Hatchet (2006)

Fresh and Exciting

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

"Hatchet" proves that some extraordinarily brutal and well-done gore coupled with cameos from icons of horror is not enough to make a movie interesting and successful. You need things like an interesting plot, atmosphere, or scares as well.This is a slasher that takes place in the backwoods on Louisiana, but it really doesn't do anything with the location. It should be scary, but instead it just gets boring. It made me wish the movie was set in a supermarket or something.The lack of imagination in dealing with the locale, and the fact that most of the movie takes place at night, made it feel like watching actors run around against the backdrop of a black screen.The fact that the plot is just standard slasher fare doesn't really help matters. A group of Yankees are down south for Mardi Gras - the movie provides many exposed breasts in the beginning - decide to take a boat-tour of the swamps. They run into trouble when the boat runs onto a rock and they are attacked by alligators, but they soon realise that the real danger is from your typical slasher-movie bad guy.Along the way we get cameos from Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger), Tony Todd (the Candyman), and Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees). We also get some extraordinary gore, too over-the-top to be sickening or disturbing. My favourite death was when a lady has her mouth ripped open until her entire head splits in half.Unfortunately, when you see clips online of really cool death scenes, the movies these clips are taken from tend to be lacklustre outside from the one or two kills that show up as animated images or Youtube clips."Hatchet" is not an exception to this rule.

2003 was a rough year for horror icon Kane Hodder. The official actor of Jason Voorhees since 1988 with his take on the character being without question the definitive fan favorite, Hodder was forced to hand the mask over to Ken Kirzinger for the long anticipated and incredibly hyped "Freddy v.s Jason." The unceremonious and frankly disrespectful dumping was a blow to Hodder, who would go on to mostly do stuntwork and small cameo appearances in various films after being let go as Jason. That was until 2006, when Hodder was cast as the first (And only) actor to play the deformed ghoul Victor Crowley for Adam Green's new horror franchise "Hatchet." While I can't speak to how much the role has eased the sting of being dropped as Jason Voorhees for "Freddy v.s Jason", I can certainly say that it should. "Hatchet" is right up there with the very BEST of the "Friday the 13th" films in terms of quality.Kane Hodder himself is positively terrifying as Victor Crowley. I'll go so far as to say he's the most terrifying killer in slasher movie history. Make no mistake, Victor is a very different character than Jason, and Hodder plays him accordingly. Crowley is far more manic, excited and sadistic in his mannerisms; be it his walking, his facial expressions (Crowley's deformed face often has a twisted smile to it that is downright chilling) or his killing. For Jason, killing teens was just his job. Victor genuinely seems to take pleasure in slowly and painfully dispatching his victims.And slow and painful those dispatchings are..."Hatchet" is one of the bloodiest, nastiest slashers I've ever seen. People are decapitated, chopped in half, slowly disemboweled from the back, de- armed, split down the face, impaled on the blunt ends of shovels...I could go on, but you get the point. It's gory, it's gross, it's foul...And it's freaking awesome. The creativity and downright grossness of the violence in this movie just makes the whole film that much more entertaining.It helps that we actually CARE about Crowley's potential and actual victims. Joel David Moore is quite likable and VERY funny as Ben. He's proved in the past to be somewhat of a saving grace even for the worst movies, so it's refreshing of him to see him at his best in a great one. Parry Shen is another talented actor burdened with starring in mostly terrible film, and like David Moore, he's downright hilarious as scam-artist-sailor Shawn. Richard Rihehle and Patrika Darbo are adorkable as the Permatteos, a midwest couple quite out of their element in the killer stalked swamps of New Orleans. By far the best non-killer performance has to go to Deon Richmond as Marcus, who DESPERATELY deserves more work. He's the most likable of the cast and gets some of the biggest laughs in the film (The tree scene is comedic GOLD), if there's anyone I wanted to survive the movie, it was him.The story is quite simple, but the script and characters make it quite apparent fairly quickly that this is partly a loving satire of the "Friday the 13th" films. It's not just the actors who know they're in a kitschy horror film, the characters know it too. When we laugh at the absurdity of lines like "You look like you been molested by wolves!", we're laughing WITH the movie, not AT it.If you hadn't guessed by my comments on the cast, "Hatchet" is a horror-comedy, and it works extremely well in both the scares and laughs department. The already gifted cast are helped by a very funny script and a director who clearly respects his cast's talents, leading to a very complete comedic experience. That said, when the film is going for downright horror, it can be just as effective; the swamps of New Orleans are unsettling enough, but made more so by some excellent, dark, uncomfortable lighting. It's ugly to look at, but there's no doubt this was director Adam Green's intention...And have I mentioned yet how scary Hodder is as Victor Crowley?"Hatchet" is a MUST watch for any horror fan nostalgic for the "good old days" of slasher movies. It's not a perfect movie, but it IS a perfectly entertaining one. I DARE any so called "slasher fan" to watch this movie and NOT have fun.

Taking a riverboat trip into the Louisiana swamps, a group of tourists and their ride find a local legend about a psychotic serial killer living in the swamps true and must find a way of surviving his blood- soaked rampage.On the whole this was an absolutely fun, fantastic slasher. One of the best parts to this one is that glorious throwback feeling to the slashers and of the past, and nearly every aspect of this is found throughout here. Starting with the back-story here, this is a classic sense of unwarranted trauma and abuse which is a classic example of a supposed slasher back-story that carries this one along. More to the point, the film's love of old-school special effects means that everything here is done with prosthetic make-up and not through CGI, which is a real blast here giving the actions a much more impressive feel to these scenes. That also brings up the film's other great elements in a series of spectacularly brutal and graphic kills here that make for a really exciting time watching the carnage on display here as it rips people to pieces, hacks off limbs and really just displays no outward rationale for keeping people in one piece. That these come from a fine assortment of action-packed stalking scenes is quite nice here and really gets this going nicely, as it starts with the early backs troy scenes and then carries on through the staking scenes of the group after being stranded in the swamp where the first attack on the couple gets this one going nicely. There's other big scenes here with the attack on the tour-guide and the eventual escape, as well as the big battle in the tool-shed and the cemetery chase which all make for great action-packed scenes that include the great gore and suspense throughout. That suspense, coming not only from the stories and tall- tales while also showcasing the absolutely creepy swamps and shack locations here which really help move this along as well as the unrelenting gore make this so good. About the only flaw here is the longer amount of time this takes to get to the swamp with the rather lame celebrations and tour-boat trip that takes forever to move along. Otherwise, this one was simply a blast.Rated R: Extreme Graphic Violence, Full Nudity, Graphic Language and drug use.

I'm writing this review after a second viewing of Hatchet. I do love a good/daft horror/slasher movie and this one was billed as being right up there with the best of them, plus even a homage to the classics of the seventies and eighties.In short, I didn't like it at first. However, after a couple of years I decided to watch it again and see if I missed anything.Even now, I probably wouldn't say it's an absolute classic, but it is a decent enough little yarn (with plenty of blood).Did I say 'plenty' of blood? I meant TONNES. In fact, the producers obviously know they're going a bit over the top and must have had great fun throwing bucketloads of the red stuff at trees after every kill takes place.It's quite a short film (it doesn't really need to be any longer) and, after the thumping Marilyn Manson opening song, we meet about a group of people who go on a boat ride into the swamps of America and end up on the wrong end of a maniac's hatchet. The kills are very violent and, if you're looking for gore, you'll find it here. The best part of the film is the characters. Whether they're horrible or nice, they're entertaining. There's plenty of amusing banter between them to keep us amused (special mention to the two *ahem* 'actresses' who continually bicker with each other all the way through).These good characters go some way to make up for the film's major flaw: they don't kill the killer. This slasher film possibly has the most opportunities to either kill, or severely subdue the nutter with the hatchet, yet they choose to run off every time and leave him to 'get better' and resume coming after them. This is the most annoying part of the film and, if it wasn't for the snappy, tongue-in-cheek dialogue, I would have found myself getting increasingly annoyed with the whole package.All in all, this film is far from perfect, but, if you lower your expectations enough and put your brain on hold, you should enjoy the daftness and gore (like I say, it's not on for long!).Also, kudos to the film-makers for getting Robert Englund, Kane Hodder and Tony Todd on the same cast list.