Shattered Expectations
If you’ve ever woken up from a nap and thought, “Wait, who am I, and why am I watching this?” — congratulations, you’ve just experienced the Fractured viewing experience.
Directed by Adam Gierasch (Night of the Demons remake, which suddenly looks like Citizen Kane by comparison), Fractured is a psychological horror film about memory loss, guilt, and the crushing weight of boredom. It’s like Mementoif Christopher Nolan had directed it while concussed and filming through a damp sock.
The movie’s tagline might as well have been: “He’s losing his mind. And we’re losing our patience.”
The Plot (or Lack Thereof)
We meet Dylan White (Callum Blue), a man with no memory of his life before waking from a coma. He’s a line cook in Baton Rouge, which already sounds like hell, and for the first twenty minutes, that’s all he does — flip burgers, smoke cigarettes, and stare into the middle distance like he’s contemplating his contract.
Everything’s fine until Dylan starts having horrifying visions — which, in this case, means quick flashes of red lighting, mutilated faces, and sound design that feels like someone dropped a blender into a jet engine. These visions force him to confront the mystery of who he really is, but mostly, they force us to confront how long ninety minutes can feel.
Soon, Dylan’s idyllic post-coma life starts unraveling as he remembers fragments of his past. Spoiler: he wasn’t exactly a nice guy. Shocking, right? The man haunted by literal demons turns out to have been a jerk.
The big reveal — and don’t worry, I’m not saving this for later — is that Dylan used to be Jaron, a hitman, pimp, or possibly a very confused demon-enthusiast. The film never quite decides. What it does decide, however, is that this revelation will be presented in the most confusing, drawn-out way possible, like a therapy session directed by David Lynch’s intern.
Callum Blue: The Man, The Blank Slate
Callum Blue (Dead Like Me) plays Dylan/Jaron with all the emotional range of a man trying to remember if he left the stove on. His performance is a fascinating study in underreaction. Whether he’s seeing ghosts, having flashbacks of torture, or learning his entire identity is a lie, his facial expression remains locked somewhere between “mildly constipated” and “forgot the Wi-Fi password.”
To his credit, the script gives him nothing to work with. Dylan isn’t so much a character as he is a human question mark wrapped in a meat apron. He spends most of the film wandering Baton Rouge like a hungover tourist looking for his Airbnb.
You want to root for him, but it’s hard when he seems so thoroughly uninterested in what’s happening. When he finally uncovers his dark past, the moment lands with all the emotional weight of finding out your Uber is five minutes late.
Vinnie Jones: The Only Man Awake on Set
The film’s one spark of life comes from Vinnie Jones, who shows up as Quincy, a gruff, tattooed thug who looks like he just wandered in from a better movie. Jones, bless his gravelly soul, delivers every line as if he’s been paid by the decibel. He’s loud, angry, and gloriously incomprehensible — and for about ten minutes, Fractured becomes a violent fever dream worth watching.
Then he disappears for most of the film, and the energy plummets faster than Dylan’s blood pressure during a coma flashback.
When Jones returns, it’s to growl a few cryptic lines about hell, sin, and redemption before disappearing again, presumably to collect his paycheck and drive home at twice the speed limit.
Baton Rouge Noir (with Discount Filters)
Visually, Fractured wants to be grimy and stylish — a Southern Gothic noir dripping with atmosphere. What we get instead looks like it was filmed entirely through a bottle of cheap whiskey.
Every scene is drenched in an unholy mix of green and yellow filters, as if the cinematographer decided to shoot through a jar of old pickle juice. The camera wobbles just enough to make you wonder if the operator was standing on a trampoline.
Baton Rouge could’ve been an interesting setting — a sweaty, neon underworld of sin and decay. Instead, it feels like the world’s longest Motel 6 commercial, minus the charm.
And let’s talk about those “visions.” Imagine a high school PowerPoint presentation made by someone obsessed with Nine Inch Nails and migraine auras. There’s fire, screaming, naked people painted in chalk — and none of it means anything. It’s like Hell’s sizzle reel edited by someone who just discovered Adobe Premiere.
The Supporting Cast: Victims of Circumstance
Ashlynn Yennie (The Human Centipede) appears as Brandy, Dylan’s love interest. Her main job is to look concerned, whisper “Are you okay?” a lot, and then disappear once the plot gets bored of her.
Nicole LaLiberte (Kaboom) plays Marlena, the femme fatale who seems to exist purely to remind us that lipstick is evil. She slinks around smoky rooms, delivers cryptic exposition, and occasionally shoots people — which, frankly, makes her the most relatable character in the movie.
Everyone else exists as filler — bartenders, hookers, random hallucinations, and a few people who might not even be real. At one point, Dylan encounters a man whose sole purpose is to tell him something vague and then die. It’s like the world’s worst escape room, staffed entirely by ghosts who didn’t read the script.
The Themes: Sin, Identity, and Audience Fatigue
Fractured really wants to say something deep about redemption and the duality of man. You can tell because everyone keeps monologuing about “the darkness inside” and “the price of sin,” like they’re auditioning for a 2003 Silent Hillgame.
Unfortunately, the film’s philosophical ambitions are undercut by the fact that it doesn’t make sense. The more Dylan remembers, the less we understand. It’s supposed to feel like a descent into madness; instead, it feels like trying to assemble IKEA furniture while blindfolded and being yelled at by demons.
By the end, we learn that Dylan’s visions are manifestations of guilt — or Hell — or maybe just bad editing. Whatever it is, it doesn’t land. The supposed twist (that he’s already damned, or dead, or both) arrives not with a bang, but with a shrug.
It’s the cinematic equivalent of someone whispering, “Get it?” after an hour and a half of incoherent screaming.
The Horror: More Yawn Than Yikes
For a “psychological horror,” Fractured isn’t particularly frightening. It’s got all the standard tricks — strobe lights, creepy whispers, flashes of gore — but no rhythm, no buildup, no payoff.
The scares are so randomly inserted they start to feel like pop-up ads in a very long, very sad YouTube video. You’re just getting used to a scene, and suddenly: BAM! A bloody face! A sound effect! A guy screaming in slow motion!
And then, nothing. Silence. A sigh. Another cigarette.
It’s as if the editor kept nodding off and occasionally hit “insert jump scare” just to stay awake.
The Ending: Dante’s Inferno by Way of Baton Rouge
In the grand finale, Dylan confronts his sins, his past, and possibly Satan. Or maybe it’s just bad lighting. Either way, he accepts his fate — which seems to involve being stuck in a metaphor forever.
The last shot is supposed to be haunting. It’s not. It’s just Callum Blue standing in a dimly lit alley, looking confused, which, to be fair, mirrors the audience perfectly.
The Verdict: A Mind-Bender That Forgot the Mind
Fractured wants to be a trippy psychological descent into hell. What it ends up being is a mildly confusing trip to the DMV — with demons.
It’s a movie about identity that never finds its own, a thriller with no thrills, and a horror film that’s mostly horrifying because it’s still playing.
If you’re into movies where people whisper about sin in empty rooms while the camera shakes like it’s having an existential crisis, this one’s for you.
For everyone else: maybe just take a nap. You’ll wake up confused, too — but at least it’ll only take two hours.
Rating: 3 out of 10 Forgotten Identities.
Because the real psychological horror is realizing you paid money to watch Vinnie Jones be the most interesting thing in a movie about Hell.
