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Some Kind of Hate
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| Year: |
2015
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Director: |
Adam Egypt Mortimer
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| Stars: |
Ronen Rubinstein, Grace Phipps, Spencer Breslin, Sierra McCormick, Lex Atkins, Brando Eaton, Maestro Harrell, Noah Segan, Michael Polish, Justin Prentice, Andrew Bryniarski, Matt Beene
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| Genre: |
Horror |
| Rating: |
  6 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
Lincoln (Ronen Rubinstein) is finding metal bands are his only real joy in life when that existence has been blighted by the early death of his mother, his violent drunk of a father, and the fact that he is regarded as a prime target for the bullies at his school. After trying and failing to stand up to his father one morning, he embarks for school and at the lunch break he as usual opts not to spend it in the hall with the other pupils, but this time that doesn't prevent unwanted attention for a group of his tormentors approach and harass him. After upsetting his meal, they proceed to push him to the ground, and at last this is the final straw, all those years of being picked on erupt into violence as he plunges his fork into the lead bully's face...
One of the angriest films about bullying, certainly in a horror context, since something like Brian De Palma's adaptation of Stephen King's debut Carrie, this set out its stall early on as it showed the effects of the victimisation can ruin lives, and not simply for the victims but for the perpetrators as well. What happens should your act of bullying come back to bite you was the theme here, only this was not, for instance, getting the police involved, it was a series of acts of violent retribution since this was a horror movie after all, and the character of the worm that turned to visit bloodshed on their tormentors was a common one, especially in the slasher mould. However, director and co-writer (with Brian DeLeuuw) Adam Egypt Mortimer was truly committing to it.
It was as if his film presented itself as a crusader against the downtrodden of this world, but had no real interest in acquiescing to modern therapies of trying to work together to understand why these things happen, the psychology behind them, when it preferred to use shock tactics on its audience to have them think twice before picking on someone to bolster their own self-esteem or perceived social standing. What happens is not that Lincoln's bullies are sent to a rehabilitation camp for troubled teens, for because of his lashing out he himself is dispatched to one, where he finds life little better when he is the target once more of the actual bullies who have been sent there for their bad behaviour.
After a few scenes into this, you begin to think that Lincoln will not be able to restrain himself and as this is a horror he will go on a rampage through the rest of the cast, yet that is not the case. He does make friends, for instance, once with Spencer Breslin's computer hacker who in truth doesn't feature as much as you might have anticipated, and once with vampish Kaitlin (Grace Phipps) who you assume is there thanks to excessive promiscuity by the way she doesn't mess about in making it clear that she is sexually available if Lincoln is interested, and is even if he isn't. She has a dark secret too that she will have to live with, and if anything considering the events that draw this to a close it will weigh heaviest on her shoulders out of the lot of them.
But if Lincoln was not the person who staged one of the bullies' apparent suicide (with the word "BULLY" carved into his forearm, to raise suspicions it might not have been by his own hand), then who was? That question is answered rather too promptly, as this was a short work that did not hang around and came across as keen less to sustain a mystery and more to get to the main course, which was to introduce a character who had been so persecuted that she died as a result, Moira (Sierra McCormick), who it doesn't take a genius to work out is now a ghost. She's a ghost with a special power, a deeply symbolic one, as when she self-harms her wounds appear on whoever she feels was tormenting her, which leads to some extremely bloody scenes as she visits her revenge on those she feels responsible. Recognising that nobody on either side of the victim/villain divide deserves to die, Lincoln sets out to make her see reason, and if that doesn't succeed, well... A provocative film, no doubt about it, though one that did resort to histrionics that not everyone was going to get along with, yet it had a wounded intelligence that made it worthwhile. Music by Robert Allaire.
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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