The Horror Show
Don't Hang Up
by Damien Macé, Alexis Wajsbrot
If you are going to make a movie where you put your main protagonists in peril be sure you make them likable. This is my biggest piece of advice for the movie Don't Hang Up. If you make your characters deplorable then I will not care what you do to them.
Don't Hang Up starts off with a bunch of teenage pranksters convincing a mom over the phone that her daughter has been killed in a home invasion. To make it worse, they upload it to the internet. Fast forward to later, Sam and Brady, two of the pranksters, are chilling at Sam's house making prank calls and being generally obnoxious. The fun is quickly brought to a halt when they prank call the wrong number. This caller knows who they are, where they live, and he's managed to kidnap Brady's parents and Sam's girlfriend. He uses technology to wreak havoc on the two annoying boys.
I was hoping for a lot more in this movie, the premise had promise. The acting was pretty weak except for the mysterious caller. As I stated before, these characters had no redeeming qualities about them at all. Every single one was a right ass and deserved what they got. I have never seen characters more despicable, and I watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia!
I can't really talk about the effects because you don't really see anything. It seems the mastermind behind the pranks can't actually show any of the deaths and kills people off screen.
The directors said that Don't Hang Up is an homage to the slasher movies of the 90's like Scream. The problem is Scream was good. It had wonderful writing and likable characters. This movie had Prank Monkey 69 and an obvious ending.
Don't Hang Up is just boring. I wouldn't suggest it even as a bored one time watch. I really want my 83 minutes back so I can spend them on a good movie.
Robin Thompson, HMS
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