Hatchet
Adam's Green's HATCHET sure got a lot of love from the net critics, even being labeled as "the next icon of horror" by Harry Knowles. It was advertised as "old school American horror", whatever that means. So expectations were sorta high. It begins with Robert Englund playing a gator hunting cajun out in the swamp with his son. But before you can say "Who dat?", they're slaughtered by an unseen menace. The killing is nice and splattery in a goofy kind of way, full of splashing blood and snatched spines. Then we travel through a cgi sewer to the sound of Marilyn Manson's "The New Shit" till we get to the French Quarter in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. After some titty flashing Mardi Gras montage action we meet two guys, one black and one white. I don't remember their names but it doesn't matter. White guy is tired of titties because they remind him of his ex-girlfriend, so he wants to get away from tits and go on a haunted swamp boat tour. Black guy reluctantly agrees. Now we get our second horror film actor throwaway appearance, Tony Todd of CANDYMAN. He plays Reverend Zombie, does a comedy bit and is done. Our boys end up at a crappy tourist trap voodoo shop to book a tour. Also going on the tour are a couple of hot sluts and a guy paying them to show their tits in a "Girls Gone Wild" type video, a mysterious quiet girl, and an older vacationing couple. The older tourist guy is played by Richard Riehle from OFFICE SPACE who is naturally pretty funny. Our list of potential victims is now complete and we are off to the swamp. Green does a pretty good job here with the comedy and the tour guide is pretty good at playing a completely awful tour guide.
Before hitting the swamp we get the requisite crazy old hermit warning everybody that they are gonna die and that the swamp is closed. I'm not sure how you close a swamp, but he tries. The tour is quite lame until BAM, the boat hits a plot point and starts sinking. After an improbable gator attack, our cast is forced to go it on land. They immediately panic and start fighting as they try to figure out the best way to get back to the city. About this time, the quiet girl reveals that she is here to find her dad (Englund) and brother who are missing. She also reveals the sad tragic story of Victor Crowley in a flashback. That's a good thing because earlier in a crowd scene, I noticed a guy wearing a t-shirt with a hatchet on it that said "Victor Crowley Lives" and I was wondering what that was all about. According to legend, Victor Crowley was a mongo-headed boy who grew up in the swamp with his loving daddy.The dad and grown up Victor are both played by Kane Hodder, who played Jason in FRIDAY THE 13TH parts whatever. As these thing go, one horrible fateful Halloween night, local teens tried to pull a prank on Vic. Vic is pretty fucking big at this point so you'd think they might not wanna mess with a big melon-headed swamp man, but they do. They cause an easily escapable fire that traps poor Vic in his shanty. Vic's dad comes home and tries to chop the burning door down with a ... du-du-duh! hatchet, but accidentally plants it in Vic's melon, thus giving birth to our title and a legend. Vic's dad becomes a recluse and Vic's ghost is said to haunt the swamp. Apparentally everyone but the swamp tour guide knew of this legend. I guess he didn't see the T-Shirts. It seems it would've really kicked up the haunted swamp tour though. Maybe something like "and on your left ladies and gentlemen, is N'awlins own monster headed cajun, Victor Crowley. Wave to him as he prepares to make a big bowl of his famous gumbo"
So the trek through the swamp continues as our cast is killed in some gruesome and nicely splatterific ways, all well done by John Carl Buechler. It's all played for laughs and is never scary but it's not boring either. I never got whether Vic was a ghost or he somehow survived but it doesn't matter. Just as it doesn't matter why he had a gas powered belt sander in the swamp. Green was obviously more interested in playing with the genre conventions set forth in FRIDAY THE 13TH ,THE BURNING, and the like for comedy's sake and it's not what I would call "old school American horror" but it was decently entertaining. The very end will make you think your disc is broken and seemed a bit wrongheaded to me but not enough to bug me. As long as you don't mind that it's not a straight horror film and don't mind the comedy, it's a enjoyable flick.