Hack!

This movie its not good nor bad! Its stuck in between! The only good things in here I think it was the killings...it had some good quality scenes for a Low Budget film! But that is...there's nothing more! The dialogs are cheesy...some are boring...some are not...some are average! Watch it if u have nothing to do and ure bored...or just if u wanna spent some time in front of ure TV! Oh...and I forgot...the twist was kinda good! :) I don't know if I was very bored or it was very underground...but when the twist came up I was kinda shocked! I always use kinda cause its I didn't feel disappointed by this but I didn't feel satisfied neither! Like I said...its stuck in between!

Hack! 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.

This movie is, above all else, confused. 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! Maybe it isn't a tribute, maybe it's meant as satire or some kind of black comedy? I can't tell! Even if that's the case, it's not funny because the jokes are mostly based around how unfunny horror movies are, and this is clearly one of those unfunny horror movies. Violence is plentiful and graphic, like the genre prescribes, but it is only there as a reference to other films or for purely gratuitous purposes, so in effect it's either unoriginal or holding up the story. The characters are consistently written in a way that at best, makes you not care about them at all and at worst, quietly hoping that they are next in line for swift death. If a bunch of college kids had made this movie and put it on the Internet, it would have been sort of an impressive effort. As a "real" Hollywood movie, it's depressing and begs the question; Who the hell would green-light a script like this? 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!

Hack! is a story of 7 High School kids who are invited to an island as part of their biological studies but end up getting killed, one by one. This is a deliberately clichéd film with its tongue planted firmly in cheek, a fun take on horror movies, in particular slashers, torture porn and even J-Horror. The students, who are played by actors in their 30's, are as stereotypical as you get - the jock, the sultry slut, rock chick, geeky need, gay Asian guy, the token black guy and the handsome hero. The acting is decent and the cast includes horror legend Kane Hodder and Burt Young, though only in minor roles. The film has plenty of effective gore and a high enough body count, to ensure things never get boring. Aside from a period of bad sound and obvious day for night scenes the production is pretty good. I picked up my copy on DVD and as a horror fan I enjoyed this, genre movies being name checked throughout, including characters with surnames King, Argento and Shelley. Not as silly as the Scary Movie series but still very much a comedy, the sort of film that goes well with a few alcoholic beverages.

No, it's definitely a B-movie, but it has a few things going for it. First, it has decent production values and an acceptable look. This is not some film school project or extra-low budget screamer. Second, the plot, while rickety, is serviceable. Third, the acting (with the exception of two of the main characters) is really not bad. It's not great, but it's not the amateurish stuff that shows up in so many direct-to-video features nowadays. Fourth, the gore level (and nudity) is acceptably high.

The biggest problem with this film is a combination of the script and the direction. You just never feel like any of the characters could be real people. This is especially true of the college students. (As an aside, I might mention that I'm a cranky old guy who thinks that young whippersnappers have things too good and are being coddled to the point of absurdity. But it seems like whoever makes movies like this one thinks that all college students are complete and total sociopaths. In just about every movie I've seen recently that deals with college students, they are all just complete and total jerks. I'm beginning to feel sorry for them.) Anyway, it's hard to identify with the students/victims and that makes it difficult to get emotionally involved with their fear. Everybody in the film is just plastic.

Overall, though, watching this film is not a COMPLETELY terrible way to spend your time.