Hooked Up

Another European horror film, very low budget. This is one of those "found-footage" movies that, unfortunately, have been used a lot by amateur directors, with little money for great productions and good cameras. The result is another suffering film, with a deeply mediocre cinematography. Is it necessary to shake so much? Okay, the movie is "found-footage", but we still have to be able to figure out something about what's being "filmed" (I put quotation marks because we cannot really call it filming), did you know that? The plot is basic: two idiot Americans (always the Americans) are vacationing in Barcelona, in search of the normal things that American teens want to find in Europe: a lot of cheap fun, girls willing to get laid easily, loud music and other amusements for Americans with an IQ below 40. But what looked like a lucky night with two naughty girls will end badly, when a bloodthirsty ghost appears to shred the whole world.

The movie takes a while to get where the action really starts and this is annoying, but then we end up missing that, because the rest of the film is a succession of racing, falling, bleeding... all mixed with the usual sound attempts to scare the audience and a lot of fake blood splashing around. Unfortunately, when the film begins with these things, we're already so bored and so tired of these two idiots that we just want them to die quickly for the movie to end.

I couldn't make it past 20 minutes. Terrible camera work, hideous actors (the main camera guy every time I saw him I looked away from the tv), and acting worse than a community theater. I can see now why they didn't have a preview on it for Amazon. It was like watching two 3 year olds in two unattractive 30 year old bodies

Yeah, that's going to be a big pass from here.

I stumbled upon the 2013 horror movie "Hooked Up" here in 2021. I had never heard about it, nor seen it. And with my interest in the horror genre, of course I opted to sit down to watch "Hooked Up" from writers Pablo Larcuen and Eduard Sola.

The movie's cover really oversold the movie by a hundred miles. I mean, the movie's cover looked very interesting and had that mid- to late-1980s feel to it. And I have to say that the cover really caught my attention and made me pick up this 2013 movie.

Well, had I known aforehand that this sort of was a 'found footage' movie, I wouldn't have given it the time of day. I can't simply comprehend the weird fascination with this ridiculous type of subgenre. If I watch a movie, I want to watch something with production quality and something that feels like a studio made movie, not something that my 11 year old son could have helped me film with the family digital video camera and a $5 video editing program.

Sure, the storyline in "Hooked Up" started out okay enough, if you can get past the shoddy camera that is all over the place, more often than not filming at angles that are just painful to watch, as it doesn't show what you want to see. But the storyline quickly falls to pieces once the two Americans reach the house of a local girl's grandfather. Not going to delve further into detail, you just have to watch the movie and suffer like the rest of us, if you want to know more.

The acting in the movie was actually fair enough, taking into consideration that director Pablo Larcuen was left with virtually nothing useful or worthwhile from the inferior script and storyline.

But it was the dubious camera work and the laughable feel of it being a 'found rubbish' movie that just killed it off entirely for me. I loathe this genre of movie.

Now, I can't and won't recommend anyone taking time out of their lives to sit down and watch "Hooked Up". Some of us suffered through this horrible ordeal so you don't have to. Trust me.

My rating of "Hooked Up" lands on a more than generous two out of ten stars.

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.

A found footage filmed on an iPhone but it still looked like shaky hand cam too me. This one has two friends going to Barcelona with a sole purpose to get laid. They meet a woman who takes them back to her place only to be trapped and hunted by the woman who turns demonic.

This is one of those annoying found footages that makes you angry with everybody freaking out and the camera never staying still. A girl gets her foot stuck in a bear trap so the one friend is trying to open it but struggles so instead of the other friend dropping the camera to help he just keeps filming.

It seemed like a Hostel meets Night Of The Demons but not of that calibre. You might want to skip this one.