Movies like this frustrate me. The lead actor, Marvin W. Schwartz, is decent and the story isn't bad but it's so poorly filmed that the whole thing suffers for it. Marvin plays Norman Bird, an aging New York City comic desperate to be a celebrity. He comes to believe that killing people will get him remembered much better then his comedy routine. He personally thinks his stuff is funny but is too dark to be appreciated, and soon is fired from the comedy club he's paid to perform in. If the murders Normal commits were creatively done in some way this movie might have had a chance to at least please the slasher crowd. People just died way too easily as well. I understand and even like a lot of low budget movies despite some obvious mistakes but to not even have realistic sound effects (for example, laughing in the club) in most places is not a budget issue but a lazy Director issue. The jittery camera work where it didn't need it was distracting too. However, the acting was decent and it had some well written dialog. The score was pretty unimpressive except for the main piano theme which isn't bad. The movie was interesting enough that I wish the Director would have put just one more week or two into post-production.
3 Reviews
Nick Oddo's mad psycho killer ride
wattsfork17 December 2005
Warning: Spoilers
Most horror filmmakers don't have major aspirations of challenging their audiences to think outside of who's the killer, which teens next for the chopping block, or how will the monster live on for the eventual sequel. I have to admit it was with this mindset that I began watching director Nick Oddo's first feature length film I Hate You. After about 10 minutes, my notebook tossed aside, I let myself get lured into this film, realizing it could take many viewings to begin to pull out the intricacies of Oddo's mad psycho killer ride.
It's not a high rattling thrill ride; it's a slow car thumping you through the stuffy horror house. It's not the bumper cars; it's the house of mirrors you inevitably get lost within. It doesn't drive you by the accident; it plucks you from the car and forces you to help clean up the gore.
From the very first, we know Norman (Marvin W. Schwartz) is a true New Yorker. With the look a cross between a frenzied Albert Einstein and the cemetery ghoul from Night of the Living Dead, Norman bursts on screen with a humble vitality, hopping in and out of old tires and skipping rocks into the river across shore from the NYC landscape. Director Oddo keeps us within the untouristed sections of New York, capturing the pre-Guiliani clean up Times Square campaign that his 12-minute short film Times Square "change" deals with. (This award-winning short is included among the DVD extras)
With Oddo's choice of black and white, he keeps you off kilter, bluntly establishing the grind of back alleys and drabness of the buildings. Bring on Norman's first stand-up routine, one of many suffering chats he devotes to Jack the ripper, immortality and serial killers, the only subjects he discusses in the entire film.
A quick switch has Norman delivering his innate charm to get invited into others' homes. With his walking cane and Casablanca hat, he's swiftly inside and bludgeoning a man into submission until he can produce a long dagger from within the cane. Concluding his death dance, he offers a flourishing stage bow to imaginary applause. This routine is repeated, the only change being the choice of a mop handle as his death bludgeon.
Director Oddo cements the viewer's confusion over Norman's act by having young comic Bill (a very funny Bill Santiago) performing funny material to real applause before Normans set, to which he talks on the gory effectiveness of different execution styles and his idea to start a death channel, where you can relax at home after a long day at work by watching someone get run over by a car. Dead silence.
Norman keeps killing, switching out methods and weapons, and keeps on rambling. The subtlety comes with Norman's growing disturbance over the lack of news coverage, his inability to understand why his crimes can be swallowed up in the city's underbelly. The story moves in shades of gray, as his ramblings to club patrons and individual friends distort with his despair. Events finally plummet in ways that you both expect and somehow regret.
Norman's undeniably different from the benchmark serial killer profile law enforcement works from. This makes the story seem unbelievable at the onset, but by its end you both understand and believe that he indeed has the killer within him.
At 77 minutes it's short, but with 11 murders it's like a turbulent jaunt over Lake Michigan in a twin prop puddle jumper, abrupt yet lingering, careful yet threatening. Ray Lambs poem, which Norman begs from him to use, seems to say it all.
I hate your guts, I'll crush your nuts, while pain's dotting your eyes I'll smash your head until you're dead, and your bodies covered with flies I hate you with the darkest passion man has ever been able to fashion
Your putrid body was meant for smashing,
But I think you have beautiful eyes.
It's not a high rattling thrill ride; it's a slow car thumping you through the stuffy horror house. It's not the bumper cars; it's the house of mirrors you inevitably get lost within. It doesn't drive you by the accident; it plucks you from the car and forces you to help clean up the gore.
From the very first, we know Norman (Marvin W. Schwartz) is a true New Yorker. With the look a cross between a frenzied Albert Einstein and the cemetery ghoul from Night of the Living Dead, Norman bursts on screen with a humble vitality, hopping in and out of old tires and skipping rocks into the river across shore from the NYC landscape. Director Oddo keeps us within the untouristed sections of New York, capturing the pre-Guiliani clean up Times Square campaign that his 12-minute short film Times Square "change" deals with. (This award-winning short is included among the DVD extras)
With Oddo's choice of black and white, he keeps you off kilter, bluntly establishing the grind of back alleys and drabness of the buildings. Bring on Norman's first stand-up routine, one of many suffering chats he devotes to Jack the ripper, immortality and serial killers, the only subjects he discusses in the entire film.
A quick switch has Norman delivering his innate charm to get invited into others' homes. With his walking cane and Casablanca hat, he's swiftly inside and bludgeoning a man into submission until he can produce a long dagger from within the cane. Concluding his death dance, he offers a flourishing stage bow to imaginary applause. This routine is repeated, the only change being the choice of a mop handle as his death bludgeon.
Director Oddo cements the viewer's confusion over Norman's act by having young comic Bill (a very funny Bill Santiago) performing funny material to real applause before Normans set, to which he talks on the gory effectiveness of different execution styles and his idea to start a death channel, where you can relax at home after a long day at work by watching someone get run over by a car. Dead silence.
Norman keeps killing, switching out methods and weapons, and keeps on rambling. The subtlety comes with Norman's growing disturbance over the lack of news coverage, his inability to understand why his crimes can be swallowed up in the city's underbelly. The story moves in shades of gray, as his ramblings to club patrons and individual friends distort with his despair. Events finally plummet in ways that you both expect and somehow regret.
Norman's undeniably different from the benchmark serial killer profile law enforcement works from. This makes the story seem unbelievable at the onset, but by its end you both understand and believe that he indeed has the killer within him.
At 77 minutes it's short, but with 11 murders it's like a turbulent jaunt over Lake Michigan in a twin prop puddle jumper, abrupt yet lingering, careful yet threatening. Ray Lambs poem, which Norman begs from him to use, seems to say it all.
I hate your guts, I'll crush your nuts, while pain's dotting your eyes I'll smash your head until you're dead, and your bodies covered with flies I hate you with the darkest passion man has ever been able to fashion
Your putrid body was meant for smashing,
But I think you have beautiful eyes.
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before...
azathothpwiggins10 February 2022
I HATE YOU is a "documentary" about a serial-murdering stand-up comedian.
We are taken along as he goes through his routines, both on the stage telling jokes, and off, while he creeps up on his latest victims.
This is an extremely low-budget, jet-black comedy that's sure to please any funny-boned sadists or those with a particularly warped sense of humor. You just might find yourself laughing against your better judgement.
Filmed in black and white...
We are taken along as he goes through his routines, both on the stage telling jokes, and off, while he creeps up on his latest victims.
This is an extremely low-budget, jet-black comedy that's sure to please any funny-boned sadists or those with a particularly warped sense of humor. You just might find yourself laughing against your better judgement.
Filmed in black and white...
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