Horror Movie Review: Hacked (2013)

Hacked (also more commonly known as The Den) is another found footage/social media based horror that came out in quick succession alongside Friend Request in 2016, Unfriended in 2014 & to some degree, Smiley in 2012. You can read our reviews of those 3 movies by clicking on the title.

Elizabeth has been given a grant from her college to do a study on a webcam social media site called The Den. Her goal is to chat with as many different users around the world as she can. That’s it, that’s all the information you get. It’s very basic but considering it’s only 78 minutes long they really didn’t have time to tell a decent story. Or create interesting characters that you care about. Or explain just how the events that unfold throughout could be possible.

Yeah, Hacked is a bit of a mess. Which is a real shame as it starts off fairly well. We see Elizabeth logging on to The Den & meeting a wide range of different people across the world. Most of them are the kind of ‘user’ you’d expect to see on this ‘chat roulette’ style site. Most are just trying to see her boobs or just starting at her.

One user though stands out as it’s a still image of a girl enjoying the sunshine. Getting no response Elizabeth disconnects & promptly treats her boyfriend as if he’s the least important thing in the world. Seriously…that dude has the patience of a saint!

As the movie goes on Elizabeth ends up connecting with the ‘still image’ user again who tells her that their webcam is broke. They message & bit before the webcam switches on & shows the girl from the image being violently killed.

Scared, she goes to her friends who think it was a hoax. She isn’t convinced though & things start to get even stranger. Unknown to Elizabeth her account has been hacked & now she’s being watched…but by whom?

At only 78 minutes long Hacked manages to create some decent atmosphere before deciding to burn the entire house done with a poorly done finale & disappointing reveal.

For a movie that wants to ground itself in reality it gets so nonsensical by the end that you just have to laugh. The found footage style is initially done quite well but eventually resorts to hand held web cams/strapped to bodies resulting in a blur of motion sickness.

The movie builds to a reveal that is so disappointing. Anything would have been better then this, it makes no sense & characters that are killed off had such little screen time that it doesn’t matter in the slightest.

The idea was good, it isn’t scary but the use of camera positions & subtle sounds made certain scenes tense. Instead it mostly goes for the jump scare tactic with the first coming with a minute or two. Yay.