It’s Katie’s 21st birthday and her girlfriends are determined to greet the occasion with a really raging party in Hardly Romantic. They acquire booze, bud and go on the town trying to get various cute boys to come. When party time comes, no one shows up but the four women.
Hardly Romantic is subtitled (A Faux Footage Horror Film). The entire event is painstakingly recorded on camera (2015-style, not iPhone). Except for the first 90 seconds of the film foreshadowing the actual point of the movie, the first half is entirely these four getting utterly wasted. This is the part I call drunksploitation. Lingering shots of leggy young drunks and faux-lesbionics suggest this is probably made by a straight dude.
Things are pretty much wrapping up as Katie passes out on the couch when there’s a knock at the door. Three guys they’d approached earlier in the day have shown up. And they brought even more party with them.
As you’d guess from the movie poster and the first minute and a half, the boys wait for the women to pass out, strip into their underwear (for some reason — is this like how straight guys strip off their shirts to fight?), and abduct their victims, duct-taping them to chairs in the basement. From there it progresses very predictably.
In a way this is very much the horror trope of punishing pretty girls for being sexy or drunk. It is also a cautionary tale against trusting strangers. And slightly homoerotic. But really, if all you want is hot guys in underpants in intense situations, watch Glorious.
Community-theater gore effects and violence sequences are predictable and laughable, and the whole thing from start to finish is boring. At just about an hour, it’s at least twice as long as it needs to be. It takes 35 minutes for the first ominous music cue.
But at least it’s available for free on YouTube, and you might find it amusing — but it’s absolutely okay to skip ahead now and then, you won’t miss anything.
(Should be with strobe warning)
2 out of 10 shots! shots! shots!
Hardly Romantic (2015) | ||
RATING: | NR | |
Runtime: | 1 Hr. 5 Min | |
Directed By: | Sweeney Gray | |
Written By: | Sweeney Gray |