Rebroken (2023)
Directed by Kenny Yates
Written by Scott Hamm Duenas
Starring Scott Hamm Duenas, Kipp Tribble, Alison Haislip
Release Date March 7th, 2023
Published March 3rd, 2023
Rebroken is a bizarre amalgamation of religious drama, horror, suspense, and The Twilight Zone, maybe? It all makes sense but it's so drawn out and melodramatic it becomes impossible to continue to care or pay attention. The film promises to deliver actor Tobin Bell, Jigsaw from the Saw franchise, but he's barely here in a mysterious role where he plays a homeless Jesus figure or possibly a villain leading our hero astray or maybe neither of those things. Mostly, Bell is here to draw in horror movie loyalists who might assume that Rebroken is some kind of Saw offshoot. It most certainly is not.
Scott Hamm Duenas stars in Rebroken as Will, a struggling alcoholic sentenced to take part in a grief support group. Will's daughter died while in his care while he was crawling inside a bottle of whiskey. Will's life, day to day, never seems to change. He has the same dream about his daughter dying, attends his support group, walks home, grabs a bottle of whiskey and a microwave dinner and drinks himself to sleep. This happens every night and we watch it happen over and over again with little variation until we are begging the movie to do anything different.
Rebroken finally shifts the story when one of Will's fellow support group members, Lydia (Nija Okoro), points him in the direction of a mysterious homeless man. Von (Tobin Bell) speaks cryptically about Will being on a path and appears to promise Will that his daughter will come back if Will stays on the path and listens to what Von has to tell him. Von gifts Will a series of records labeled with bible verses that feature Von narrating vaguely spiritual, vaguely motivational aphorisms that seem to awaken something in Will.
Find my full length review at Geeks.Media
