THE HATRED (2017) Reviews and overview

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The Hatred is a 2017 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Michael G. Kehoe (based on his 2015 short, Hush) and produced by Malek Akkad (Halloween franchise). The movie stars Sarah DavenportAndrew Divoff and Darby Walker.

Plot:
Five young women travel to their college professor’s new country home for a weekend getaway, only to discover that the house has a malevolent past…

The Hatred was released on Blu-ray + Digital HD and DVD by Lionsgate on September 12, 2017.

Buy Blu-ray + Digital HD: Amazon.com

Review:

The Hatred begins well. Andrew Divoff (far removed from his cheesy Wishmaster roles) is chillingly arrogant as Samuel, a Nazi benefactor. Some brief yet moving scenes of repression, despair and guilt suggest this will be a decent study of angst in general.

Alas, The Hatred soon deposits us back in the reality of horror movie expediency as five attractive young female students show up at the house of evil. And, yes, they are all attractive, so bang goes any attempt at a more realistic scenario and this might as well be a cheesy Sorority House Massacre, except they don’t wear skimpy lingerie) 

Beyond the usual bimbo banter, these young ladies have a surprisingly serious interest in Nazi history. They look up the old amulet found at the start of the film and discover it was originally linked to the “Templar Knights” (amidst a massive amount of information about horrific history that you can casually find on Google, apparently). Meanwhile, the longest “thunder and lightning” storm ever rages on. And on.

Judging by its opening backstory scenes, The Hatred has definite promise. Unfortunately, it fails to deliver on this for most of its running time beyond some ‘climactic’ slamming of doors and fascist messages delivering via a bath plughole (no, really). At the film’s unexciting conclusion, Regan (yes, Regan) helps innocent little girl Irene escape via a “doggy door”. It’s that easy to escape from evil, apparently.

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p class=”p1″>Eventually, The Hatred simply peters out and we are left to ponder why Halloween producer Malek Akkad decided to become involved in this inauspicious expansion of Hush, director Michael G. Kehoe’s generally well-regarded horror short. 
Adrian J Smith, MOVIES & MANIA

Other reviews:
“The upside to The Hatred’s gear getting stuck in a single position down the home stretch is at least a manageable speed is maintained. The downside is that the straightforward speed races right past every opportunity for originality that might add an energetic edge.” Culture Crypt

“Things are pretty resolutely predictable once the actual scare-a-thon gets its rather belated start, and there are some admittedly nice jump scares that accrue in a couple of moments, but virtually everything about this film is chaotically presented and therefore too almost random-seeming to ever generate sustained anxiety.” Blu-ray.com

“Don’t go into this movie expecting a T&A slasher film, or even blood and gore. (Though there is a flashback sequence that makes me wonder if Sears disemboweled and taxidermied Alice.) Instead, it’s a character-centric ghost story with an emphasis on atmosphere and spookiness.” My Horrific Life

” …I much more would have preferred if the entire movie was a period piece, rather than just its first 15 minutes or so. As soon as the movie starts to take place in modern times I started to lose interest in it as well. It became a far too formulaic movie, with uninteresting characters and all of the usual settings and events.” Boba_Fett1138

“If the movie could have presented us with at least one other scene as good as “Hush”…well, it still wouldn’t have been good, but at least it would have had two good scenes. What we get instead is a complete mess which mixes Nazis and the occult in an awful way.” DVD Sleuth

Main cast:

  • Sarah Davenport – Dusk
  • Andrew Divoff – Demons; Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-AnimationThe Wishmaster films
  • Darby Walker
  • Gabrielle Bourne
  • Bayley Corman
  • Alisha Wainwright
  • David Naughton – Waking Nightmare; Sharknado 5; An American Werewolf in London
  • Amanda Wyss – The Id; The Graves; A Nightmare on Elm Street
  • Shae Smolik
  • Musetta Vander
  • Ronnie Gene Blevins
  • Nina Siemaszko
  • Andrew Matarazzo
  • Oksana Chester
  • Mandy Newton

Film Facts:
The film’s working titles were Alice and Alice: The Hatred.

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