Genre Horror

Shattered (2025)

Item: Shattered
Rating: 1.0
Author: Ross McLaren

★ — Shattered (2025)

Right, full disclosure before I get into this one: the production company, Cine Circle Films, asked me to review Shattered, so take that as you will. I've tried to be as fair as I can, and honestly, I think the film earns its score through its own merits and limitations in roughly equal measure. It's a British anthology of five short horror films (though calling them all horror is a stretch, as we'll get to), and it's very clearly a low-budget affair. But here's the thing: I'm a grindhouse fan. Always have been. And this has that spirit running right through it. If these five shorts had been made in the seventies, we'd probably be saying "oh, remember that cult classic?" So let's treat it in that spirit.

The opener, 1-Star Review, is about a chef who murders people who leave him bad reviews, then edits the reviews on their phones afterwards. Far-fetched? Absolutely. But it works in that daft, pulpy way that good grindhouse always does. The camera quality is solid, the premise is just ridiculous enough to be fun. Five stars from me, obviously. I'm not taking any chances.

Then comes Burn, which I actually think is the stronger of the two opening shorts. It's a mystery piece following a mother and child trying to rebuild their lives in the wake of a murderer who eventually "opts out." It's got a decent twist, the acting holds up well across the board, and it feels like it has something genuine to say. A solid two and a half stars on its own terms.

The Verge is where things get bumpy for me. Set in a 2086 London ravaged by climate change, it follows three women racing to the top of a skyscraper with the promise of a match waiting at the summit. That premise could be interesting, but the execution leans into this strange combination of eighties synth music and what I can only describe as parlour martial arts choreography. It's odd. It doesn't fit tonally with anything else in the anthology, there's nothing remotely horror about it, and it drags the overall package down. Two stars, and that's being generous.

Hold Me Till the End won me back a bit. A woman keeps killing herself, day after day, and the woman she lives with is caught in a Groundhog Day loop, desperately trying different ways to stop her. I'll admit I was confused for a fair chunk of it, but it clicks into place by the end. It's more psychological thriller than horror, but it's got real emotional weight underneath it. Three stars.

The anthology closes with Re-birth, in which a grieving woman is told by a mysterious autopsy technician that there may still be hope for her dead twin. I genuinely wasn't sure where it was going for most of its runtime. Then: vampires. Fair enough. What elevates this one above its script is the lead performance, which is the best acting in the entire collection. It's a shame the story keeps its cards so close to its chest that it tips over into confusing. Two and a half stars.

Taken together, there's no real cohesion here. Each short feels like it came from a completely different filmmaker with completely different intentions, and that's probably because that's exactly what happened. An anthology needs something to bind its segments, even if it's just a wraparound or a consistent tone. Shattered doesn't really have that. What it does have is scrappy energy, a genuine commitment from most of its cast and crew, and the unmistakable feel of people making films because they love making films. I can respect that a great deal.

If you're a fan of old-school horror anthologies, something like The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) scratches a completely different itch, but it shows how much mileage a committed genre effort can get out of limited resources. Shattered is working in a similar spirit, even if it doesn't always land.

Three and a half stars. That's the fairest number I've got. If two and a half is average and three is above average, then the good parts here push it just over the line. Mostly. The Verge is doing its best to drag it back down, but the rest of the anthology earns it.

Rating: ★ | Year: 2025 | Watched: 2025-07-11

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