Hatchet

Writing a review for Hatchet is almost pointless. Devotees of the horror genre will see this no matter what is written. In fact, a certain rhetorically named fan-boy website that prides itself on cool news has already lauded the movie's villain as the next horror icon. While I wouldn't be too sure about that, Hatchet does make one thing clear at least, and that's that writer/director Adam Green has undeniable talent.

Structured largely as a parody of the Friday the 13th films, Hatchet casts legendary Jason Voorhees stand-in Kane Hodder as Victor Crowley, the deformed son of a backwoods Louisiana bayou fisherman (also played by Hodder), who was presumed killed years earlier in a house fire started by a bunch of tormenting local kids.

Green follows the stock formula for such movies: take a bunch of folks, find an excuse to strand them in monster country, and let the audience revel in watching them get picked off one-by-one.

Where Green excels, however, is in his smartly written, comically-paced script that is chalk full of genuinely funny inside jokes that are blatant winks at the audience and along the way establish more of a bond with Sean of the Dead than Halloween.

In terms of horror movies, there's nothing going on here that is particularly inventive or even scary, but Green clearly isn't out to achieve that. Rather, he's paying homage to a genre that he grew up with, as is clear by the cameos he's given to icons Robert Englund (Nightmare on Elm Street) and Tony Todd (Candyman and numerous others).

Bolstered by good acting, top notch production values, and intentionally rubbery costume effects, Hatchet panders to the fan-boy crowd in glorious revelry. Clearly Green knows his audience likes to sit back, kick the Fangoria magazines off the couch, and watch somebody take a belt sander in their kisser.

While I think labeling Victor Crowley as the next horror icon in the same vein as Jason, Michael Myers, and Freddy is complete preposterousness, saying Adam Green is someone to keep an eye on is a more realistic, and complimentary laurel.

The tag-line "Old School American Horror" is a little misleading. While it's true that "Hatchet" recalls the mad gore of the 1980s, the "horror" factor is actually absent. Watching the film feels more like viewing a condensed reel of slasher kills with a few drunk and fun-loving friends - certainly not a bad thing, but not exactly a horror movie either. That being said, it's obvious that the people involved in the production have a real love for the genre. Kane Hodder's monster antics are always a delight, and Adam Green will definitely be a name to watch in the future.

In summary, I'd certainly recommend the film for anyone who gets a kick out of the slasher craze of the 80s, but be sure you're in the mood for goofy fun and not an actual horror flick.

Hatchet (2006) is another of those modern horror movies that tries to copy the magic of 80's horror's, although it did have some sort of 80's feel, it just didn't have much else.

The storyline was boring and predictable, and i didn't really care for any of the characters either, and some people have "TRIED" to claim that Victor Crowley, is the next horror icon......... Don't MAKE ME LAUGH!!!!! Anyway, the story is about a group of people who decide to go on a haunted swamp tour and they get hunted down and killed off one by one by a disfigured killer. It's all rather boring and predictable and just average to be honest, it's only saving grace is the gory death scenes, of which some were very good. So all in all, i give Hatchet 5/10.

A bunch of the usual idiots are in a boat going through a swamp in New Orleans. Naturally the swamp supposedly has the ghost of a deformed maniacal man. Naturally the boat hits a rock and everybody has to get ashore. And naturally the maniac is alive and well (somehow) and goes after all of them.

As you can see this is totally by the numbers. There's no explanation of how this thing is still alive after so many years and he seems to be able to teleport to exactly where the victims are--there are at least five instances where he appears someplace that it was impossible for him to get to. Hasn't this insulting cliché been played out already? And nothing kills him (of course). All the passengers are the same clichés we've seen before--there's the slutty girls, the horny older guy, the nice guy, the nice girl, the elderly couple... I was actually getting pretty annoyed that these were trotted out again in a movie.

In some ways it'll give the undiscriminating horror fan what he wants--blood and boobs. Before the opening credits two people are literally torn apart (one is amusingly played by Robert Englund) and there's at least 10 pairs of nude breast shots in the first 15 minutes alone! This gets a 5 because it wasn't unwatchable. It moves fairly swiftly and the cast were actually pretty good. They're not going to win any awards but they pulled off their roles. The script has some purposely funny lines and I did laugh a few times. Also the gore was pretty explicit. I'm not surprised that it was cut for an R rating.

So, if you're a horror fan, you've seen this before. But if there's nothing else at the video store or on TV this is an OK time waster.

I went to see this film in part due to praise heaped on it by previous reviewers who had described it as clever and a fresh addition to the genre.

And it was .. for at least the first ~45 minutes or so.

I was immediately drawn in, the dialogue was notably above par for the genre, full of witty quips and more subtle bits of humor that reference horror classics. In the opening scenes we see notable cameos from Robert Englund ("Nightmare On Elm Street" series) and Tony Todd (of "Candyman" series fame). A respectable flashback sequence is included to introduce the "Hatchet" back story.

And so the movie takes off running, seemingly quite well. Fresh and unique, forging a new path through the wastleland of redundant slasher flicks as "Sean of the Dead" and "Scream" had done in previous years.

Unfortunately about half way through, this movie does a complete about-face. The witty banter is replaced with idiotic dribble more reminiscent of "I Know What You Did Last Summer" than the first half of the film. It's almost as if they fired an adept writer halfway through the script and replaced him with the proverbial thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters.

At this point the dam breaks, and the tired clichés pour through in droves. We are treated to a prolonged scene of foliage inspection and other such nonsense to fill the reel between death scenes. The characters repeatedly wait to flee screaming in panic until *after* they have disabled or incapacitated the title baddie. The only dread anticipation built in the second half is whether this film will be the schoolbus that was hit by the train, or the one that managed to avoid it.

Once the gore fest begins, it is eerily reminiscent of early "Troma" titles, over the top and fatuous. The "Hatchet" character even seems like it might have been modeled from the "Toxic Avenger". I can appreciate the merits of a lawn sprinkler arterial spray or projectile vomiting, on occasion, but modern film gore effects really have no excuse to still be of that "BrainDead" visual quality.

Despite the dual personalities of this film, I think it still manages to hack out a few good parts.

• 5/10 -