Attention The WORD Review audiences: HACKED: A DOUBLE ENTENDRE OF RAGE FUELED KARM was released by S&R Films on DVD and VOD June 2.
HACKED: A DOUBLE ENTRENDRE OF RAGE FUEL KARMA by filmmakers Shane Brady, Director, and Emily Zercher, Producer, is a 90-minute hyperkinetic-cinematographic-transcendental-slapstick-wachadoddle of a film. It is, as the gods are my witness, infused with comedic derring-do resulting from a Ripley’s-Believe-It-Or-Not computer-hacker attack that happened to Director Brady and Producer Zercher.
The Rumble family’s dream of buying their first home warps into a nightmare when Florida’s most elusive hacker, “The Chameleon, “steals their life savings. But this hacker messed with the wrong f*ckin family … and so it goes, er, so it went, addressing this Existential Qua:
What does a family do when life hands it a nightmare? You turn it into a cinematographic-transcendental-slapstick-wachadoddle of a film if you’re veteran filmmakers like Shane Brady and Emily Zercher.
The film stars The Walking Dead alum Chandler Riggs, Owen Atlas (Little Evil), Collin Thompson, Richard Riehle (Office Space), Katelyn Nacon (The Walking Dead), Shane Brady (Breathing Happy), and NHL Hall of Famer and Founder of the Tampa Bay Lightning Phil Esposito. Director: Shane Brady, Producer Emily Zercher.
HACKED: A DOUBLE ENTENDRE OF RAGE FUELED KARM premiered at the Gasparilla International Film Festival where it took home the Award for Best Focus on Florida Feature Film, and went on to screen at Popcorn Frights Film Festival, FilmQuest, the Chattanooga Film Festival, Celluloid Screams, and the Soho Horror Film Festival.
It’s a genre mash-up combining horror, comedy, satire, wish fulfillment, and self-aware filmmaking into a film experience that has the tradition feel of a traditional movie yet.
Brady stars as a fictionalized version of himself. After a hacker known as “The Chameleon” steals his family’s savings, the victims discover that neither banks nor law enforcement are willing or able to help. What follows is not realism but rage-fueled imagination, as the story spirals into a world populated by eccentric characters, bizarre detours, exaggerated villains, and increasingly outrageous forms of karmic justice.
One of the film’s strengths is its willingness to not only embrace chaos but smother it with luv. Chandler Riggs, best known for The Walking Dead, appears to relish the opportunity to play the hacker antagonist as a gleefully obnoxious embodiment of internet-age villainy. Supporting performances by Augie Duke, Katelyn Nacon, Richard Riehle, and others help sustain the film’s manic energy.
The film frequently acknowledges its own artifice.
Not every viewer and audience member will appreciate the film’s style and verve. There were nerve-wracking-what-the-f*ck scenes for this reviewer. Its deliberate juvenile humor, relentless meta-commentary,* and anything-goes storytelling may frustrate audiences expecting narrative discipline. Those seeking subtlety will not find much of it here.
*(Meta-commentary in film is a self-reflexive narrative technique where a movie refers to its own artificial nature, tropes, or the process of filmmaking, breaking the “fourth wall” to speak directly to the audience.)
Yet, this reviewer was hooked, watching it more than once.
Bottom Line: Rating: Off-Way-Off-The-Scale.
Okay, I tried hard to dodge and pivot around spoilers but I can’t resist this one: Horror genre? No Way!
Challenge to the filmmakers: Sequel?