"Some
kind of hate-yourself after watching it.”
He is done being bullied and teaming up with a vengeful
ghost, he will strike back those who inflicted him pain. In Some Kind of Hate, a splatter film from
first-time director and co-writer Adam Egypt Mortimer, we are once again
reminded that bullying is bad and so does taking revenge.
Lincoln Taggert (Ronen Rubinstein) is a troubled teen. With
his long, greasy hair covering his deathly-pale face, he is timid, soft-spoken
and introverted. While his drunken biker-dad intimidates him at home, other
kids at his high school continually pick on him. But Lincoln can only hold that
much and he finally explodes, stabbing his bully in the face with a fork. The
incident is pinpointed at him and immediately, he is sent to a hippie New Age school called Mind’s Eye
Academy (run by Michael Polish), some sort of rehab camp for the mean girls, bad
boys, cutters, porn addicts and bullies.
While hooking up with a girl named Kaitlin (Grace Phipps),
Lincoln finds himself a target of another gang of psychopathic homophobes. In a
weepy rage, he utters the words “I wish they were
all dead!” and unknowingly summons the ghost Moira (Sierra McCormick), a
murdered young woman who experienced similar sufferings in her past
life. Whatever pain Moira inflicts to herself, her victim also endures. Together,
Lincoln and Moira launch a killing spree that will unearth hidden secrets.
As its title suggest, Some
Kind of Hate is a film full of hate that you also become hateful about it
after some point. It has an interesting core premise but its haphazard
storytelling wasted its potential. From a mystery drama, it transitioned into a
creepy supernatural film and then uncomfortably into a standard gore-fest. Its
otherwise meaningful beginning turned into a banal, revolting material.
Whatever drama or horror elements created instantly vanished as bloodbath
began. There are also plenty of logical lapses in its narrative. Why are the
people who murdered Moira still working in the camp? Why does the camp continue
to exist despite its long history of violence? And how does Lincoln really end the
‘curse’?
As muddled as its narrative is the message it wants to
convey. The film apparently deals with bullying but other than portraying how
it is done, it does not clearly delineate the action’s psychological and
emotional effects on the victim. Instead, it further terrorizes its protag when
it hooks up with a very hateful soul. From that point on, the anger is too
extreme that acts of vengeance become heartless and empty. In the end, it
simply says that retaliation is dangerous, even if you are extremely bullied.
The special effects are passable but not remarkable. Moments
filmed in the dark are almost indiscernible. Blood and gore is plenty, it’s
mostly repulsive, but it lacks chill or thrill that even genre fans will get
jaded with its perfunctory violence.
Lines are generic and forgettable, so do its characters
which are highly unlikable. Its cast are quite strong, particularly the trio of
Rubinstein, Phipps and McCormick, but their roles are so thinly-drawn and
vaguely motivated that their efforts and devotion feels wasted.
Some Kind of Hate
squanders both its promising material and its committed cast. More
importantly, it wastes our time.
Production companies: RLJ Entertainment
Cast: Ronen
Rubinstein, Grace Phipps, Sierra McCormick, Michael Polish
Director: Adam
Egypt Mortimer
Screenwriter: Brian DeLeeuw, Adam Egypt Mortimer
Producers: Brian DeLeeuw, Jack Heller,
Gabriela Revilla Lugo, Amanda Mortimer, Noah Segan, Dallas Sonnier, Jon D.
Wagner
Director of photography: Benji Bakshi
Production designer: Anthony Eikner
Editor: Josh Ethier
Music: Robert Allaire
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