The Broken / The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

The Broken / The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations Blu-ray Movie Review

Tried, Trite and Untrue

Reviewed by Michael Reuben December 13, 2011

This double feature Blu-ray from Lionsgate includes two of the eight films shown in January 2009 as part of the annual festival known as After Dark Horrorfest (a/k/a "8 Films to Die For"). All eight films were released on DVD in March 2009. The Broken and The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations (hereafter "BE3R") appear to be the only two to make it to region 1 Blu-ray. (A region 2 edition of Dying Breed was released but is currently unavailable.)

The Broken (1:28:13) 2/5

The title for The Broken was originally spelled with a split "o" (as in "The Brøken"), but the symbol created so much confusion in languages like Danish and Norwegian, where it's a letter of the alphabet, that the typography was abandoned. The split was meant to reflect the film's story, which is all about mirror images and doppelgangers. The Broken is difficult to describe without major spoilers; so let's just say that it's long on atmosphere and extremely short on exposition. It borrows so shamelessly from other, better films that just naming them probably gives too much away, but I'm going to do so anyway, because you won't be able to tell from the following list whether writer-director Sean Ellis lifted individual scenes or entire plot devices. If you watch The Broken, you'll be reminded of some or all of the following: Psycho, any film or TV show involving hidden worlds revealed through mirrors (my personal favorite is Twin Peaks, but even Poltergeist 3 did it better), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (any version), Shattered—and a recent box office hit I won't name, because it was made after The Broken, stole just as shamelessly from at least one of the same sources, and was just as predictable.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles' Lena Headey plays Gina McVey, a London radiologist. She has a charming French architect named Stefan (Melvil Poupaud) for a boyfriend, a devoted younger brother named Daniel (Asier Newman), who's happily married to a pretty wife, Kate Coleman (Michelle Duncan), and an affectionate father, John McVey (Richard Jenkins), who's preparing to retire from his job at the American embassy. What could possibly go wrong with such a wonderful life?

A lot, obviously. We know this immediately from the chilly photography and brooding score. After introducing the film with a cryptic quotation from Edgar Allan Poe, director Ellis has Gina show a medical colleague a set of X-rays demonstrating the rare phenomenon called "situs inversus" in which organs are in the reverse position from normal (in this case, the heart being on the right instead of the left). Then, during a surprise birthday dinner thrown by Gina and her brother for their father, a mirror on the dining room wall shatters for no apparent reason. The next day, Gina sees herself driving down the street in her own vehicle. Chasing after it, she's led to an apartment in which she finds a photograph of her father and herself. Gina reclaims her car and flees the scene, but she's so distraught and distracted that she collides with another vehicle and winds up in the hospital with a severe concussion. As she recovers, she has a hard time separating what she remembers from what she may have imagined, despite the calm ministrations of a concerned therapist (Ulrich Thomsen). Meanwhile, other mirrors are breaking around town, and when Gina is released from the hospital, the world seems subtly altered.

The biggest disappointment of The Broken is that, after the big reveals (assuming you haven't already guessed them), the film simply comes to an end. No effort is made to explain what the elaborate machinations were all about, even though multiple murders have been committed in apparent furtherance of some sort of nefarious plan. Exactly what the plan is, and who's pursuing it, are details the writer-director can't be bothered to explain. Shall we assume world domination? Why not.


The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations (1:30:17) 3/5

Sharing nothing with the original Ashton Kutcher Butterfly Effect except its time travel conceit, BE3R lays out its narrative premises with admirable efficiency. Sam Reide (The O.C.'s Chris Carmack) has the ability to travel back in time by lowering his body temperature in a bath of ice water and concentrating on the desired date, time and location. It's never specified how Sam discovered this power, but he was trained in its use by Professor Harry Goldburg (Kevin Yon), whose horticultural pursuits are reminiscent of the reclusive Dr. Hineman in Minority Report. Professor Goldburg taught Sam to observe the past but never alter it, because, as we learned in the first movie, the ripples in time from the smallest change can have unimaginable consequences. So Sam uses his talents to earn a living as a remarkably accurate "psychic" for the Detroit police. He provides his contact, Detective Glenn (Lynch Travis), precise details about the crime and the perpetrator, because Sam goes back in time and observes the crime while it's being committed.

Sam's helper in these time-jumping endeavors is his younger sister, Jenna (Rachel Miner, who was brilliant as Charlie Runkle's deviously masochistic secretary on Californication). Jenna and Sam have shared a strong bond ever since, as children, he saved her from the blazing house in which their parents died. If you're sensing a Significant Event, you are right on target.

And that's the essential weakness of BE3R—it telegraphs its most important plot developments. Director Seth Grossman achieves some effective shocks from small, unexpected moments, but when it comes to the overall story, he's limited by Holly Brix's script, which uses the original Butterfly Effect's time paradox mythology for nothing more original than a murder mystery with slasher overtones. It seems that an old girlfriend of Sam's, Rebecca Brown (Mia Serafino), was murdered many years ago, and a mutual friend from high school, Lonnie Flennons (Richard Wilkinson), was convicted and sent to death row. Out of nowhere, Rebecca's sister, Elizabeth (Sarah Habel), appears with new evidence of Lonnie's innocence and asks Sam to use his "psychic" abilities to find the real killer. (If this "false conviction" device sounds like something borrowed from Scream, that's probably because it is.)

At first Sam refuses, because he stays out of his own timeline, lest the temptation to interfere become overwhelming. But after he visits Lonnie Flennons in prison, he can't resist, and he begins a series of time jumps that make matters steadily worse: more bodies, a deteriorating life for Sam, and increasing evidence incriminating Sam as the killer. (One of the new victims is a shapely bartender named Vicki with whom Sam has an athletic one-night stand. She's played by Melissa Jones, who was Miss Horrorfest 2007.)

It gives away nothing to note that the Law of Diminishing Suspects always applies in murder mysteries, and the suspects disappear quickly in BE3R. But at least, after all is revealed, the film has enough respect for its audience to play out the implications logically (note that I didn't say credibly) and provide a satisfying denouement. That alone make BE3R a better viewing experience than The Broken.

The Broken / The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Broken 4/5

The Broken was shot on film with anamorphic lenses, but the image has been heavily desaturated in post-production. Even the red of blood has been faded. This is a world of dull hues dominates by blues and grays, and the 1080p, AVC-encoded image conveys it with excellent detail and well-controlled, natural-looking film grain. Blacks are so good that, in a key scene where a figure emerges from the darkness behind another figure in the foreground, the stages of the transition to visibility are striking. (The scene itself is less so, because the event has been telegraphed.) There is no indication of high-frequency filtering, transfer-induced ringing or compression artifacts.

One negative from the quality of the transfer: In Gina's flashes of memory from her accident, it has apparently always been the case (according to entries at IMDb) that the viewer could easily spot the crash dummy in place of the live human. Well, with Blu-ray's clarity, it's now so obvious that it's a distraction. A little more expenditure on digital effects to replace the dummy with a human figure (or simulation) would have been well worth the results.


The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations 3.5/5

According to the credits, BE3R was shot on the Red One system, but it doesn't look it. The 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray certainly reflects the detail and depth of field typically associated with Red One capture, but many scenes display a higher level of video noise than I'm used to seeing in Red One-originated productions. This isn't to say that the level of video noise is disturbing or interferes with viewing enjoyment; it's just more than usual in a film that has not gone through an analog stage of processing, uses an advanced codec, and does not otherwise show signs of overcompression.

After reexamining specific scenes, my conclusion is that the noise is a byproduct of boosting contrast and color saturation at the digital intermediate phase, and a decision was made not to risk losing detail for the sake of noise reduction. Certainly the colors in BE3R are much stronger and more saturated than what typically appears on raw footage from the Red One, especially the red of blood and the icy blues of the surroundings whenever Sam prepares to jump time. The urban desolation of Detroit, which is supposed to supply a general sense of motivation for Sam's crime-fighting actions, is depicted in impressive depth and detail, thanks to the image's superior black levels and overall clarity, despite the occasional touches of noise.

The Broken / The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Broken 4/5

The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is an interesting example of using sound less for atmosphere than for specific effects. It features an unusual number of sudden, loud effects, frequently placed off-camera or "over the shoulder", designed to startle, distract or disorient. The sounds of breaking glass and crashing metal are obvious examples, but dripping water and mysterious thumps are also used, along with a variety of other strange sounds that viewers are best left to discover on their own. Voices are generally clear, which is important, because most of the words exchanged in The Broken are spoken softly. The ominous score is by up-and-coming English composer Guy Farley.


The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations 4/5

The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track for BE3R goes for immersion rather than trying to call attention to the individual surround speakers. The approach is particularly effective when the world shakes and transforms for one of Sam's time "jumps". The track's bass extension is particularly deep and powerful, and if you don't notice it on the jumps, you'll notice it on the eclectic soundtrack, which uses rap selections to remind you periodically that you're in an urban jungle and pumps up the bass for those musical interludes appropriately. But the musical track has been effectively mixed to allow for seemingly effortless transition between the thump of rap and various moody ballads, such as the song "Rewind" that plays over the second half of the closing credits, with lyrics by director Grossman and music by Hungarian composer Adam Balazs, who also wrote the instrumental score.

The Broken / The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Miss Horrorfest Webisodes (SD; 1.78:1, enhanced; 57:48): Introduced by Melissa Jones, who plays "Vicki" in BE3R, these short web broadcasts track the search for her successor as Miss Horrorfest.


• Also from Lionsgate. The following trailers play at startup, where they can be skipped with the chapter forward and top menu buttons, and are also available from the special features menu.


• After Dark Originals
• My Bloody Valenine 3D
• Daybreakers
• The Haunting in Connecticut
• Cabin Fever: Terror in the Flesh
• Lionsgate on Blu-ray

The Broken / The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's solid nuts-and-bolts craftsmanship in the two films released on this Blu-ray, and the actors certainly can't be faulted for making the most out of what's on the page. As is usually the case with contemporary films, it's what's on the page that's the source of the problems. It's not a crime to be derivative, as BE3R is, as long as you supply enough originality to keep the audience from getting ahead of you; the film should be ahead of the audience, not vice versa. And it's not a mistake to concentrate on atmosphere, as The Broken does, as long as you also fulfill your duties as a storyteller (which the makers of The Broken neglected to do). If you happen to be programming your own festival of obscure horror films, you might consider adding one or both of these films to the mix. Otherwise, I can't recommend them.