Gorehounds Unite!

 Hack! is the type of movie you've seen a million times before as a horror fan....And trust me that is not a compliment. Basically the plot boils down to this: A group of horny (arent they all?) college students take a field trip to King's Island to study the plants and wildlife in that region (sent by their teacher Mr. Argento no less...WOW).The group includes a Jock (football in hand just in case you didnt know), The sexy Foregien Exchange Student, The "Metal" tough chick, A "Geek" but cute type of character (played by winnie of wonder years at that!), The Black Guy pot head, The good looking guy with a heart of gold, And for good measure add in the Flaming Gay Asian guy. They unwittingly have been drawn to the island by a couple (They are named Mr. King and Mary Shelley....I kid you not)  that lives there to "star" in their new horror film as they are both obsessed with horror films of the past and present. They kill each kid in a homage to horror films of the past in essence making a snuff film set for Italian audiences.( to top it all of the sheriffs are named Sheriff Stoker and Sheriff Radley who are looking for a missing person named Mr. Carpenter...GROAN!!!!) If this hasnt been enough, read on it gets worse.

 The film was made for about 2 million dollars ( Not too shabby for a direct to DVD horror film) but it appears the filmmakers spent the money on cameos and cast members from known and respected genre actors. These include Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th, Hatchet), William Forsythe (The Devils Rejects,Halloween,MOH), Burt Young (ROCKY,The Outer Limits,Tales From The Crypt), Tony Burton (ROCKY, The Shining), Juliet Landau (Toolbox Murders,Fatal Reunion), Etc.

 I usually would be applauding this type of casting had they all been used effectively and for a reason relevant to the actual plot. All these actors and actresses basically are tossed into throw away roles...some of which have nothing at all to do with the plot and the scenes appear to be tacked on to utilize the actor and nothing else. Take Kane for example.......his scene is at the beggining of the film and he's killed of in the matter of 30 seconds. Yet it has nothing to do with the film at all. I will be the first to point out that this can be cool in certain movies (Rob Zombie's films for example) but not at the expense of the rest of the film.

  Most of the actors seem to be sleepwalking through their roles just to collect an easy paycheck. In defense of the actors performances in this film there's not much you can do when the characters are written so poorly and the plot is so paper thin. For god sakes William Forsythe's character looks and sounds like a carbon copy of  Groundskeeper Willie from the Simpsons!!!! It's actually embarrasing to see these actors I know and respect go through the paces on this film.

 The only good things I can think of on this film is that the location is gorgeous ( Not taken advantage of though). The film looks good because it was filmed with above average equipment not usually associated witha low budget direct to DVD film and Lastly there is some decent nudity throughout but not enough to save this pile of garbage. Other than that I didnt see anything worthwhile at all in this film.

 The gore in the film isnt even worth talking about as everything I saw was very cheap and not effective at all. The only gore scene even worth talking about was the Kane Hodder beheading. I think the only reason this worked was that  the filmmakers found they had some cash left over after they were done filming and threw it all at this scene.

 This film is marketed as a Horror/Comedy which by itself is one of the hardest things to pull off let alone actually make it work. Basically all the "Comedy" in here falls flat as all hell. The only semi-amusing scenes involved the Gay asian character and even then it was very predictable. In fact after sitting through this film I am willing to go out on a limb and say that this was filmed as a straight horror film with very little comedy thrown in but after test screening or whatever they decided that it just didnt work and marketed it as Horror/Comedy.

 To all of you out there that are saying "Shit this actually doesnt sound that bad....." I want to point out a few things. The first is that I actually felt very offended by this film as a horror fan. This film was like having someone kick your ass and while your on the ground spit in your face and kick you.

 This film treats the viewer as though they are complete idiots who have never before seen a decent film. The source material that it so liberally borrows from (aka homage) it manages to cheapen. The whole movie is a giant cliche and makes you feel like a retard for ever having been a horror fan. There is not one thing about this film to like....NOTHING.  I  will never watch another film directed by this director ever again! Hack was the perfect title to describe not only this film but also the director.

 They try to pass this film off as though the director/writer is a huge fan of the horror genre yet he knows absolutley nothing about the subject or what makes it good. There is no way anyone involved behind the scenes is really a fan of the genre....if they were they would have stopped this abomination of a film before it ever made it to the filming stages. Seriously this makes Childs Play 3 look like The Exorcist when compared to this film and thats saying alot about the quality of this wretched film. There was no love for the genre nor film in general when they made this.....HACK! was made for one reason and one reason only,and that was to rip off horror fans of their hard earned money and worst of all their time! This film (honestly you can't even call it a film because calling it a film actually gives it some value) isn't even worth the plastic that was used to make this DVD.....In fact I think it may have even somehow cheapened the DVD player I used to play it.

 Stay as far away from this film as you possibly can............Don't say I didnt warn you!

RATING:

0 out of 5 Severed Heads!