Hatchet

            My first two reviews here at Highbrow Horror have been of very straight faced, serious horror films. I love them because they truly are terrifying and have been deemed so by nearly everyone who has seen them over the years. However, I don’t think I enjoy anything more than a good ole’ gory schlock fest full of dark humor and insanity that doesn’t take itself seriously for a second or is too low budget to know better. And that is exactly what Hatchet is.

            Back in the 80’s, one subgenre of the horror film reigned supreme, the slasher. Slasher films never pretended to be more than they were, which was outrageously violent, ultra sleazy, nudity-filled gore fests. This subgenre has yielded some of the greatest horror films of all time such as the Friday the 13^th series, Nightmare on Elm Street, and even more obscure films such as Maniac and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. In the 90’s there was the Scream franchise and after that, Hollywood began churning out mainstream re-makes of these films and others from around the globe. It seemed that no one had an original idea anymore.

            Then in 2006, writer/director Adam Green gave us Hatchet. The film boasted two tag lines, “It’s not a remake. It’s not a sequal. And it’s not based on a Japanese one,” and “Old school American horror.” I am happy to say that these two taglines perfectly capture the light feel and awesome approach to this wildly gorey romp through the swamp.

            The film introduces Victor Crowley, a deformed and hideous creature who lives in the Lousiana bayou. As a child, he lived with his father, who kept him hidden away from the rest of society as he was constantly made fun of and humiliated. One Halloween night, years ago, a group of kids gathered at the Crowley house to scare Victor by throwing fire crackers on the front porch. Victor was alone while his dad was out in town. Accidentally the house was caught on fire and Victor was trapped. When his dad arrived home, he quickly grabbed a hatchet and began to chop down the front door to get to his son. Little did he know that Victor was on the other side of the door and the hatchet killed his son. Now, Victor Crowley haunts the swamp and gruesomely murders anyone who dares venture into it. This legend becomes all too real when a swamp boat tour is broken down near Victors house. One by one the members of the tour are picked off as Victor Crowley exacts his revenge against the society that ruined his life.

            This movie is clearly made with one type of audience in mind, the slasher film audience. It doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not for one second. There isn’t any hidden subtext rich in social commentary on the state of America or anything like that. It plays out with its tongue firmly planted in cheek and embraces everything that happens with arms wide open. People complain that it’s too funny, or that Victor looks like something from the Goonies, and to those people I would say, chill out! I think everything about this movie is intentional and made to make us laugh and squirm.

            And squirm we certainly will, as the gore score is off the charts in this one. We see people’s limbs wripped from their torso’s, numerous decapitations, a man hacked in half sideways with a hatchet, a sandbelt sanding away a girls lower jaw, and a womans face wripped in half via Victor Crowley’s bare hands. It’s all done “in camera” with traditional F/X, no CGI and it looks amazing. I’ll take this type of gore any day and this instantly gives the film more props from me.

            Top it all off with a handful of awesome cameos from Robert Englund (everyone knows him as Freddy Krueger), and Tony Todd (the Candy Man). Victor Crowley is played by Kane Hodder, everyone’s favorite Jason Vorhees from the Friday the 13^th series.

            So, as you can see, this is a winner with me. From it’s light campy tone, the amazing gore F/X work, to the cameos of genre favorites, Hatchet is a film that sets out to make the slasher fan happy, and it worked very well with this slasher fan.

            Hatchet 2 comes out October 1^st unrated to theatres and promises to up the ante on all accounts. If you are a fan of gory horror films, you’ll see Hatchet 2 in theatres because this hardly ever happens. Most of the time the MPAA comes in and cuts a violent film to shreds and we only see a portion of the directors vision. With Hatchet 2, we get to see everything Adam Green wanted us to see, and I can’t wait to see it for myself.

-Dave

Poster by Micah Moseby.