Movies
[BD Review] ‘Hate Crime’ Is An Alarming Wake-Up Call
Reviewed by Alex Wiggins
Horror is such a broad term. Literally anything could be considered horrific or scary depending on how it is depicted. When it comes to films, many viewers connect ‘horror’ with campy slashers or icons such as Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. Recently, however the genre has tried shaking off these familiar shackles and breaking new ground by entering more realistic territory. Now, films attempt to capture typical horror scenarios in real time on hand held cameras and other motion capturing devices. Nevertheless, despite the realism brought by introducing the story via found footage, very few films maintain a plot line that is believable or isn’t typical run of the mill horror stories.
It’s quite evident in the film Hate Crime that director James Cullen Bressack took note of this technique and decided to use it correctly. Hate Crime follows the sickening story of a Jewish family that is simply celebrating the youngest son’s birthday and is plunged into a fight for survival as a trio of anti-Semitics crashes the party. From the sound of it, one would think this is just some home invasion flick much in the tradition of The Strangers, right? Wrong. Crime is one of the most realistic portrayals of pure fear and terror in modern day society and seeks to expose the atrocious actions of monsters that punish those who don’t fit their image of ‘normal’.
I imagine that the reaction one has naturally to this film is the reaction the creators of Saw and Human Centipede strive for their viewers to have. Yet, Crime hardly relies on fancy gimmicks or overly gory violence to make the viewer squirm. The film uses a much more disturbing and bizarre method in order to invoke fear: the truth. People such as the intruders in Crime really are out there in the world, and they really do rape, torture, abuse, and murder families in front of one another. The only difference between reading about these crimes in the papers and hearing about them on the news is now audiences can witness the horror firsthand. Bressack delivers an unapologetic punch of a cinematic experience that’s bubbling with mediocre to respectable acting skills by the cast, simplistic yet creative methods of camera work and lightening (that makes the film unravel in real time and makes one sometimes forget they aren’t just watching some messed up home video), and the depraved morals of a trio of psychos who feel what they’re doing is nothing short of justified.
Now, I must personally praise two specific aspects of this film. First, Maggie Wagner (Melissa) gives a performance nothing shy of brave and committed. A mother forced to the most embarrassing and lowest forms of humiliation as she tries to stay brave for her children is quite a stretch for anyone’s acting skills (especially considering what torture is forced upon her) and Wagner handles the role wonderfully. Secondly, the make-up departments, for its brilliant use of prosthetic make-up and focus to detail and depth rather than gross out or gore!
Despite all these surprising features of the film, it’s certainly as flawed as any other movie out there. In some scenes the actors tend to over do their characters a bit too much. On top of that, some scenes (to be specific the bathroom scene with the daughter) seemed dragged out and ultimately slow the fast pace that the first eight minutes quickly sets up. However, the messages and morals of the film are what truly shine. The theme of corruption and intolerance are beautiful and as impactful as the messages of fellow exploitation films such as I Spit on Your Grave and Last House on the Left. All together, Hate Crime delivers a sadistic, yet honest and faithful twist on typical home invasion flicks while bringing light to a widely ignored issue of intolerance and well….hate crimes. But, I feel it is one of the more ambitious films released recently that contains an alarming wake-up call to the world.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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