Damn Bloody Horrorcast

Victor Crowley is in the Hizz-ouzz yo! ( If that’s how you even spell it..)
Yes, upon a recent trek to my local pawnbroker, I went all out and bought around 20 dvds for $2 each, one of which was Hatchet – a film I’d heard about quite a bit now with 2 sequels (no.2 already out and no.3 is greenlit? maybe) and was certainly worth checking out.

Upon viewing the title sequence alone I could instantly tell the writer/director Adam Green was a horror fan. Casting Robert Englund (Freddy K), Tony Todd (Candyman) and Kane Hodder (Jason VII-X) in the same film is a horror fans wet-dream. Short as their presence was, with the exception of Hodder who played the ‘monster’, their performances were enjoyable.

That being said, I did struggle to feel anything for the gangly protagonist (Joel Moore) who spent the majority of the film whining about his girlfriend dumping him. I know this is a tribute to slasher films like Friday the 13th, and certain stereotypes will rear their cliche’d heads but when the rest of the supporting cast delivers a solid mix of humour, tension and most importantly fear, a one note song gets old quick.
Besides the nerdy dude from Avatar’s annoying screen presence during the first half of the film, the story gets rolling as a group of various sorts go on a haunted bayou boat tour in the lousianna swamps. Of course however the swamps are haunted by the deformed and evil spirit of Victor Crowley, a malicious beast that kills anything and anyone who ventures too far in.

The film itself is cheesy and at times doesn’t dare take itself seriously, but once the murders start, then shit gets real. The deaths are well done and incredibly gory, certainly not you’re run of the mill slasher kills is all I’ll say at this point. And due to this, the film suffered a run in with the infamous MPAA and received an NC-17 rating before months of re-editing earned the film an R re-classification.

I enjoyed the film as a whole but it did leave a bitter taste in my mouth. Without giving too much away (but if you’re super keen to see it then possible SPOILERS ahead…)

the film just ends.
That’s it, go home.

Honestly, at first I though my copy of the DVD was scratched and had frozen or skipped to black. Nope. It just fucking ends. As far as I know, the sequel Hatchet 2 picks up directly at the previous scene but even then, what a ‘fuck you’ to the audience. Does that mean it was written as a 3 hour epic in which the script was cut in half? Or was it a wow, we kinda wrote ourselves into a corner here but oh well. I don’t know. It’s one of those things that annoys the shit out of me and ruined the experience.

The best way to describe it was if you went out to a nightclub, took some fine hottie home, began having sex and later at the height of your climax, at those precious few seconds where it’s too far to turn back or stop what’s about to happen, she jumps off your dick and walks out of your place, leaving you shocked and shooting yogurt all over yourself.

You could look at it by saying, ‘well, it was a fun ride, and I got somewhere in the end so I guess everything worked out’ .
But for me, it was more a ‘wait… the fuck? THE FUCK WAS THAT?!?’ response.

Regardless, for what it was, I enjoyed Hatchet and would recommend having a look at it. I just wish the audience was given a little more credit and a lot more closure – without resorting to a sequel.