Hooked Up (2013)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Trying to get past a breakup, a pair of friends head to Barcelona to find women, and when they take a pair back to their house they end realizing that they've become involved with a dangerous demonic force intent on killing them forcing the pair to try to get out of the house alive.This was a decidedly decent if wholly underwhelming found-footage effort. One of the more enjoyable elements here is the great work it does at presenting a rather intriguing and potentially suspenseful situation. The idea of taking the rather familiar route of the girl being some kind of demonic spirit creature at the end of the night means that the clichéd set-up means that there's plenty of fun to come from the creature going out to kill them as that kind of action is what sells this. There's plenty of brutal, gory bloodletting that emerges from this kind of action as all kinds of encounters and confrontations with the demon spirit makes for an enjoyable time. Along with the great amount of fun that comes from how it works out the final twist at the end, which comes off with a slight bit of originality and does end this on a somewhat enjoyable note. While these here make this one watchable enough, there's a lot of problems with this one. The biggest problem here is the fact that there's just not a whole lot of interest in the first half here as we're continually around this annoying and really irritating group of friends who are really not worth spending time with. The fact that they continually rag on each, push each other into situations they don't want to be involved in and are just basically not that interesting with all the dude-bro comments doesn't make for an endearing or enjoyable start to this one. Not only that, the film's entry into the particular found-footage genre means that very little of the film makes any sense at all, from how the film's battery life is able to stay lit the entire seventy some-odd minute running time while having the bright flashlight feature enabled the entire time to why the pair are continually wanting to record the matters of what might be their last moments alive instead of trying to save themselves or wondering why the film is able to be recorded in the first place with the indestructible nature of the camera being able to stay on whenever it crashes to the ground or gets thrown into the wall with the videographer. None of these efforts are all that intriguing and really just make this one part of the genre which fall into all the usual problems here and that doesn't make for a fun time here. Likewise, the other big problem here is the fact that there are so many moments of questionable decision-making that continually puts them in danger rather than being realistically played out to try to get them out of the house, and for the most part it's what really holds this one back.Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Nudity and excessive drinking.

I detest movies which start with a 3-minute segment showing a guy (or gal) vomiting into a toilet bowl. I detest movies which feature two thoroughly worthless and unlikable nerds, one of whom looks like a reject from the Baja Marimba Band AND Zapata's outlaw band, while the other looks just like an ordinary nerd. I detest movies which utilise the shaky-cam, hand-held "technique". No, it is NOT edgy, avant-garde; the word is that this film was shot using an i-Phone. I detest movies which are shot mainly in near-dark. I detest movies in which the fake blood LOOKS like poor-quality fake blood or ketchup. I detest this movie. Truly, I cannot think of anything positive to say about it; it is an hour and a half of boring, infuriating nonsense, with "actors" who need to go back to their day jobs. There is no suspense, no creativity, no indication of any cinematic talent. Truly, the movie stinks. Out loud.

I'm pretty sure the people who gave this movie high marks either were the actors in it or friends of the director because this only deserves a 4 rating at most, and I was being generous mainly because it reminded me of a haunt I walked through once around Halloween that I kind of liked. I live and breathe horror and am willing to watch anything in the genre. Good or bad, which is pretty obvious considering I sat through this atrocity all the way through. Anyway, here it goes....The acting was overly done and bad. Like REALLY BAD. A lot of yelling, one of the main characters started out super obnoxious and his friend whiny and in the middle they kind of switched roles. But yeah, prepare for TONS of obnoxious and unnecessary yelling and erratic and awkward body motions.The story made absolutely zero sense. I'm all for senseless violence and gore in my horror movie. But it has to at least have SOME kind of structure to keep my attention. All these two were doing were rambling on and on about the whiny guys recent breakup with his girlfriend even when some psycho girl in a bad Halloween mask is trying to stab them to death. It wasn't about "how do we get out of here?" or "How do we kill this chick?". Nope, it was about "why did you let me kiss that girl at the party so my girlfriend could catch me?!" and "I know you wanted to get with my girlfriend that's why you set me up with that girl!" and whawhawha... And it just didn't stop.The psycho girl was probably the most unscary thing about this entire movie. And then after "Peter" killed her he starts rambling on about how his friend was trying to steal his ex girlfriend again in his really bad acting way. And then proceeds to kill him. Afterwards he decides to record a message for "Lisa" (his ex girlfriend) with some nonsense dribble. And then he just puts down the phone and walks away.And the whole movie in it's entirety was shot on an iPhone. So yep... found footage...My opinion, don't waste your time. There's other really bad horror movies out there that are way better than this.

The story is a tightly woven blend of American horrors abroad and urban legend that mixes xenophobia with a baser celebration of the macabre surrounding ghost girl hook-ups that has evolved from the modern urban legend field. Although I wrestled with the film's framing around the found footage style to tell this pretty cool story, I succumbed to the fact that it is that basic irritant I have with pretty much all found footage films-"would, given the circumstances of such a horrific series of events, would a person realistically continue to hold on to the camera to continue videoing the events?" Especially when the story unfolds chronologically without breaks. Aside from the "found footage" issue I have, generally, I enjoyed many aspects of "Hooked Up". I found the acting to be believable, the premise plausible, and the emotion genuine. There are a few moments when the dialog isn't delivered quite as convincingly as I am sure the director and story hopes for, but for the most part the drama, suspense and energy is alive in "Hooked Up". There isn't much lull in the excitement or high drama here, every scene just amplifies the next as far as character drama. It is a cool, thrilling story and even in found footage it unfolds chillingly. The special effects in "Hooked Up" are pretty tight as well, the blood and gore looked realistic enough. The death and violence are visceral and quality. The cinematography ran the expectant gambit of found footage gimmicks, First Person POV, shaky, shadowy scenes, quirky angles and confusing scenes that have obscured views with sudden thrills. Some times it works and sometimes it doesn't. Luckily enough of the scenes work to create the intended nightmare sequences with enough energy to complete the story arc. Overall, "Hooked Up" just passes enough to be a cool Eurotrip horror, but not enough to be a must see. Plus the ending was really hokey and somewhat cliché. For found footage/paranormal fans this is an okay flick, for a wider horror fan base, "Hooked Up" doesn't really offer much that hasn't been seen and done before.