Husband-and-wife directors Shane Brady and Emily Zercher transformed a personal financial scam into the bloody revenge comedy 'Hacked' after losing $20,000 during a home purchase in the pandemic. The film, inspired by their frustration with the FBI and a hacker, recently completed a festival run and secured distribution. It channels their rage into a fast-paced story of vengeance.
During the pandemic, filmmakers Shane Brady and Emily Zercher fell victim to a scam while attempting to buy a house. They wired a $20,000 down payment to what they believed was the seller, only to discover it had gone to a hacker. As they dealt with the aftermath, Zercher recounted a moment of intense frustration while on hold with the FBI fraud department.
"We were on hold with the FBI fraud department, which is something that they tell you to do," she said. "They have hold music that will drive you insane. Shane’s on hold with the bank, and we had the actual hacker’s address and full name on the receipt of our wire. So I knew who it was. I knew their address. Because I was on hold for way too long with this terrible music, I announced that I have the hacker’s address: I will just go there myself, and I will hack him up with a machete. I realized in hindsight it may not be the smartest thing, but it created the seed of vengeance that was planted."
This incident sparked the creation of "Hacked: A Double Entendre of Rage Fueled Karma," a kinetic and cathartic film about the fictional Rumble family's revenge against a thief. The project draws from their real experiences, including the sense of powerlessness against cybercriminals. "We found out how many other people had been victims where their money had been stolen," Brady noted. "I’m sure you get those texts daily that say, ‘If you don’t pay this toll right now, we got you.'"
Zercher added, "We also learned that when people hack into other people’s stuff, they will never be prosecuted for it because it’s a fingerprintless crime. So not only does it happen all the time and everyone is upset about it, everybody’s hands truly are tied."
Brady, who edited the film, trimmed an initial 115-minute rough cut to 90 minutes based on feedback, aiming for a frenetic pace that mirrors their ordeal. "I literally set a timeline marker to 90 and started hacking away," he said. The result has been praised for its energy, with one Letterboxd review dubbing it "The TikTok movie," a label Brady embraces for targeting younger audiences familiar with technology's perils.
The film wrapped screenings at festivals including FilmQuest, Celluloid Screams, and Soho Horror Fest before being acquired by S&R Films for wider distribution. For the couple, the project has been therapeutic. "I’ve been working diligently in my life to embrace suffering as a gift," Brady reflected. "Perhaps the suffering that we went through is meant to allow us to bond with other people who have gone through similar things... It’ll help somebody through a really crappy day, and they want to put on a movie where they get to have that release and have fun and not take themselves so seriously."