AFTER WATCHING a series of serious but overrated Oscar nominated films, it’s quite a relief to watch a trashy schlock erotic thriller like “Shattered”.
The film is definitely not original as it has echoes of “Misery”, “Single White Female”, “The Collector” and other home invasion genre thrillers.
As a matter of fact, it’s the kind of movie that critics would love to tear to pieces but hey, who says we’re not entitled to enjoy our guilty pleasures?
“Shattered” is about a very wealthy tech whiz who earned millions from a computer app he created, Chris Decker (Cameron Monaghan, from the long-running TV series “Shameless”).
He is rich but now separated from his wife, Jamie (Sasha Luss). He’s trying to win her back but she rejects him and he terribly misses their cute daughter, Willow (Ridely Bateman.)
While in a convenience store, he meets by chance a pretty and sexy blonde, Sky (Lilly Krug). Alone and lonely, he befriends her and invites her to his beautiful mansion in the hills.
They quickly become passionate lovers and once, when Chris confronts a car thief who tries to break his car window, the thief mauls him and he gets a broken leg.
He feels lucky that Sky is there to act as his personal nurse while he’s confined to a wheelchair.
You’d think this is a sweet love story, but it soon turns into a suspense-thriller as it appears that Sky has more sinister things in mind.
We won’t reveal much as it would be a spoiler but the film that starts with unbridled sex turns into ugly gore and violence.
There are other characters, like John Malkovich as the voyeuristic owner of a sleazy hotel who has his own designs on Sky, Frank Grillo as an unlikely partner in crime and Ash Santos as Lisa, Sky’s lesbian lover who meets an untimely death.
The movie offers cheap thrills but it is fast moving and the direction by Luis Prieto is quite sleek and no-nonsense.
He puts into good use the film’s basic location: the lavish mansion of Chris where all the action takes place.
You might think you’ve seen this kind of thriller before but Prieto knows how to go one step further to bring us some nasty surprises.
Cameron Monaghan does quite well as the unsuspecting but much harassed protagonist, specially when it dawns on him that he is dealing with a psychopath.
But it’s Lilly Krug who gets the better role as Sky.
At first, she’s so bubbly and pert, innocent looking even, but it turns out she’s a femme fatale about as charming and deadly as Sharon Stone in “Basic Instinct” and Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction”.
She invests so much spiky energy into her role you’d feel she’s really enjoying it as she's crackling with glee as she does all the deranged things she does in the movie.
Neither she or the movie will win awards but heck, after “Power of the Dog”, “Nightmare Alley”, “Licorice Pizza” and other overrated flicks, we surely enjoyed watching them more.
