Don’t Hang Up (2016) Movie Review by Darrin Gauthier

Directors: Damien Macé, Alexis Wajsbrot
Writer: Joe Johnson
Stars: Gregg Sulkin, Garrett Clayton, Bella Dayne

Plot:  An evening of drunken prank calls becomes a nightmare for a pair of teenagers when a mysterious stranger turns their own game against them…with deadly consequences.

Running Time: 1 hour 23 minutes
Rotten Tomatoes Score: Critics 25%   Audience 32%

Why I watched it: It’s a horror film and yes it’s on Netflix Canada, so again not my fault.

Thoughts: I went in not excepting much, I watched it streaming with a friend and she picked it so I blame her for the most part but the idea sounded alright.  To be honest it sounded like a knock off of Joy Ride and it kind of was.

What I liked: The set up was decent on paper, these couple of asses prank phone call people and someone is about to turn the tables.  This rips off or borrows a lot from other better movies but the tension is pretty good and some of the stuff works, it’s a movie where the screws keep getting turned. It’s a watchable film the look of the film is decent, it’s a low budget but it looks professional the directors did a decent job in that department.

What I Didn’t Like: This is a Frankenstein’s Monster of a movie, it’s bits and pieces from other films and that’s lazy steal from one film, but this is a lot like Joy Ride, Saw and a few others.  The acting is not great, it doesn’t help that really it’s the two guys for most of the film and the film even at 1 hour 23 minutes is dragged out. The biggest problem with the film is the guys are really unlikable, there’s this trend now that all the characters in horror films have to be unlikable and it makes it a chore to get through, you have to care what happens, the mistake the film makes is not having the person out for revenge the anti-hero, we should have seen him.

Let me make this clear the two main guys of the films the pranks they pull isn’t you childish phone pranks, they say they’re the police and someone is in the person’s home, the call and tell someone they’re child is being rushed to the hospital, these are not good guys in Joy Ride it was a harmless prank done to the wrong person the two guys weren’t bad.  So we have no one to cheer for cause the other guy the one who wants revenge goes to far so what we’re left with is watching a cat and mouse game being played by bad people who are void of any character development.

The ending is really silly, one could say dumb, it flat out doesn’t work and it drags out for what seems like 10-15 minutes at this point I just wanted it over.

Final Thoughts: A badly acted and written horror film that was cliched and unoriginal.

Rating: 3/10

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