Appearing from its UK DVD packaging as an Unfriended rip-off, imagine my surprise when I found out that this film originally titled as The Den was released, in Russia, months before Unfriended hit cinemas. And that it also turned out to be a much superior film than Unfriended.
Unfriended was done in real time and had some supernatural nonsense in it. The whole thing was meandering, far fetched and sluggish. Hacked is not without its fair share of plot holes, and tiresome jump scares, but it has a brisk pace, it sustains tension, and grafts tried and tested paranoia thriller tropes onto its unique chatroom concept which though dilutes some of the verisimilitude, does actually guarantee a story being told which is not universal amongst found footage films. In the end, I was surprised and impressed by Hacked and found it to be an engrossing and inventive thriller.
At least i thought that until the end where it gets really stupid for the sake of dog whistling to horror fans. It feels cheap and forced, and becomes more of a trashy found footage film than the taut paranoia thriller it was convincingly being till the third act. True, throughout there are implausibilities, but the tonal shift in the third act was nothing short of jarring and ruined the film's impact a great deal. Because of this, i recommend Hacked to horror fans looking for something unique, but does not drastically reinvent the wheel.
Unfriended was done in real time and had some supernatural nonsense in it. The whole thing was meandering, far fetched and sluggish. Hacked is not without its fair share of plot holes, and tiresome jump scares, but it has a brisk pace, it sustains tension, and grafts tried and tested paranoia thriller tropes onto its unique chatroom concept which though dilutes some of the verisimilitude, does actually guarantee a story being told which is not universal amongst found footage films. In the end, I was surprised and impressed by Hacked and found it to be an engrossing and inventive thriller.
At least i thought that until the end where it gets really stupid for the sake of dog whistling to horror fans. It feels cheap and forced, and becomes more of a trashy found footage film than the taut paranoia thriller it was convincingly being till the third act. True, throughout there are implausibilities, but the tonal shift in the third act was nothing short of jarring and ruined the film's impact a great deal. Because of this, i recommend Hacked to horror fans looking for something unique, but does not drastically reinvent the wheel.