Hate* (*a comedy)

No, this is NOT a French flick. It's actually a dark comedy about a homicidal chicken who stalks his next-door neighbor relentlessly. It's like David Fincher doing a cross between "Babe" and "Cape Fear". The writer/director team of Drew Daywalt & David Schneider were truly inspired when they came up with this twisted little tale. The world they and their cast & crew created was seamless -- a world in which people never question the ability of a chicken to drive, type, play cards...or even wield an axe. This kind of stuff is perfectly normal in their Everyland, USA. HATE* brings a smile to my face every time I watch it!

This short film is one of the best I've seen. It's hilarious, unique, and unexpected. They've been showing it with some regularity on Cinemax recently (Apr./May 2001), so if you get a chance, check it out.

This tale of a negro sharecropper's life in post-Antebellum Richmond crackles with the kind of veracity and oomph usually reserved for heartfelt flag-day celebrations and the occasional creative briss.

Making a rare appearance in an American film, Dame Sophia DeGueering turns in a heartbreaking performance as Mary Applebee, an aging Southern matriarch with a secret past.

HATE *A COMEDY is a short dark comedy in which when you become terrified by the fact that a chicken is wielding an axe or a syringe full of Drain-o and realize it, you start to laugh at the fact that that's the point of the film: to scare you and make you laugh at the same time. I love the hilarious notion chickens are allowed to live the average human lifestyle with no questioning or phobia, while still being recognized as a chicken. An example is in the beginning when Paul is telling his story to the police, and how he greeted Pembrooke when he first moved in, while eating fried chicken at the same time, resulting in a negative reaction from the poultry. "Maybe you were eating someone he knew" says one of the cops. GENIUS! This short goes right up there with NIGHT OF THE LIVING BREAD, LOAF, GEORGE LUCAS IN LOVE, and (forgot the title) another short in which a man driving down the freeway in L.A. doesn't realize the road has been shut down to serve as an emergency landing zone for a falling aircraft (the title was a triple-digit number). Catch HATE on HBO if you can.

The creators of Hate* (*a comedy) have fashioned a remarkable achievement. They have created an optical illusion of sorts. Several still photographs are somehow attached together and run at such an amazing speed (24 per second, if you can imagine!) that the viewer is "tricked" into believing that the images are moving on the screen. As if that weren't enough, they somehow captured the voices of the actors and ran these sounds simultaneously with the photoplay. The ultimate experience is spectacular. The viewers feel as though the actors are there in the auditorium with them, when they may be miles, even hundreds of miles, away! It is reported that the opening night audience was so startled to see a train coming at them from the screen, that they ran away in terror! One can only hope that one will see more of this "moving picture" technique used in the future to promote good morals and inspire the citizenry.