The Den (2014)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

best movie i've ever seen.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

For example, when she calls her friend at her house across town to warn her of the intruder: first of all, COME ON!-- who leaves their back door unlocked for anyone to come in when they weren't even doing anything out back to begin with? Secondly, no one would be so defensive about the warning to get out of the house, coming up with the ever-typical response, "What are you talking about? WHO'S in my house?" If someone got a warning like that, that person would be freaked out immediately and be out of there in a New York minute. To make it even MORE unrealistic, she turns around, worried, when she hears something after the warning over the phone, saying, "Hello?" This one's definitely sub-par.

The movie starts out with some promise and actually has a plot. But eventually it becomes hard to follow the action with the camera bouncing all around. I fell asleep twice and became frustrated as I was having trouble determining who was who, and what exactly was going on. The idea that with all that was happening to her, the lead character would elect to leave her video camera on all night seems a bit far fetched. Had they managed to stick to the plot and do more character development versus sticking with the shaky camera, it would have been better.

Is it a cardinal rule that if you are doing a horror movie, you simply must NOT invest in some real actors? I understand budget and what not, and I'm not suggesting I need to see an overpaid actor to enjoy a film but ACTING should at least be a requirement. Otherwise, what is the point? Why even attempt at making a movie? I've seen just about every horror flick you can imagine and am generally willing to let the shortcomings go if everything else in the film works. But at a certain point, it can get extremely frustrating when you know a film has potential, yet it is all thrown down the gutter due to poor casting or minor details that should be easy to adjust. These things can make or break a movie. I have seen my fair share of Horror with superb acting (Martyrs, I spit on your grave, Under the Skin) to name a few off the top of the head. But more often than not, we are left with a bunch of no-name amateurs trying to portray real human emotions and fear, and it just absolutely kills the entire premise of the movie. This one falls victim to the latter. ...The acting starts off normal enough. I mean, considering the premise of the film, there really is not much acting involved for the main chunk of the film anyways. It's just people chatting online. Seems simple enough. So the main character has a couple of really thirsty male "friends" who are both desperately willing to bend over backwards for her because they clearly want to get into her pants. The two guys (one being a guy she is sleeping with) just come off so unnatural during the simplest exchanges in dialogue. I found myself enraged with hatred for them both and just wanted them to die. Every sentence and every reaction/action by the two seems so labored and unnatural it's cringe-worthy. Friends don't talk to each-other like this. Come on....Lucky for me, around the 26 minute mark the annoying boyfriend gets kidnapped.The second issue, illogical scenarios that just make no sense, whether it be the laws of physics that are being ignored etc. The third issue would be dumb human decisions within these movies. I can generally accept stupid human decisions because human beings make illogical decisions every day. It's somewhat believable that a person made a poor choice especially with the element of fear involved.But when terrible things start to happen to you ONLINE through your LAPTOP, the logical decision at a certain point (especially once you know your computer has been hacked & spying on you) would be to A) CLOSE YOUR LAPTOP when not on it & absolutely DO NOT have it pointing at your every move and do not discuss all your personal issues directly in front of it. B) Simply DISCONNECT your internet. ...but instead, we have the main character continue doing the same things by, sleeping in front of, talking in front and doing random things in front of her hacked, connected and open lap-top. Derp...All the side characters give uninspired labored performances. There is a scene where Elizabeth walks into her friends dark house AFTER all this stuff has already happened, refuses to turn any lights on, sees a leak coming from the washroom and instead of leaving she opens the door and walks in only to see her friend laying in a tub FULL of blood, and she barely has a reaction to it, just a simple "oh my god, wake up" I mean the overall acting is so poor that even when she is watching a fake 'youtube' video on guns, the guy in the YouTube video could not act his way out of a wet paper bag. The scene is so corny and so phony, that it really makes you wonder HOW they could accept this stuff in their final cut and be happy with it. I mean a YouTube video. A simple YouTube video...it is so contrived, so forced and so phony it really made me cringe.It was a decent enough concept otherwise. Definitely NOT original, but could have been a lot more enjoyable had the acting not been so frustrating. With a few minor tweaks to make things feel a little more realistic (considering there was nothing supernatural, and this movie was designed to fit reality). The decisions by the main character near the end just become too ridiculous. Its like she goes out of her way to be dumb. She ends up intentionally throwing her weapons away at every turn, intentionally running in circles instead of rationally trying to work her way out of the 'Den', not finishing the job when attempting to kill someone, responding to every IM request even as shes chained up and knows shes being toyed with, and not ripping the masks off the ones she does end up killing. I mean, come on. Even a broken clock is right two times a day...you have to make me half buy into the decisions being made. Overall I really wanted to like this movie because I do like the concept, original or not...and the one high point of the movie for me was the reveal that there were certainly a few cops involved as well. That I CAN believe. Cops are the most sadistic people on the planet next to military personnel. And the rest of the cops showed nothing but utter arrogance and incompetence, again very believable..

I compare this movie (Hacked or The Den) to Unfriended and those viewers who either liked, disliked or LOVED the aforementioned movie of the same ilk will totally understand why (even if the premise of both movies was NOT). I fall into the latter group, having watched Unfriended obsessively, enjoying the subliminal hints provided and ONLY comprehended by those who also "got" the movie; realising why certain (seemingly unimportant details) were necessary for the movie to work.I've started my review with the above to assist those interested in watching this movie when deciding whether it's one they would enjoy.I do not wish to rob any chance potential viewers of Hacked (aka The Den) may have of enjoying this brilliant movie (albeit behind slightly open fingers of both hands covering their faces, most DEFINITELY towards the end), therefore I will not take this opportunity to spoil what I feel is a seriously original plot which will leave most with a more apprehensive and discerning outlook on just how technology, the web and the potential vulnerability we all place ourselves in spending so much time engaging with people online.I guess there are 3 main significant differences between this movie and Unfriended; the first being that it is a lot more graphically disturbing scenes. Secondly (and most essentially), the main character is EXTREMELY likable which is why I personally feel this movie works more effectively from the onset. Most of the reviews (both from the general public AND critics) for Unfriended acknowledged how unlikable all of the characters were. I intend to write a review for Unfriended as I feel that this was deliberate on the Director's part and most definitely essential to the whole point of the movie. Lastly (and I promise to refrain from raving about a movie other than the one I am meant to be discussing after this!), I cannot envisage my wish to re-watch Hacked as many times as I did Unfriended in order to identify small pertinent details that compelled me to keep re-watching it due to how disturbing the ending is.I genuinely thought I had nailed the gnarled ending of this movie (YES! am finally referring SOLELY to Hacked, HALLELUJAH!) from about 30 minutes in but BOY was I wrong! The twists and turns throughout made me feel like I was on a rogue roller-coaster and my head is still dizzy even an hour after watching it. NOT because I didn't get it but BECAUSE everything made sense! Ironically, the last scene (consisting of less than a minute) is the most disturbing despite a total abstinence of ANY violence and without revealing a thing (which would defeat the whole object of me writing a review that doesn't contain spoilers, as well as ensuring it will be my first and last chance to provide feedback to others by being black listed), you will only be able to understand (and undoubtedly agree) with this statement if you choose to watch the entire movie.Hacked is brilliantly acted from the entire cast, does nothing that isn't needed to deliver and succeeds in doing just that.........even if the message is seriously unsavoury! Bloody Amazing, though not sure I will be watching it again just yet.......for all of the right reasons!!!!