Hack! (2007)

Wanting to raise their grades, a handful of college kids are randomly selected for a field trip to study wildlife, but don't get the chance as cliché horror film-style murders occur.

Director:

Matt Flynn

Writer:

Matt Flynn

Stars:

Danica McKellar, Jay Kenneth Johnson, Juliet Landau

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Danica McKellar	...	Emily
Jay Kenneth Johnson	...	Johnny
Juliet Landau	...	Mary Shelley
Tony Burton	...	Sheriff Stoker
Justin Chon	...	Ricky
Travis Schuldt	...	Tim
Mike Wittlin	...	Mr. Argento
Adrienne Frantz	...	Maddy
Gabrielle Richens	...	Sylvia
Burt Young	...	J.T. Bates
Noah Guy	...	Tatooed Keg Pumper
Sean Kanan	...	Vincent King
William Forsythe	...	Willy
Kane Hodder	...	First Victim
Won-G	...	'Q' (as Wondgy Bruny)

Storyline

Seven college students, who make up of the bookish Emily; friendly bad-guy Johnny; punk girl Maddy; the token gay Ricky; gangster-rapper 'Q'; British exchange student Sylvia; and football stud Tim; are picked to travel to a private island owned by the reclusive Vincent King and his film-obsessed wife Mary Shelley to study island wildlife. But is isn't long when a mysterious killer begins killing the students one-by-one, and modeling them after gory murder scenes from numerous horror films. Are the eccentric Vincent and Mary Shelley the killers? if so, who is the mysterious fisherman lurking around the grounds of the island? Plus, does Emily know a lot more of what is going on then she claims to?

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Plot Keywords:

island | college student | slasher | horror spoof | clown | 

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Taglines:

Reality Kills.

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Genres:

Comedy | Horror

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong horror violence and gore, nudity, sexuality, language and drug use

Details

Official Sites:

Official soundtrack site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

11 December 2007 (USA)

Also Known As:

Chainsaw Slaughter

Filming Locations:

Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$2,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Smithfield Street Productions, Autumn Entertainment, Autumn Film Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

89 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Last role for Tony Burton who died in 2016.

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Goofs

(at around 10 mins) During the shots of Emily talking while supposedly moving at a moderate speed on the boat, it is obvious the boat is stationary as the water directly behind her is hardly moving. A scene lasting a minute, surely a mistake.

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Connections

Spoofs The Ring (2002)

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Soundtracks

Oh No Not My Baby
(uncredited)
Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King
Performed by Aretha Franklin
Played while Tim and Sylvia were on a blanket in a clearing in the woods

User Reviews

average horror let down by idiocy

Some things, despite being good, should never have happened: N.W.A. caused the creative hip-hop of the 80s to be buried underneath hordes of unpleasant gangsta rappers; Disney-Pixar's magical films have replaced the charm of hand-drawn animation with sterile CGI; postmodern horror classic Scream launched a thousand dull horror films that thought they were clever. Which brings me to Hack!, a film that very much follows Scream's template, with a touch of (underdeveloped) reality TV satire. Seven students and their teacher come to an island for a biology project; soon, of course, they are being hacked apart. Hack! tries to freshen up its slasher clichés by introducing a snuff twist, but it adds nothing to the film other than some annoying shots through an old-fashioned, wind-up camera, while the way the film tempers its classical horror references (The Birds, Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre) with more modern phenomena (Saw, cult TV series Desperate Housewives, reality show Survivor) feels like a desperate bid to be hip.

Technically, this film is a mess. Shots slip randomly in and out of focus: some are a few seconds long, some scenes continue far after their end; continuity seems to have been deliberately disregarded, the music seems to be totally unrelated to what is happening on the film (I believe if you listen to your favourite album while you watch, a la Dark Side of the Rainbow, it will match up better); in one scene, it is so clear stock footage is being used that you feel a bit embarrassed.

The script fares no better: moronic characters spout film references with such unsubtlety that every gentle nod is a headbutt, every playful nudge an elbow in the ribs. The acting is appallingly inane (other than the always-lovely Danica McKellar's turn as Emily) and plot holes gape at you at every moment: characters act with no motivation, every boy and girl couple up despite having nothing in common. In spite of all its flaws, however, there is something likable about Hack!. I can't for the life of me place what it is, but it's there. This is a film, bless it, that really tries hard, but it ultimately fails. It fails because it wallows in its own stupidity while trying to be all clever-clever with the audience, it fails because it believes that pointing out that it is full of clichés prevents the clichés from being boring, and it fails because its constant self-referentiality soon becomes a drag. People, it's been eleven years since Scream; surely it's time for a new horror bandwagon?

In the end, while I would sincerely like to declare this film a cult classic, I cannot possibly score it in the upper half of scores - so it gets a 4, the highest score a bad film can get.