The Hatred

I've been in a low-budget horror rut lately--just lots of films with half an idea, poor lighting, and "edgy" twist endings. This film really surprised and impressed me.

A young woman loses her family to a murderous group of scavenging soldiers who are lost, freezing, and starving in the woods. Coming across the dead, hanged body of one of the soldiers (he was killed by the others when he didn't agree to slaughter the girl's family), her prayers and hatred combine into something supernatural and resurrect the dead soldier. Seeking revenge, they track down the rest of the soldiers.

I just really enjoyed watching this film. The scenery was very beautiful and ominous with several gorgeous shots of looming trees and water flowing under ice. The acting is pretty good--it's a mixed bag, as with any low-budget film, but the central actors play their parts well and no one is bad. I think that the strength of this film is that it is full of interesting shots, like someone splitting a log of wood to reveal someone standing in the spot that the log was blocking from the camera, or a scene where the protagonist is reaching to get a pair of guns off of the top of a tall shelf and it evokes a child trying to reach a tabletop. There was a lot of care put into shooting this film, and that really endeared it to me. It's also refreshing to see a revenge story starring a female character that isn't just some variation on rape-revenge, and also one that is interested in the dynamics of the group of bad guys, how they influence each other, and the difference between committing bad deeds and allowing bad deeds to be committed by others.

I only had two real criticisms of the film. The first is that most of the dialogue is voice-over by the lead actress. She does a pretty good job with it, but the writing starts to feel like a mish-mash of Victorian-sh language (think Deadwood) and vaguely biblical musings. Sometimes it crossed the line from ominous to nonsensical. I also had mixed feelings about the score, which is mostly distorted tones. It's effective when it's low and in the background, but it does that thing sometimes where they crank it up to a scream at certain intense parts and the electrical sounds of it distracts from what is happening on screen.

I was impressed with this film and I'd encourage you to check it out. Low-budget films are capable of much more than pandering T&A and cringy dialogue, and this is a good example of that. I'd rank it next to the 2006 film Salvage as one of the best low-budget horrors I've seen.

Okay, if you're expecting a "horror film" in the traditional sense, you will be disappointed. The hatred is so much more than anything I've seen in the genre, which I find highly refreshing. How it was shot adds to the atmosphere in such a poignant way. The audience feels the cold, sadness, rage, desolation and revenge. Definitely not for the faint of heart, but if you like westerns and revenge films, I highly recommend this film.

Saw this on Amazon and from the opening scene, I was hooked. I don't know how much this film cost, but it looks like a studio film, but feels like an artistic expression in the most honest of ways. The lead actress I found out was only 13 when this was filmed. Zelda Adams has the acting chops and it was a pleasure to watch her command the lead. I felt her hatred. I am looking forward to seeing more films by these filmmakers.

Chose to watch this because of the IMDB rating. Big mistake. One of the most boring films I've ever seen. Pretentious dialogue and laughable special effects. I wished I'd had that bag with the crosses for eyes to wear while I fast forwarded through this tripe.

I'll say this for the boring, tedious and completely flat and uninteresting mini-feature (clocking in at barely an hour) The Hatred: it has some nice photography and even a couple of interesting camera compositions. Does that make it worth sitting through? Absolutely not! You have the simplest of revenge plots, a nice little twist when a dead man is resurrected to assist, all the potential in the world and yet it is rendered dull and uninteresting by the writer's complete inability to flesh out the story in any way. Couple that with direction so desperate to be "ARTISTIC!!!!" that it manages to make stalking, killing and haunting, boring, boring and boring and your failure is assured. Everything other than the photography and a few camera angles seems deliberately done to frustrate the viewer and sabotage the film. There's nothing like showing us a bunch of men standing around and then having the voice over of a young girl - who was not there - tell us what they're thinking. Hey, isn't that what dialogue is for? Or how about never showing the incidents we might get involved in so that you can waste our time showing people just walking in the snow?

And I cannot stress this enough - there is a special place in Hades reserved for the near-ceaseless narration as it drones on with all the depth and literary quality of a computer program randomly slamming words into a sentence. It actually makes pretentious, gibberish sound good in comparison. I wish I was joking but I'm not. What she says LITERALLY makes no sense and/or contradicts itself. It is the worst sort of nonsense pretending to be profound. And the young actress speaking the nonsense may make an interesting visual - staring off into space with her dark oversized hat - but the rest of her performance, and certainly her insipid line-readings, are equally still and emotionless. Her hat has a lot more charisma and screen presence and could probably handle the narration better also. For that matter, the hat could have written a better screenplay.

Add in the pointless ending (that makes no sense) and I am tempted to believe that this project is simply a bad-joke version of a bad movie; I find it hard to believe that anybody could have spent this much effort on such a ridiculous script unless it was their intention to make something awful. I mean, they had to know...right? They had to.