Fractured (2019)

A couple stops at a gas station, where their 6 y.o. daughter's arm is fractured. They hurry to a hospital. Something strange is going on there. The wife and daughter go missing.

Review

Director Brad Anderson (Session 9) does a solid job with a solid screenplay from writer Alan B. McElroy (Wrong Turn). And this is what is seemingly wrong with a great deal of Netflix original horror movies...they're solid. They're no risk. Look at the pedigree of the writer (Wrong Turn, Halloween 4, The Vampire Diaries) and the director (The Machinist, Session 9, The Call), and this was the best they could come up with. Netflix is becoming nothing more than a high budget Blumhouse.

Well, let's talk about the film.

Rushing to a hospital in the middle of no where after an accident, things start to go awry for husband and father, Ray, when the reports of the hospital don't match his own experiences. It's a little dry, and perhaps predictable, but at least for the first half of the film, there are plenty of taut scenes. It ramps until the end of the second act and then starts to fall to pieces.

Holding it together is the surprisingly good performance from Sam Worthington, whose shot at being a leading man was a decade ago in Terminator Salvation, Avatar, and Clash of the Titans. Worthington wasn't a hit, and has done little of note since. That said, he's clearly been streamlining his talents and puts in a rather excellent performance here - certainly the best I've ever seen him. The supporting cast are good too.

Sadly the third act is a let down - particularly the big reveal. It's tragic that these Netflix films want to rely so heavily on a twist which makes little sense. This film along with Eli, In the Tall Grass, and Rattlesnake were made and released for Halloween 2019. The Eli review is here, and suffers badly with the same problems. We'll keep everything crossed for the other two.

An engaging thriller at the start, with plenty of who's lying and what's happened, but falling over before the end, it's not a bad watch - for perhaps the performances alone. There are some spoilers in the rant after the rating for those interested.

Spoilers

To be honest, I find all these horror films with 'bad' endings to be much of the same. The unreliable narrator is a clever storytelling tool, but this film, and Eli, spring a gotcha and well, everything sucks now, at the last second, and it's damned frustrating. I was invested in Worthington's character, I was enjoying the evil hospital plot. It was different enough. It was...fun. Then for the film to pull, oh, actually Ray's a psycho and nothing has been real the whole time is just infuriating. The Eli is the son of The Devil was the same. 

I'm kind of sick of these ass-pulls that make little to no sense, especially in films that could have been good.

/rant