Shattered (2025)

Director: William Brooke, John Ferrer, Arla Piacentini, Judson Vaughan

Year: 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Anthology

Plot:

A series of shorts offering bone-chilling tales.

Review:

1 Star Review-Desperate to fix his reputation, a chef invites a food critic who gave him a one-star review to his restaurant and seeks revenge for her actions. Overall, this was a fun and generally effective way to start things off. The concept is certainly intriguing enough and offers some chilling moments as the full reveal of his plan comes together against her, leading nicely into the series of encounters throughout the restaurant and kitchen, which includes some grisly moments. While his pettiness over something so innocuous and meaningless, since his career seems to be going well despite the few outliers, makes the story a bit hard to grasp at points, this still has quite a lot to like overall.

Burn-After his private life is made public, a woman and her son realize the kind of man he was through watching his old home videos. This was a genuinely fantastic segment that has quite a bit to like. The dark tone and extreme subject matter on display start this off with an intriguing note, especially with the format offering a somewhat exaggerated universe that gets brief mentions as it goes along. That makes for a great time here, making this come together over the course of the videotapes being watched, as that offers up a genuinely shocking surprise at the end, giving this one the most to enjoy.

The Verge-With climate change wrecking the planet, a group of combatants is selected to be the first to colonize outer space and undergo extensive training for the occasion. This was an intriguing idea, but it just never came together in the slightest. The world-building in such short order is a bit of a misstep, as it never makes much sense what’s going on or why the girls are fighting in random locations. The action is fun and hard-hitting at times, with the fighting being somewhat fun with its realistic choreography and setting, but the main thing here is just how little horror it has, so its odd placement might be a bit off-putting.

Hold Me Till the End-In the midst of several strange accidents, a woman fights desperately to make sure her partner stays with her despite every good intention possible. This was an intriguing, if somewhat mildly problematic entry. The central idea here is pretty harrowing, about the constant stress in the relationship and the idea of wanting to keep them safe so they can be together. That the partner is unwilling to see that and constantly tries to find ways of killing herself, so that every attempt at a normal life is flushed away, dealing with her as the attempt to help make her better doesn’t go as expected. Its horror credentials are a bit strained, but it’s still a generally solid segment.

Re-Birth-After losing her twin sister, a woman learns that a special company might be able to help her solve the dilemma about getting her back, which soon proves disastrous. For the most part, this was an intriguing idea that doesn’t really work that well in a short-form anthology segment like this. The whole concept involving the loss of her sister and the shady company we’re told can bring her back makes for a much more expansive type of world-building than we get here in this kind of shortened segment, and the whole thing is incredibly convoluted to the point where it's hard to make sense of anything. There are some great concepts at play, but it’s all because of the format that holds it down.

Overview: ***.5/5

An enjoyable anthology with some strong segments and not too many misses, there’s quite a lot to like here in most segments, as it is let down by only a few stories from being at the top of the genre. Give it a shot if you’re a hardcore fan of the style attempted here or anthology fanatics in general, while most others out there might want to heed caution.