Hack!

Plot synopsis:
On a small island, a man (Kane Hodder) is chased by an unseen figure. As he stops to catch his breath, he is decapitated by his pursuer. Meanwhile, a group of teenage college students, including the social outcast Emily (Danica McKellar), Emily's love interest Johnny (Jay Kenneth Johnson), the flamboyant homosexual Ricky (Justin Chon), jock Tim (Travis Schuldt), boyish lesbian Maddy (Adrienne Frantz), stoner Q (Won-G) and girly-girl Sylvia (Gabrielle Richens), are chosen to go on a field trip to a small island. The group, along with their teacher Mr. Argento (Mike Wittlin), meet Captain J.T. Bates (Burt Young) who takes them to the island on his boat. Here, the group meet the eccentric couple Vincent King (Sean Kanan) and Mary Shelley (Juliet Landau) who they will be staying with. Mary begins to film the group on her hand-held recorder, saying that she is an aspiring director.
At night, while the group settle in and have dinner with Vincent and Mary, Mr. Argento finds he has to leave the island to retrieve some equipment. However arriving at the boat, Mr. Argento finds J.T. has been murdered. Meanwhile, the students have a bonfire on the beach. Q leaves the group only to be startled by a figure dressed up as a clown. When he tells the others the incident is ignored and everyone goes to bed, not knowing Mr. Argento has also been murdered. The following day, Sheriff Stoker (Tony Burton) arrives on the island in search of a missing hunter. He questions Vincent and Mary, but both deny ever seeing him, so the Sheriff leaves. Soon after, Tim and Sylvia sneak into the forest to have sex, but are quickly attacked by the killer who murders Tim with a chainsaw. Sylvia is chased through the forest but is eventually caught, before being locked in a cage in an underground dungeon. At dinner, Emily becomes concerned with the various group disappearances, before she realises the phone lines are down, however Vincent and Mary convince everyone there is nothing to worry about. The students again have a bonfire on the beach, while Q decides to try and search for a phone signal. He encounters the clown once again, who swiftly crushes his neck and kills him. With Q now also missing, Emily, Johnny, Ricky and Maddy enter the forest to find their fellow students. Meanwhile, Vincent and Mary are shown watching videos of various murders they have committed and filmed, revealing the couple are making a snuff film.
Sheriff Stoker, having become suspicious about Vincent and Mary returns to the island, however he is quickly murdered by the couple with an axe. Ricky and Maddy search the forest, but Maddy is soon knocked unconscious by Vincent and Mary while Ricky flees. Maddy awakens sometime later tied to a tree where she encounters Willy (William Forsythe) who sets her free and tells her she can escape on his boat. While chasing Ricky through the forest, Vincent and Mary stop to record some footage. Vincent bites a chunk out of Mary's neck which eventually kills her, before Ricky attacks Vincent but is ultimately shot dead himself. As Johnny and Emily search the forest, Johnny finally kisses her. Overhearing Ricky's death, Johnny leaves to investigate. Meanwhile, Maddy searches for Willy's boat, but instead finds Emily standing next to a water well. Maddy warns Emily about the murders, but Emily unexpectedly pushes Maddy down the well where she is impaled on a spike. Vincent emerges from a nearby tree, congratulating Emily for her performance and luring the students to the island. Vincent informs Emily that Mary is now dead, and it is revealed the pair were having an affair behind Mary's back. Johnny soon returns to Emily, but is knocked unconscious by Vincent.
Johnny awakens in the dungeon and finds Sylvia still trapped in the cage, which is hanging above a pool of piranha fish. Willy arrives and frees Johnny, but Vincent and Emily also arrive and shoot Willy in the chest with an arrow, presumably killing him. In the ensuing fight, Vincent is severely injured and Sylvia is plunged into the pool of piranha. Johnny is chased to the beach where he is caught by Vincent and Emily. However Willy reveals himself to have survived and shoots Vincent dead, but Emily quickly shoots Willy in the head, killing him. Johnny continues to fight with Emily, before Sylvia also reveals herself to have survived and she finally kills Emily. Deputy Radley (Lochlyn Munro) then arrives on the island to take Johnny and Sylvia home. In a flashback scene, Deputy Radley is shown to be involved with the snuff film, leaving it unknown if Johnny and Sylvia were saved or were murdered also.

Tags: violence

Review:
It tries to talk you into believing that it's a tribute to classic campy slasher films, it dazzles you with good production design, cinematography and some fairly decent actors, but ultimately it turns to tired slapstick and surrealism without purpose, all courtesy of the only horrifying aspect of this movie; the script!
My advice: pick any one of the 20+ classic horror movies that this movie references and watch that again, odds are good that you'll have a better time!.
Some of the actors are actually really good, but not in this film, a lot of the dialogue just makes them sound stupid.
is one of those tongue-in-cheek scary movies that thinks it's being original, witty and clever by referencing past horror classics and playing on the stereotypes and clichés of the genre, when in fact, nothing could be further from the truth: loading a film with exaggerated characters named after well-known horror icons, and having them make post-modern observations and spout self-conscious dialogue is not only a very stale routine, but in this particular case also somewhat insulting to its intended horror-savvy audience, to whom these nods to the movies they love will seem extremely obvious and rather irritating.Fortunately, as tired and predictable as the format may be, the film does have its positives, in the very welcome form of juicy gore and tasty babes!
Director Matt Flynn wisely sees fit to include plenty of splattery kills, including a bloody chainsaw attack, a gory hook through the eye, and a shotgun blast to the head, and the fine selection of hotties include one time Buffy vamp Juliet Landau, the stunning Gabrielle Richens (who happily gets her ample norks out), and Danica McKellar of The Wonder Years fame, who regrettably keeps her kit on, thus disappointing the legion of pervs who always wondered what a grown up Winnie might look like in the buff.Throw in a creepy clown, killers dressed in Japanese costume for absolutely no reason, and a pool of piranha, and what you have is a very cheesy, non-essential popcorn flick that won't win any awards for originality, but which is just about daft enough, sexy enough and silly enough for it to still warrant a watch..
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.
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.
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..
A group of students go to an island to study biology, although they all seem to like discussing horror films and almost no one wants to actually do their work.
The movie rips off other horror films -- many character names are horror-based (Argento, Carpenter, etc.) and there's countless references (the boat being named Orca after the "we're going to need a bigger boat" line was awesome).
and even if you do, it might take a special kind of humor (the film is called "Hack" -- lighten up!).Treat the movie like a game, and see how many references and rip-offs you can catch.
I guarantee you I missed some of the references -- now I have to watch it again, and I gladly would.Horror fans will also like the nudity (it's limited but it's here) and the blood.
No it's not groundbreaking in any ways shape or form and yes the characters are all stereotypes and yes the acting is a bit dodgy and yes it's riddled with clichés.But, that's sort of the point, it's meant to be a spoof on the genre.Now I'm not saying it's a great film (or maybe even a good one) by any means but personally I think it's more entertaining than for instance the 'Scary Movie' films.
At least this has a fairly coherent plot and does not rely solely on stealing scenes from other movies and putting a funny twist to them but deals more in terms with homages.It's a comedy first and horror second, and although some of the jokes are a bit on the cheap side (well most tbh) and don't always work overall it does fairly well at entertaining the 80 minutes it's on.With some decent kills as well as some overthetop twists, twists that had this been a serious movie one would have rolled their eyes over but as this is not it works at poking fun on the genre.Best bits are the scenes with William Forsythe as a good ol Scottish laddie, they are just a couple but they are pretty hilarious..
Odd slasher film.It's filled with a bunch of known actors.That doesn't make it good, of course.The students are cardboard cutouts.Stereotyped characters so they aren't so interesting.Some decent nudity however so that's a bonus.The Plot.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.
apparently suffers from "Scream Sickness", a mental illness related to "Tarantino Disorder", a malady effecting too many young filmmakers these days where they think that by making annoying references to things deemed "cool" in their movie that the coolness rubs off onto their film, only the difference being that people suffering from Scream Sickness make endless references to the horror genre in particular.A personable young cast and a bunch of cameos by great character actors can't redeem such a rotten script as this.
has more likable characters, better comedy (especially how the movie often doesn't take itself seriously - which unfortunately is also a reason why the ending wasn't a surprise for me...) and more gore.but of course hack!
i don't know if the drusilla-like influences in landau's performance were on purpose but while i enjoyed the possible reference on the one hand, i also felt like these moments didn't really fit in with the way her character behaves aside from them.i have to say i only watched this because i saw juliet landau is a part of it and it is finally another horror movie that has decent picture quality (there's way too much cheap digital video sh*t coming out nowadays when it comes to horror - drives me crazy...).
everybody who knows the most famous horror movies of the last ~20 years and who can enjoy gory, slightly goofy horror comedies as well, will probably at least grin at some of the many references that you'll find in hack!
A class trip to an island turns into a nightmare as the college students hoping for a high grade to boost their GPA fall prey to their hosts, a married couple, obsessed film buffs, who record those they murder in ways associated with horror movies.This, at first, appears to be just another formula slasher.
Surprising number of recognizable faces pop up in minor parts such as Kane Hodder(..as the opening victim trying to escape from his pursuers), Burt Young(..as a crusty boat captain who takes the crew to the island), Tony Burton(..as nervous Sheriff Stoker, who worries that something dire has happened to the kids when they don't return;he has a scene with ROCKY co-star Burt Young which might bring a grin to fans' faces), William Forsythe(..as a gruff Irish island fisherman who attempts to save the day, and has some memorable exchanges with the psychos), and Lochlyn Munro(..as Burton's moronic deputy).
Lots of in-jokes such as the names of the crazies, Vincent King(Sean Kanan, whose chiseled features and clean-cut looks adds a unique dimension to his nutcase)and Mary Shelley(Juliet Landau;who's always obviously a bit weird, her camera by her side at all times ready to record even the most mundane occurrences for a "new movie").
I actually really dig the premise behind the movie.Lets say more tongue in check and exploratory of horror clichés then Scream, but not a full blown spoof like Scary Movie.Aesthetically the casting was really good.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 and directed by Matt Flynn, this medium-budget SCREAM-inspired slasher is full of horror film references and in-jokes, many of which are far too obvious, annoying and in-your-face to be even remotely amusing, while a few are kind of clever and more obscure when they aren't blatantly pointing out the film to us.
We have sweet, geeky, pretty teaching assistant Emily (Danica McKellar), good-looking nice guy Johnny (Jay Kenneth Johnson), hot big-breasted foreign exchange student Sylvia (Gabrielle Richens), obnoxious football jock Tim (Travis Schuldt), "flamboyant" gay Asian Ricky (Justin Chon), pot-smoking black guy Q (Won-G) and trashy alternative chick Maddy (Adrienne Frantz).
A friendly and equally film-obsessed couple; Mary Shelley (Juliet Landau) and Vincent King (Sean Kanan, also a producer) put the students up for the weekend and naturally, someone in the group starts killing off the others.
It seems that Mary and Vincent are actually amateur filmmakers themselves and want to shoot their own "reality horror" (i.e. snuff) movie using the students as their victims.
There are also a few expected twists you may or may not see coming.Despite the rampant clichés, countless movie references (HELLRAISER, THE RING, DEAD CALM, FATAL ATTRACTION and JAWS, just to name a few) and the often-annoying non-stop chatter about various horror films, it's upbeat, energetic, fairly well-made when it comes to editing, photography and fx and gives slasher fans the gore and nudity they expect to see.
The whole cast look like they had a good time making it and sometimes a little enthusiasm goes a long way, as is the case with this one.
Slasher horror-movie with terrible humor and acting!.
On top of that, it is done with so little grace and charm, that it's just bad taste (and not in a good horror-movie kinda way).This movie is supposed to be scary, it's not at all!
The acting is by far the worst I have seen in a long time and that is probably also because it is supposed to be that way, since it is a cliché in horror movies...
The first Scream-movie did it, because it was the first one, but to do so, you have to have a good script, timing, charm, good actors (that can actually play "bad-acting"), a good director and a final twist that gives all the clichés you have been watching a purpose.This movie has neither!
True, the film is full of cliché's and references to other horror/slasher movies and where some will say it was appropriate to the storyline, I'd say there was no originality.
Writer/director Matt Flynn delivers an entertainingly campy body count romp that displays a positively infectious love and affection for horror cinema; he sprinkles the picture with numerous witty and knowing references to such bona-fide classics as "The Birds," "Jaws," "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," and "The Shining," cheerfully parodies all the tried'n'true clichés ("They always make us separate in these movies"), and pulls out all the stops for a hilariously ridiculous over-the-top conclusion while also pouring on the nice'n'nasty graphic gore with rip-roaring aplomb and even tossing in a decent smattering of tasty gratuitous female nudity for good measure.
Me and my partner rented Hack thinking that it would be quite a good/gory horror film but i was very disappointed.
I should know better by now not to rent low budget straight to DVD horror films as they are never great.
I have to say though, it was a very good idea for a horror film but it just didn't seem to work, between the bad acting and the script it failed which is a shame because it could have been so much better.
You can't wait for the various "teens" to get offed.I like William Forsythe, and this is why I'm watching this film in the first place.I have a lot of movies in my collection in which he stars, but I confess I've not seen them all.I'm still waiting for him to appear in this one, and I'm over an hour into the movie.
(By the way, if you don't have a life, the "Movie Connections" section here mentions only one-third of the direct references to other flicks and TV shows made by characters in HACK!; you can perform a public service by jotting down some more while watching the movie, and add them to the list.
Personally, I feel that it is best viewed as a humorous homage to not only 80's slasher films but of "teen movies" and pop culture, in general..Each cast member/character represents a typical teen movie cliché...
The character names alone cracked me up, most comprising of names related to famed horror directors (Dario Argento, Eli Roth, John Carpenter), authors (Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Stephen and Tabitha King) and movie characters, (Bates of Psycho, "Q" of James Bond, Johnny of NotLD, and (Boo) Radley of To Kill a Mokingbird), as well a tip of the hat to Vincent (Price) and even a appearance from everyone's favorite serial killer: Kane "Jason Vorhees" Hodder, Buffy's Juliet "Drucilla" Landau, The Wonder Years' Danica "Winnie Cooper" McKellar, and Rocky Balboa's well meaning brother-in-law, Burt "Paulie" Young and his corner man, Tony "Duke Burton..
Of course, some of these things may have been unintended, as I tend to connect the most obscure things (the first thing I thought when Maddy was hit with the brick was Krazy Kat and Ignatz), but anyone wishing to have me elaborate, feel free to drop me a messageAnyway, I found this movie to be a fun little flick, and recommend it to anyone into 80's slasher films....and a must for horror geeks into movies like "Saturday the 14th"....
Also, the writer/director seems to have a lot of love for the horror genre with his constant in-script references to horror films and character names (Professor Argento, Mary Shelley King, Sheriff Stoker, etc.).
The plot was an after thought of someone who just wanted to throw ever horror movie they had seen into one film.
I rent a lot of horror movies that are mundane, you know what's going to happen and most are basically a bore!
I Rented This Movie With Extremely Low Expectations , But I Was Greatly Surprised By How It Turned Out , The Movie Starts With Some High School/College Kids Signing Up For An Extra Credit Program , The Project Is Studying Wildlife On A Remote Island , But The Wealthy Couple That Lives On The Island Are Crazy And Making Snuff Movies , The Acting Was Good , The Special Effects Were Good , The Jokes Were Good Too , The Movie Is More Comedy Than Horror , At The End The Bad Guys Were All Killed Off And The Only Survivors Were The Deputy , The Foregn Chick , And The Main Character , I Also Like The Hidden Message Of This Movie , The Hidden Message Is Telling Horror Writers Not To Rip Off Other Movies And Come Up With Their Own Ideas