My Review of Don't Hang Up (2017)

 

Written by Joe Johnson

Directed by Damien Mace And Alexis Wajsbrot

Mr Lee (re Sam): "He has to understand. He has to suffer the way I have."

First and foremost I have to admit that I generally despise the social media pranking types so in a lot of ways, my sympathies were in favour of the villain of the piece here. Saying that, the more male horror lead films the better.

Our protagonists here were two somewhat douchey frat buddies Sam (Gregg Sulkin) and Brady (Garrett Clayton) who along with two other guys had a streaming channel where they mercilessly pranked unsuspecting people and in the opening faking a home invasion with a distressed mother ended up having some rather fatal consequences.

The consequences of that prank formed the main plot of the movie. The distressed mother ended up accidentally killing her own child and then herself in grief for her actions. As a result, the woman's husband in question decided it was time for Sam, Brady and their brainless friends to get a taste of their own medicine.

However while Sam and Brady resorted to just prank calls, the villain going by the name of Mr Lee (Parker Sawyers) had a more extreme way of getting back at the young men responsible for his family being dead. This meant using both Brady's parents and Sam's estranged girlfriend as hostages/eventual deaths and ultimately putting both lads against one another.

As a scheme, it nearly worked too. Brady was desperate to save his parents and Sam was furious when he learned that Brady slept with his girlfriend. However they managed to put their differences aside to try and beat Mr Lee at his own game. Compared to Mr Lee, both Sam and Brady were amateurs and this became a movie where the protagonists didn't win anything.

Not only did Sam and Brady lose their fellow pranksters and loved ones in some rather brutal scenes but only one of them actually survived the entire movie, only to be sent to prison for Mr Lee's crimes. It's a harsh but surprisingly effective way of ending the movie with Mr Lee having not only gotten his revenge but a taste for his own brand of vigilantism. Yeah, the dude's just a psycho killer.

- It's good to see that most people do ignore 'friend requests' from clearly false accounts. Mr Lee using an image of his own child was creepy though.

- The directors cited both Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer as influences, which isn't that shocking tbh.

- There's also an obvious nod to When A Stranger Calls, including the use of two actors as Mr Lee. Philip Desmueles provided the voice for the character.

- Chronology: I'm assuming around 2017, which was when the movie was released.

Don't Hang Up was a fairly average horror flick with two attractive but not fairly sympathetic leads. There's something oddly delightful in seeing two social media pranksters getting terrorized by the main baddies, which I don't think was meant to be the intention with this one. It's watchable but nothing to write home about.

Rating: 6 out of 10