Hate Crime

When it comes to extreme films, there aren't many films out there that are more extreme than Hate Crime. This is filled with anti Semitic material from start to finish, as a Jewish family is brutalized by a rampaging trio of Neo Nazi home invaders.

We don't get much character insight at all before the carnage begins, which is the exact problem with the movie. Here we are supposed to sympathize for the characters, which the director succeeds in doing, but only because of the level of violence inflicted upon them, as opposed to generating some characters with any depth in them. Cardboard cutouts who have no name, no personality, just the capability of screaming to let the viewer know that they are in pain and remind everybody of how bad the situation is. Its like the horrible acts of violence that we hear on the news every night. We sympathize with the victims because of the situation, but we forget about it days later, because we didn't know them. That is the best way I can sum up Hate Crime. Yes, the victims are going through some very bad things, but we don't know these people. We don't know their interests. We don't know their names.

Hate Crime will appeal to those who like shocking acts of violence on screen for the sake of being rebellious, but if you want something with depth, then you are better off looking elsewhere!

Before I get into this one, I must admit, without any intention of comparing a film to another one that if there is something that gets me interested every damn time about film, are subjects such as the one in HATE CRIME. Racism, discrimination, human rights are all things exploited in movies such as the great SHINDLER'S LIST, A TIME TO KILL, and the extraordinary American HISTORY X. These films, for a reason or another all got me to my stomach and I haven't forgotten any of them since. And James Cullen Bressack's HATE CRIME qualifies as one of them. But, nope, scratch that part. Should it be different, HATE CRIME's far closer to a pure horror film than a Drama. Call me a pussy, call me too sensitive, at first I wasn't too sure if I should test myself with this film, but something inside me felt like I had to. So I took the red pill and watched it.

HATE CRIME is the story of a Jewish family. New to their neighborhood, they're about to celebrate their son's birthday. They want to immortalize the event on camera but soon after the party begins, a bunch of crazy, stoned neo Nazi lunatics storm in the house.

This is all I need to give away if you haven't seen the film yet and maybe intend to test yourself. The nightmare that follows starts within about the first 5 minutes of the film and it doesn't let go until the very end. Turning that film into a survival experience, in which a desperate family becomes hostage of a group of people that obviously hate them.

Most of the time, the visual style of HATE CRIME, which involves letting an actor run with the camera surprisingly serves the overall film pretty well with allowing the filmmaker to get as close as the action as he wants you to be and instead of making you feel for the sympathetic characters, just simply making you resent the fear, the anger, the cries and all the emotions storming inside the protagonists. HATE CRIME manages at times to challenge the viewer. I must admit that I've been tested on more than one occasion as this night which started as a quiet, birthday evening became such a fierce and crazy night of crimes beyond what I could have imagined. And that is why I won't spoil you in this review with much about the disaster that occurs but rest assure that pushing beyond the limits isn't something that this film shies away from, as I thought that only animal cruelty and abuse on child and women could happen to make me uncomfortable in horror films anymore.

There are very few weaknesses for this one that don't really bother the entire work. For instance, one of the masked assailants, the biggest one's voice will appear incredibly hard to hear clearly through his mask, making his dialogues hard to understand for the first minutes of the ordeal. But one can thank the need to take himself into such a horrific ride, or the will to see the protagonists' triumph, the film builds strength for itself that far exceed the little flaws. I felt like I must see this film and I did. This one is a rewarding piece of indie film overall. And I'm really looking forward into James Cullen Bressack's future in film as I'm looking to have the chance to see more of his past work. Including the intriguing: TO JENNIFER.

Hate Crime (2013)

** (out of 4)

Decent "found footage" film has a Jewish family celebrating a birthday when three Neo-Nazies break into their home.

That's pretty much the only "story" to this film as for 70-miutes we see the five family members being abused and tortured by the maniacs. I'm not going to sit here and call this a good movie but I do think director-writer James Cullen Bressack at least made a realistic one. I say that because this genre seems to have a new film hitting store shelves weekly and by now they're all starting to feel as if they're gimmicks. HATE CRIME at least looks like real footage and for the most part the actors do a nice job to where you can believe what you're watching.

I think the biggest problem with the film is that often times we've just got scenes that are dragging on without enough drama/tension. This is especially true as the movie goes on and even though it runs just 70-minutes, that seems way too long. As with a lot of films in the genre, this one also suffers from some logical stuff especially towards the end when a few plot twists are thrown in. This includes a member of the family breaking free yet the killers just seem to not pay it too much attention as they stand around screaming at one another. HATE CRIME certainly doesn't fall into the group of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT but it's not nearly as bad as some out there.

I found it on the 'banned movies in the UK' list that I'm trying to get through lately, as I'm consistently not shocked or excited by new movies of this genre.

It's filmed in a 'home movie' way; shaky cameras, cameras out of shot and not a great quality. But once I got used to this I found that it added to the tension.

There are some uneasy scenes. The family are made to do things unimaginable. But overall I wasn't hooked the whole time. It isn't very gory or violent, it's more of a mind thing as you're imagining what they're doing (because you can't clearly see where the cameras are placed).

It is watchable but to me not really shocking enough to be on the banned list.

This film is about 3 neo-Nazis attacking a Jewish("Is it Hannukah? Is it Passover?" the Father awkwardly and unconvincingly asks at the beginning of the film to his child just so we all know they are indeed Jewish) family on the youngest son's birthday.

What follows is 70 minutes of found-footage(yeah, it's one of THOSE films) garbage as the Nazis terrorise the family and film it all. THat's pretty much it. There is no suspense at all, there is no script, and it is clearly pretty much all improvised, and I think it's fair to say that none of the actors in this film have ever been to an improv class in their lives, as there is at least two Jewish slurs and three F words every 60 seconds, and outside of that, are completely incapable of constructing a sentence. The acting from the three antagonists isn't dreadful, Ian Roberts as "Three" is decent, a former rugby player, Dancing With The Stars contestant, gay rights activist and all-round nice guy in real life. His decision to be in this abomination of cinema was bizarre, but he tries his best. One of them tries way too hard to be like Matthew Lillard in Scream, and the other guy isn't bad either, but the director made him a completely ridiculous character(more ridiculous than Stu Macher 2.0 and Crystal Meth Addicted Rapist). Seriously, no one could make that bizarre and sleep-inducing bathroom scene any good. Also, whose idea was it to have "Three" wear a mask over his ski-mask at the beginning of the film, to the point where everything he says is muffled? Ridiculous. As for the rest of the cast, they are pretty dreadful. The Dad is the absolute worst, and is almost more dislikeable than the Nazis with his absolutely unreal emotions and actions during the ordeal.

At the end, we are randomly told how there are 80,000 hate crimes every year in the US. AND? Do you think this has changed anyone's views on anything? Do you think if you showed this to a group of 1000 fascists, that even one would change their opinions? The answer is no. People that are calling this "Powerful" are either plants or idiots. This is a weak and pretentious film, and Bressack has proved himself as a lazy and undeserving film-maker. The only reason I give it a Two is because giving a 1 to a film with Ian Roberts as a neo-nazi just isn't right.