Review by Stephanie Scaife
Sometimes a screener comes along that is so bad that it makes you consider giving up watching movies altogether, so Break was rather apt both in title and tagline. I wanted to take a break from film after watching it and it really was no mercy, just pain… terrible, derivative, throbbing pain.
So let’s get this straight, Break is a German film with a German cast that is shot entirely in Bavaria. However, it pretends to be set somewhere in North America with a script that’s not written in the writer’s first language and a cast reciting said script in a language that isn’t their first language and it really, really shows. It’s stilted, unnatural and full of trite Americanisms that often just don’t make any sense in the context of the dialogue. Why they made this decision and didn’t just set it in Germany is beyond me. Maybe they thought it’d reach a wider audience by being in English, but if that is the case I’m sure there are just as many terrible Z-list English speaking actors willing to travel…
Break is a backwoods thriller in which four holidaying friends are preyed upon by a couple of rapey, murderous local hillbillies. Combine everything you know about this genre and that’s what happens in Break. It is an entirely by the numbers horror film that is so predictable that what you’re currently imagining in your head is so close to what actually happens that you really just don’t need to watch this film at all.
Just in case that isn’t enough of an indication as to the “plot” I’ll give you a quick synopsis; Sarah (Lili Schackert) has just been dumped by her boyfriend – we know this because of the way she is angrily journaling whilst listening to terrible emo music – so her three best friends decide to take her on a girls only camping trip. We are told they are childhood friends but the chemistry between the four actresses is so appallingly bad that it’s painfully obvious that they had never met until the first day of shooting. Anyway, Sarah and her friends head into the woods, flirt with a sexy travelling hitchhiker (who rather amusingly says he’s from Germany, even though they are all clearly from Germany), get drunk by the camp fire whilst toasting marshmallows and enjoy a spot of skinny dipping. Things quickly take a turn for the worse when they come across some guts and human feet tied up in a tree. Of course this is the handy work of two local sadistic rednecks who love nothing more than disembowelling women for shits and giggles. Unfortunately for Claire (Thelma Buabeng), being that she is the only black character; she is the first to go. Soon either Rose or Anna (I’m not sure which is which) is being raped then murdered and Sarah, our forgettable heroine, is out for revenge on the two assailants.
Admittedly there are some nice gory set pieces and for the first 5 or 10 minutes the poor dialogue, abysmal editing, wooden acting and dodgy camera work is actually sort of amusing, but that it literally all this film has going for it. The fact that it’s been knocking around since 2009 and is only just now finding itself on DVD is enough of a warning for even the most diehard horror fan to give this a miss.
Break is out now on Region 2 DVD from Trinity X.