What It's About: When a group of tourists on a New Orleans haunted swamp tour find themselves stranded in the wilderness, their evening of fun and spooks turns into a horrific nightmare.
Review: Slasher films have definitely become a staple of horror films; where once it was all Gothic and nothing but atmospheric music and fog now comes visceral sprays of blood and gore in order to truly frighten a public that was too quickly becoming bored of the simplistic idea of 'less is more.' Of course, once you start going down the path of showing rather than telling, people become desensitized, and then things get ramped up past eleven so your audience feels something...and you see where this is going. Of course, not all slasher films are bad - in fact, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, and Friday the 13th are all familiar faces (Freddy, Michael, and Jason, respectively) that every horror fan knows and loves. But its a very fine line in proving what makes a good slasher - generally the requirements are nothing more than a huge lumbering man who doesn't speak and either kills teenagers who drink and have sex or is just really pissed off for some inexplicable reason. And Victor Crowley fits that stereotype nicely.
Smile for the camera!
You can't really do another Freddy, so the natural route is to mimic the voiceless, often mentally handicapped killer like Michael or Jason. Victor haunts the mysterious and creepy swamps of Louisiana, near New Orleans. If there's any place that is perfect for something like a slasher killer, it's New Orleans. The film opens up with a quick scene of two hunters looking for gators (one of which is a cameo from the legendary Robert Englund himself) who are quickly torn to pieces by something, but then pans over to a shot of Mardi Gras. Now, if there's one holiday where college coeds get together to drink, have sex, and do other generally social taboo activities, it's on Mardi Gras. So it's easy to believe that a slasher is just waiting to carve a swathe of destruction through the crowds - and yet we don't even hear about Victor until we're already halfway through the movie. Who dropped the ball on that one?
No one wants to take credit for that....
Following two friends on Spring vacation, Marcus has brought his best friend Ben to N.O. for Mardi Gras to get his mind off of his recent break up with a girlfriend of eight years. Ben, of course, is a complete wet blanket about the idea; he refuses the drinking and the topless girls in favor of taking a late night swamp tour. Marcus reluctantly agrees, believing that this will eventually get Ben out of his slump. Instead, it just steers them directly into the path of carnage. Tony Todd (Candyman) also makes an appearance in directing our two main characters to a shady boat tour populated with an elderly couple, a "director" and his two "stars" who believe that taking their tops off at every opportunity will net them an acting career (and supplying the film with unnecessary tits, but if it's a slasher, tits there must be), and a sullen girl named Marybeth who is instantly paired up with Ben. Once everyone gets on the boat and in the swamp, the boat promptly sinks during a flash rainstorm, leaving the group stranded in the swamp. And here is where we finally hear about Victor - born with an absolutely hideous face, his father kept him hidden from the world until an untimely accident including a fire and a hatchet ended in Victor's death. Victor supposedly haunts the swamp, looking for his father.
A face only a father could love.
The last half of the film essentially shows Victor quite literally walking up to the characters and pulling them apart, either with his trademark hatchet or with his own bare hands. Practical effects were obviously used here, because the kills look fantastic. Everything from someone being hacked in two to having their face pulled apart to putting a sander to someone's face, this film really does its best to bring the gore and pull off a Texas Chainsaw Massacre in Louisiana. Like all slashers, Victor seems impervious to all methods of destruction, and the film ends with a scene that was quite obviously ripped from Friday the 13th (Victor, Jason was his moves back). The movie does its best to introduce a new slasher franchise (and is doing well enough to spawn a sequel) but it certainly doesn't measure up to the titans of gore, the previously mentioned Freddy, Michael, and Jason. It just does everything that was done before it - and it does it clumsily, with nothing new or fun added to it.
Except for the kill order, everything is pretty predictable.
Marybeth turns out to be the daughter and sister of the swamp hunters who were killed in the first half of the film; she's supposedly an invaluable tracker who knows the swamps and can help everyone escape from Victor. Ben is quickly pulled out of his depressed shell as they're running for their lives. The cast had a fairly wide variety of races, and the first person to be offed was white; but of course the last people standing are white, which is stereotypical of horror films. Even the final girl doesn't really make an appearance as our characters are merely running from place to place, trying to find a way to hide from Victor as he rampages through the swamps, able to find them on a moment's notice. One thing that makes Victor unique is that rather than seeking out victims, they end up going to him - Victor otherwise resides fairly quietly in his swamp, until startled. Rather than killing kids who have been bad, a la Michael or Jason, Victor kills people in revenge for those who caused the accident that ended in his own death, like Freddy.
That swamp tour doesn't seem like a good idea now, does it?
Overall, Hatchet is a great film for its kill scenes. The story of the film wobbles and definitely could have used some tightening, and it would have been nice to know that Victor was going to be the menace before reaching the halfway mark. Still, it certainly lives up to the expectations of any other slasher film, but it feels like its missing the humor and fun of the classics. While Victor is touted as the next big thing, I don't think he'll really catch on in the way Jigsaw of the Saw films has; if anything, he'll be an underground favorite for horror enthusiasts, but I think even that might be stretching it because he doesn't really have anything that sets him apart from the usual slasher mold.
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