Weekly Film Analysis: Don't Hang Up (2016)

This film is a 2016 American horror-thriller film directed by Alexis Wajsbrot, produced by Jason Newark and written by Joe Johnson. The themes that run throughout this film were friendships, relationships, negligence, betrayal and loyalty. This film would engage an audience of around 14-21 years as the main stars are teenagers, and of the topic of ‘prank calling’ this relates to this age group as it is what teenagers get up to today. The cinematography of this film was Nat Hill- there are many scenes which create so much meaning to the film, creating a cyclical narrative structure to the film, and holding onto the audience’s attention. This was distributed by Vertical Entertainment and the location of the film was based in the United States. This was released in June 2016 at the Los Angeles Film Festival and released in theatres in February 2017.

The main scene in this film was shown twice in the beginning and at the end of the film. The scene showed a situation of a family being pranked at the beginning of the film, but didn’t show the full scene. Again the scene was shown at the end of the film but showing the harsh reality of what the outcome of the prank call had caused on this family. The use of the performance shows how the family felt terrified and foreshadowed that the beginning scene was left on a cliff hanger making the audience make predictions of what might occur later.