an actual distributor. Though it has someone profoundly unpleasant at its center -- the perpetually drunk and nasty title character, played by the incredible Tilda Swinton -- it eventually turns into a remarkably tense little thriller, complete with a classic kidnapping scenario and a chance for the rotten protagonist's redemption. [On DVD August 18th.]

So after years of wondering and months of alleged deals, it finally looks like Universal is dusting something off for a remake. SomeTHING I should say, so if you're a fan of Christian Nyby's The Thing (From Another World), John Carpenter's The Thing, or John Campbell's source material Who Goes There?, then you should be suitably elated to learn that Universal has tapped a writer and a director for the new-fangled version. Me, I'm fine with it. But if you come into my house and mess with my The Thing DVD, I may have to cut you. (More from Pete right here.)

Sam Raimi's long-awaited return to horror is called Drag Me to Hell, and while I won't get to see it for a few more weeks (sadface), the early buzz from the L.A. horror hounds is nothing but enthusiastic. I refuse to read ANYthing about this movie, but you can click around Bloody, Shock, and Dread to see what those gorehounds thought.

Oooh, next week we get a bunch of new Friday the 13th DVDs! (I wonder why.) Check out my little report on those platters right here. Directly opposite of next week we have last week, which is when we saw a few new horror flicks at Sundance. Those films were Grace (Snider's review / mine at FEARnet), The Killing Room (mine), and Dead Snow (Snider's / mine), and while it's not horror at all, Moon is just damn cool enough to warrant another mention. Here's James' review and here's mine. (It's old-school science fiction, in that it's about ideas AND technology. How very cool.)

Random bits on: Joss Whedon's Cabin in the Woods; that remake of The Crazies; the availability of the awesome [REC] on R1 DVD; and our multiple affectons for Sean Ellis' The Broken. (Ooh, the Martyrs DVD cover!)

There are a few positive reviews of The Broken floating around from Sundance 2007 and elsewhere, but I wanted to add an endorsement tied to its berth in this year's installment of the fledgling After Dark Horrorfest, which runs this week. In past years I've been generally disinterested in the Horrorfest programming, which has seemed heavy on schlock, but The Broken seemed intriguing, so I ventured out and saw it on Saturday.

You know the cliche that something or other "sent a chill down my spine"? People who use that phrase -- including me -- usually do so metaphorically. This time I mean it literally. There are moments in The Broken that sent a physical chill running through my body. I'm not ready to call Sean Ellis's sophomore feature a great film; after one viewing, I'm not sure it makes total sense. But it is genuinely, supremely creepy. Fans of the genre should give the After Dark folks some of their hard-earned cash this week.

I should say that this is decidedly my kind of horror film: slow, moody, with little gore, few jolt scares, minimum exposition, and a maximum of atmosphere. (It also does another thing that I love, which is have events unfold on a small, personal scale while suggesting that something far larger in scope is happening.) In other words, it may not be for all tastes. It's original enough not to have a direct analogue, but in terms of mood and the types of scares it offers, think a quieter version of last year's The Strangers, with supernatural elements. And scarier.

Horrorfest's website, including participating theaters and a trailer for The Broken (that I wouldn't recommend watching, as it gives away too much without giving you a sense of the film) is here.

Since they like to release eight indie-style or foreign horror films on one specific day each year, I'm always a little bit fascinated by the latest goings-on at After Dark. The fact that I don't actually like the majority of their films is sort of beside the point. Being a hardcore fan gives you the right to be critical, of course, but it also means you should always give a new flick a fair break. And the AD gang has given us access to some half-decent titles, and so I opt to focus on the good (Borderland, The Gravedancers, Frontier(s)) instead of the bad -- which is just about everything else. Although your mileage may vary.

And even though the next infusion of After Darkness won't arrive until January, I'm happy to note that they're putting together a rather solid slate. They'd already snagged a cool British chiller called The Broken (which I saw at Sundance ... and enjoyed) and a low-key occult thriller called From Within (which I saw at Tribeca ... and didn't), but now comes word on two new additions: The first one is also a Tribeca title, and it's an Aussie horror tale called Dying Breed. (Here's my review. I nagged Tim to play it at Fantastic Fest, but it ended up in the "very close but no cigar" bin.) The second is an American flick called Autopsy, which comes from screenwriter / first-time director Adam Gierasch (Toolbox Murders, Mother of Tears), and while I haven't seen this one yet, I've heard some quiet-yet-positive rumblings from my sources in the L.A. horror-geek scene.

The Broken, From Within, Dying Breed, and Autopsy will join Slaughter (aka Faithless), Perkins' 14, and The Butterfly Effect: Revelation when After Dark kick-starts on January 9. The eighth title has yet to be announced. Could it be this movie?

[Thanks to BD.com]

When the After Dark Horrorfest popped up in November of 2006, I caught about half of the offered 8 Films to Die For, despite a transparently sensationalized campaign of just how horrendously extreme these titles must've been to get such a specialized release. My experiences ranged from not bad (The Abandoned and The Gravedancers) to pretty dreadful (Penny Dreadful), but between the ratio of enjoyment that year and the yanking of actually-possibly-horrific Frontier(s) the next, I just passed entirely in 2007.

One might assume that, in an effort to meet me halfway, the Horrorfest has skipped out on itself this year, but while this is technically true, it's merely shuffled away into the doldrums of this coming January 2-9 instead. Scott Weinberg had already pointed out that The Broken and The Butterfly Effect 3 were among this year's (next year's?) selected batch of titles, and now The Hollywood Reporter reports that From Within -- about a rash of suicides in a small town -- and three After Dark productions: the aforementioned Effect, Slaughter, and Perkins' 14.

That leaves three more titles in the running. Any guesses? Just remember now: they can't be too scary.

I'm not what I would call a serious fan of the horror genre overall, but I do like smart horror films, and The Broken, by Cashback director Sean Ellis, was a pretty smart film. I've had some arguments the past couple days about Cashback, and while that film has its weaknesses in the story structure, Ellis's strength as a director lies in imaginative visual sequences, a skill he uses to great effect in The Broken.

Gina (Lena Headey) and her boyfriend Stefan (Melvil Poupaud) go to Gina's father's house for a surprise birthday party. Her dad, who works for the US Embassy in London, is nearing retirement. Gina's brother Daniel and his girlfriend Kate show up for the party as well; the party is nice but uneventful, until a large mirror in the dining room suddenly shatters for no apparent reason.

It looks like Lena Headey isn't resting on the inevitable buzz from her work as Queen Gorgo in the highly anticipated 300 to make her a familiar face to moviegoers. Not only does Headey have a part in the upcoming Spartan green-screen epic, but she also has four other films on their way to the big screen. Another high profile project for Headey will be her turn as Sarah Connor in the TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles, based on The Terminator films. Variety reports that Headey will star in the new psychological thriller from Sean Ellis, The Broken. Ellis is a relative newcomer, but has already received an Oscar nomination last year for his short film Cashback. The Broken is Ellis' second full-length feature, and considering that Ellis is only 36, I think he still has some time to beef up his resume.

The film is about a woman (Headey) who is involved in a horrible car crash, and while that alone isn't enough to invoke the willies; the hook is that the other driver in the accident appears to be her double. Headey leads an international cast that includes Richard Jenkins, Michelle Duncan and Asier Newman. The Broken is being produced by French production heavy Gaumont and is currently shooting in London for a 2008 release.


[via Empire Online]