"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 Hatesquanders 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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