Hatchet
Dir. by Adam Green
A group of tourists on a vacation to
New Orleans during Mardi gras jump in on a
haunted boat ride through the swamps. What they don't know is the swamps
aren't just inhabited with your normal swamp creatures such as crocs and
snakes. It's also inhabited by Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder). Let us go back
just a bit to tell the story of Victor Crowley. From childbirth Victor has
been deformed. Deformed to the point where his father (Kane Hodder) kept him
inside the house and got all the things he would need. One night while his
father was away a group of hooligans came upon the house, throwing
firecrackers and such causing a fire. His father returns too late but still
tries to free his son. He grabs a hatchet off a chopping block and starts
whacking away at the door. Little did he know Victor was standing on the
other side and one of the blows goes through the door hitting Victor in the
face killing him.
Now back to the story in question. The group goes out
on the swamp with a tour guide that has no idea what he's doing and soon
find that out when he bottoms out but doesn't know what to do or where they
need to go to get back to town. Luckily along the ride is Mary Beth (Tamara
Feldman), the daughter of a couple of redneck fisherman (Robert Englund)
who's actually looking for them and who knows the area all too well. As they
try to find their way back home the group start to bicker and argue amongst
them unknowing that Victor is indeed hunting them down. They all find their
demise in superb fashion.
HATCHET is laden full with plenty of bloodshed to
appease any horror fan of blood and grue, and I MEAN there is a lot of
blood. I can't recall a movie I've watched in a while that had so many
awesome decapitations, belt sanders to the face etc…I was highly impressed
with the expertise put forth in this area. But that's the problem, that's
pretty much all there is. Now don't get me wrong, HATCHET is a damn fine
film but it's in no way original in any sense. There were several times I
felt as if I was watching a Friday 13th flick, most notably the
ending. There was so much influence in that scene it seemed as if it was a
carbon copy right to the very end. I wasn't really sold on the actors
either. The main two guys and Mary Beth did an exceptional job but the rest
were pretty much puppet like. I just never bought into their performance.
All in all HATCHET is a cool solid movie that is very,
very entertaining. But as previously stated there's not much originality
herein. There are glimpses of originality throughout the film but they all
seem to go right back to square one. I did enjoy this film and feel it will
do exceptionally well to most viewers. Would I recommend this you ask? Sure
I would. Adam Green has got something here folks and I personally cant wait
to see just how far he takes us into the horror depths in the future.
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