Some Kind of Hate
Director: Adam Egypt Mortimer
Cast: Ronen Rubinstein, Sierra McCormick, Grace Phipps, Lexi Atkins
RLJ Entertainment
December 29, 2015
Reviewed by Brian M. Sammons
Sometimes a somewhat interesting idea isn’t enough to save a movie. That’s the case with Some Kind of Hate, a movie that had potential, but ultimately fell sort of flat. Here a heavy metal loving teenager name Lincoln finally stands up to a school bully by stabbing him in the face with a fork. That act of defiance gets him sent to a bad kid’s camp out in the desert with various other teens with troubles. Once again he starts getting picked on, despite everyone knowing that he stabbed the last person to do that in the face! Who would act like that, except for the typical cliché movie bully? Thankfully this cardboard villain doesn’t last long, as Lincoln has made an unlikely friend: the ghost of a girl who also suffered greatly at the hands of bullies.
In short order, the girl ghost starts bumping off the bullies with a neat trick: since she was a cutter before she died, she is now basically a voodoo doll so any damage she inflicts upon herself is also inflicted upon her victims. And here you get some decent gore, and it must be said that the ghost does have a great look, but sadly, that’s all there is to this movie. The rest is pretty much a been there, seen that kind of experience, and while nothing feels technically wrong, and the acting and direction are more than competent, it is just rather dull. This is a horror movie that sort of forgets the horror. It seems far more interested and capable with dealing with the main story of bullied teens than the horror/supernatural element, so why bother with it? In fact, despite the splattery red stuff and the better than average ghost design, whenever the avenging specter came on screen my interest in this film waned. And I don’t even think that’s the fault of actress Sierra McCormick who played the ghoul girl, it’s just never once engaging or wow. Sadly, that pretty much sums up this movie as a whole.
As for the special features on this new Blu-ray from RLJ Entertainment, there are a few of note. There is a commentary track with the director, Adam Egypt Mortimer, and I did find it really informative, full of behind the scenes bits on indie film making. The second is a cast commentary with Ronen Rubenstein who played Lincoln, Grace Phipps who was the tragic love interest, Kaitlin, and Sierra McCormick who was the ghost girl, Moira. This commentary is much more fun and lively, but that’s to be expected when you have three people that can interact with each other rather than just one guy alone speaking into a microphone. There are also a few deleted scenes, but they don’t really offer much so their exclusion is well warranted here.
Some Kind of Hate may be some people’s cup of tea, but it wasn’t mine. I thought it was a bit muddled and didn’t know exactly what it wanted to be and suffered for it. As a horror movie it is never once scary, as all the chills and spooky bits have been done before, many times, and much better. That said, again I must say that it was surprisingly well acted and the direction, while nothing stellar, does work. So for this one I can only give a modest recommendation for all of the non-horror elements. But if you’re actually looking for a scary film, you would be best to look elsewhere.
