Hack! starts as seven college students & their teacher Mr Argento (executive producer & producer Mike Wittlin) that signed up for a biology project board a boat & sail to a small isolated island owned by husband & wife Vincent (Sean Kanan) & Mary Shelley King (Juliet Landau) to study the indigenous wildlife, what could possibly go wrong? Well the fact that Vincent & Mary Shelley are both homicidal snuff film makers who are working on their masterpiece & want our bunch of teens to star in it could cut their careers in biology rather short...
Written & directed by Matt Flyn this a is a fairly good teen slasher that could have been better but could just have easily been worse. The script which never takes itself too seriously is a fan-boy geeks wet dream come true, it's absolutely stuffed with film references, homages, rip-offs & clichés. In fact I don't think I've ever seen another film as blatant as Hack! when it comes to stealing dialogue, situations, name-checking actors & referring to loads of other films. From lines like 'was Psycho shot here?' to discussions on their favourite horror films to an Indiana Jones rip-off as someone does some fancy karate moves before someone just shoots him to bits of scenery like the boat which is called the Orca definitely as in the killer whale flick Orca (1977) then the snuff film makers base their film on other films like The Birds (1963), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) & Hellraiser (1987) among others to the way someone talks about the people on the island in terms of film clichés & several character's are named after horror film icons, Mr Argento anyone? This constant self referential fan-boy dialogue is fun at times but does get a bit old as literally every opportunity is used to slip a film title, cliché or homage into the story. Then there's the fact that the snuff film doesn't really feature that much or is particularly relevant, basically this is a Friday the 13th (1980) teen slasher with a thin snuff film sub plot that doesn't amount to much except for a few throw away lines at the end. Then there's the character's who are alright but not brilliant, the teens aren't too annoying but why did Vincent suddenly turn on his wife Mary Shelley & kill her? There's no reason, motivation or explanation for it at all. Then there's that Scottish guy Willy, where the hell did he come from & who was he? He is never given any back-story & just suddenly turns up without any satisfactory explanation.
Director Flyn does a pretty good job here, it's well made & it actually looks like a proper film which many low budget horrors can't boast. It's not overly stylish or imaginative but it looks nice enough. I wouldn't say it's scary as it's too silly. The gore is decent but it definitely feels like an 'R' rated film, the blood & violence just seems restrained & quite brief. There are decapitations, severed limbs, someone gets a hook through the back of their head, someone is killed with a chainsaw & their severed upper torso is seen, someones head is bashed with a mallet, someone gets an axe in the stomach, someone gets a chunk of flesh bitten from their neck, someone falls down a well & is impaled on branches/spikes at the bottom, someone gets a axe in the shoulder, people are shot with arrows & there are several shotgun kills including a shot of the back of someones head exploding open.
With a supposed healthy sounding budget of about $2,000,000 technically the film is good, everything considered even impressive. Most low budget horror flicks don't look anywhere near as good as this. The special effects are good with the absolute minimum usage of horrible CGI & the satisfying use of proper on set special make-up prosthetic effects. The acting is alright I suppose, the teen cast is suitably good looking both boys & girls even though personally I'm only interested in the girls.
Hack! is an OK teen slasher, forget about the snuff film angle because it doesn't feature that prominently & therefore it's a silly Friday the 13th clone which has some decent gore & some amusing fan-boy dialogue although it does get old before it's end. If your a horror fan then Hack! is well worth a watch especially when you consider the crap that gets released these days, definitely one of the better low budget horror film from this year.
Written & directed by Matt Flyn this a is a fairly good teen slasher that could have been better but could just have easily been worse. The script which never takes itself too seriously is a fan-boy geeks wet dream come true, it's absolutely stuffed with film references, homages, rip-offs & clichés. In fact I don't think I've ever seen another film as blatant as Hack! when it comes to stealing dialogue, situations, name-checking actors & referring to loads of other films. From lines like 'was Psycho shot here?' to discussions on their favourite horror films to an Indiana Jones rip-off as someone does some fancy karate moves before someone just shoots him to bits of scenery like the boat which is called the Orca definitely as in the killer whale flick Orca (1977) then the snuff film makers base their film on other films like The Birds (1963), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) & Hellraiser (1987) among others to the way someone talks about the people on the island in terms of film clichés & several character's are named after horror film icons, Mr Argento anyone? This constant self referential fan-boy dialogue is fun at times but does get a bit old as literally every opportunity is used to slip a film title, cliché or homage into the story. Then there's the fact that the snuff film doesn't really feature that much or is particularly relevant, basically this is a Friday the 13th (1980) teen slasher with a thin snuff film sub plot that doesn't amount to much except for a few throw away lines at the end. Then there's the character's who are alright but not brilliant, the teens aren't too annoying but why did Vincent suddenly turn on his wife Mary Shelley & kill her? There's no reason, motivation or explanation for it at all. Then there's that Scottish guy Willy, where the hell did he come from & who was he? He is never given any back-story & just suddenly turns up without any satisfactory explanation.
Director Flyn does a pretty good job here, it's well made & it actually looks like a proper film which many low budget horrors can't boast. It's not overly stylish or imaginative but it looks nice enough. I wouldn't say it's scary as it's too silly. The gore is decent but it definitely feels like an 'R' rated film, the blood & violence just seems restrained & quite brief. There are decapitations, severed limbs, someone gets a hook through the back of their head, someone is killed with a chainsaw & their severed upper torso is seen, someones head is bashed with a mallet, someone gets an axe in the stomach, someone gets a chunk of flesh bitten from their neck, someone falls down a well & is impaled on branches/spikes at the bottom, someone gets a axe in the shoulder, people are shot with arrows & there are several shotgun kills including a shot of the back of someones head exploding open.
With a supposed healthy sounding budget of about $2,000,000 technically the film is good, everything considered even impressive. Most low budget horror flicks don't look anywhere near as good as this. The special effects are good with the absolute minimum usage of horrible CGI & the satisfying use of proper on set special make-up prosthetic effects. The acting is alright I suppose, the teen cast is suitably good looking both boys & girls even though personally I'm only interested in the girls.
Hack! is an OK teen slasher, forget about the snuff film angle because it doesn't feature that prominently & therefore it's a silly Friday the 13th clone which has some decent gore & some amusing fan-boy dialogue although it does get old before it's end. If your a horror fan then Hack! is well worth a watch especially when you consider the crap that gets released these days, definitely one of the better low budget horror film from this year.