Hatchet
(2006)
review by Suspiriorum

Ah, ‘80s horror films.  They were great, weren’t they?  A group of horny teenagers are set upon by a masked psycho, who was thought to have been killed years earlier after a prank engineered by teens went hideously wrong.  People get hacked up one by one, until finally the virtuous heroine is the last one alive & manages to outsmart the killer after a lengthy chase.  Actually, hang on – surely there was a reason Kevin Williamson wrote ‘Scream’ to take the piss out of these films?  Aren’t they reductive, obvious, stupid & frankly, pretty crappy?  So why are so many new directors nowadays desperately trying to recreate them?  Hasn’t the genre moved on, or are we doomed to an eternity of remakes & pastiche?  Why the hell should we care anymore?  Those were the questions I asked myself before going in to see Adam Green’s much-hyped return to 80’s-values slasher flick ‘Hatchet’.  Did I find answers?  Well, first I’ll keep you suspense a bit (no, not suspenders you perv!) & tell you a bit about the story.

Okay, so there’s this group of horny teens, right?  They’ve gone to Mardi Gras in New Orleans in the hopes of having a great party, getting laid lots, & partaking of some mind-altering substances.  Broken-hearted Ben (Joel Moore) however, is not feeling in the mood for partying, so he manages to persuade his friend Marcus (Deon Richmond) into going on a late-night tour of the local swamps with him.  Also on the tour are a porn director & his two nubile but dim-witted starlets, a couple of elderly tourists, & moody local girl Marybeth (Tamara Feldman), who clearly has her own reasons for being on the tour.  Once in the swamp, they hear the local legend of Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder), who died as a child as a result of a prank pulled by local kids which went hideously wrong, but is rumoured to still be stalking the swampland at night.  As a storm hits, their tour boat sinks, leaving the group stranded & at the mercy of the very real - & bloody pissed off – Victor Crowley.  Who will survive, & what will be left of them?

So the plot is essentially slasher movie 101 – nothing we’ve not seen before.  Going back to the earlier questions, just why should anyone give a shit about such a backwards-thinking film as ‘Hatchet’.  The answer, it turns out, is a deceptively simple one: because it’s fucking fun!  I mean, I adore the dark psychological dramas of Ingmar Bergman, the propulsive editing of Sergei Eisenstein blows my mind, & my admiration for the cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski I can scarcely convey in words – but there’s something about watching Kane Hodder rip a woman’s head clean in two that satisfies a part of my cinephile mind like nothing else.  To those who know what I’m talking about here (which is almost certainly you, if you’re visiting this site!) no further explanation is necessary as to why ‘Hatchet’ absolutely fucking rules, but to those who don’t get it, there is no explanation I can give that will make any sense.

But then simply saying that it rules is a pretty crappy review, so I’d better elaborate on why it is that you want to see this film.  First, let’s start with the obvious – if it’s extreme violence & gore you’re after, ‘Hatchet’ will not disappoint.  After a bout of relatively bloodless slasher outings in the late 90’s, recently the genre has been rediscovering a wonderfully disreputable love of old-fashioned grue (thanks to directors like Alexandre Aja), & ‘Hatchet’ slots neatly into this trend with a gloriously OTT display of bloodletting & gore.  Best of all, it’s all done with physical & prosthetic effects (courtesy of John Carl Buechler), with no CG in sight.  And this is a film that knows its (predominantly male) audience; it’s well aware that nothing sets off super-violent hacking & slicing like a little T&A.  Whilst this may not sit too comfortably with certain members of the audience, ‘Hatchet’ feels like has more tit-shots than the entire ‘Friday the 13th’ franchise put together.  It probably hasn’t quite, but I think it’d be a pretty interesting project to figure it out. 

But a bucket of red stuff & some naked girls does not (no matter what some may think) automatically make for a good film.  The surprise trump card in ‘Hatchet’s corner is actually its script.  Not for the narrative – which, as noted above, is decidedly by the numbers – but for its dialogue.  The film is packed with genuinely funny lines of dialogue, & for once these actually work with, rather than against, the horror.  Unusually, it’s actually fun spending time with the characters between the kill scenes, & this only serves to make the violence more effective.  It’s not quite a comedy-horror like ‘Monster Man’, but a straight-up horror film that manages to find time to be witty.  But no matter how funny the dialogue may be, it’s the way in which every member of the cast gets into the spirit of the film & delivers that dialogue that makes the film work.  We’re not talking Oscar-calibre performances here, but they’re precisely what the film needs, & delivers some classic moments – Deon Richmond’s attempts to taunt Crowley in order to provide a diversion are absolutely priceless, for example.  Toss in a couple of fan-pleasing genre hero cameos (Tony Todd in particular camps it up to hysterical effect) and a nice appearance by Hodder as Victor’s dad, & the result is an absolute winner.

Ultimately, ‘Hatchet’ may not offer anything particularly new, clever, or insightful, nor will watching it make you more popular with the girls - but then that was never the intention.  A guilty pleasure that’s so genuinely funny & well put together that I can’t feel guilty about enjoying it, ‘Hatchet’ is unashamedly a horror film made by horror fans for horror fans – but one which actually delivers on its promises in spades.  It’s so indecently entertaining that calling it a perfect late night romp almost seems like doing it a disservice.  Whilst it may be looking backwards, if you put ‘Hatchet’ head-to-head against pretty much any post-‘Halloween’ slasher, it’s the new film that will emerge as the winner.