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The eco-horror movie Broken Beak is clearly a labor of love for writer and director Christian Carroll. The film’s credits reveal how many roles Carroll took on to get the project made—and Carroll’s message of respecting the planet and its wildlife is loud and clear. But it’s lead actor Briar Rose who’s actually the driving force of this feature.
Broken Beak, also called The Burning of Broken Beak, follows a familiar “nature gets its revenge on man” and “eat the rich” pattern as M.J. Bassett’s eco-action thrillers Rogue and Endangered Species. Like those films, there is a very clear good guy and a very clear bad guy from jump. Viewers will be able to clock 90 percent of the plot of Broken Beak from the first 15 minutes. As a result, the movie has to rely heavily on its lead performance to make the audience want to take that journey—and Rose is able to carry the film to the bloody finish line.
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Rose portrays Emma, a Maori photographer and activist who is the total opposite of the villainous rich. She’s an artist, she’s queer, she’s vegan; she would feel like an archetype, if Rose wasn’t able to make her so relatable. The audience understands all of the emotional phases that Emma goes through, from apathy to fear to inevitable anger. Even though they know by virtue of genre that her journey will not end well, it feels like she has a well-defined character arc.
The same can’t be said for the other characters in Broken Beak; as is the case with many horror movies, they are relatively one-dimensional players who exist merely to be killed off. Even Emma’s girlfriend is underdeveloped; her biggest character trait is her near-constant use of profanity. While there’s nothing wrong with some swearing—especially in a horror film where people are being murdered—the language loses any impact it may have had because it gets thrown out so often.
This is really a two-hander between Emma and the title character, whom she first believes is just the monster from a children’s story, until that story turns out to be be a curse on her family. The appeal of Broken Beak comes from watching Rose as Emma descends into darkness; the struggle feels genuine, even if the outcome seems obvious. The murder-y part becomes less interesting than Emma’s journey between deaths.
Carroll deserves credit for a number of strong creative choices. First and foremost, it’s a pleasure to see Maori representation and to learn a little bit more about the culture. It’s also appreciated that the murders in the film are not overly gory, even when the movie reaches its crescendo. This isn’t a horror project that relies on shock value. What keeps Broken Beak from being completely successful is that it gets a little too creative, particularly at its beginning and end. The last 30 minutes of the film are tonally dissonant from the rest of the movie, even allowing for the fact that this is when things are supposed to be heightened. Some viewers also may not take to the animated sequences explaining the Broken Beak story; they’re an interesting way to tell the tale, but feel like the horror equivalent of the animated asides in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
The pro-environment, anti-greed message that Carroll wants to send is incredibly clear. Audiences will leave this movie having no doubt what the filmmaker’s intentions are. But what makes Broken Beak worth going into is the character and actor at its core. Briar Rose holds the viewer’s attention strongly enough that the obvious theme and the relative simplicity of the plot doesn’t matter. Once they get past the first half-hour, they care about Emma all the way to the end. Hopefully Broken Beak opens up more doors both for Rose as a leading actor, and for Carroll to tell more stories with Maori representation. It may not be the most unique film, but there are some unique voices here that deserve to be heard.
For more on Broken Beak, visit the film’s IMDb page. Photo Credit: Courtesy of the filmmakers.
Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at [email protected].
