In what amounts to Hooked Ups only clever, knowing moments, the found footage vacation horror film opens with severe retching. Clearly, Peter (Stephen Ohl) vomits from the amount of alcohol hes ingested post-breakup with a girl named Lisa, but it really seems as if each heave and purge is in dialogue with his friend Tonios bitches aint shit bro philosophy. For every you call it love, I call it a waste of time, or for a girl?! there seems to be an appropriate burst of graphic, repulsive bile. And though the rest of the film is often as just as graphic with its bloodshedor even louder with husky, testosterone-laden yellingits never as on point, nor is it anything more than a typical case of dont leave home tourist terror.
Peter and Tonio (Jonah Ehrenreich) are off to Barcelona, which Tonio believes to be the Americans-get-laid-by-just-being-American capital of Europe. There, they settle into their respective roles: Tonio, with his creeper stache and slow, but aggressive cadence, is ragingly horny. Peter is of course sad, remorseful of his now broken relationship. Soon, the two are hitting bars and clubs in what is actually the capital of Catalonia, capturing exploits on an iPhone, which the film itself is shot on. This certainly lends Hooked Up a rawer feel than most of its found footage brethren; pick-up attempts are pervy, while their outright horror ordeal is unpolished. Its still frustratingly familiar.
In Noemi (Júlia Molins) and Katia (Nastascha Wiese), the two best buds find all-too-easy companions one is incapacitated (pervy feel, remember) and the other hides an insidious agenda. Katia leads the small group back to her empty grandfathers home, a small apartment house of horrors that recalls the first [REC] films. There, the genuinely alluring Katia traps all inside and the film transitions into a supernatural slasher by way of iPhone video. This plays out expectedly, with Katiawhose appearance as a killer is both unsettling, and yet far too reminiscent of the poor girl who wore her boyfriends face in The Devils Rejectspopping in and out and up and down, while Paul, Tonio and Noemi run around the boarded, barb wired, treacherous space. This doesnt allow for a ton of style outside of the phones flashlight finding malicious things in the dark and all the way down the hall.
The lone wrinkle in Hooked Up is the evolving interpersonal conflict between Paul and Tonio (bros do not come before murderous ghost hoes, apparently). Thanks to the madness at hand, Tonios swagger veneer gives way to a caring individual, while Pauls sad insecurity ends up revealing someone altogether hateful. Unfortunately, much like Hooked Up, this is played in obvious manner: head down, eyes up, try and look evil.
