REVIEW: HATCHET
Ok, before I go into what I thought about this flick, I’m going to give the Reader’s Digest of the flick. So here it is in a nutshell. SPOILERS SPOILERS:
The movie starts off with Robert Englund (perhaps reprising his role of Tex from Tobe Hooper’s EATEN ALIVE) and Justin Long from Blair Witch Project. They’re “huntin’ gators ‘n the swarmp.” Justin Long has to take a piss and pisses off the edge of the boat and nearly gets his dick chomped off by a huge ass gator. They pull off to the edge for Justin Long to finish pissin’. Then he couldn’t hear his papa anymore, Robert Englund, then he goes to check on him and finds him ripped in half, intestines everywhere, a high point. Then Justin Long goes back into the woods to go after the gator he thinks killed his dad. There he finds only…DEATH. Victor Crowley, though in the shadows, starts to rip him apart, first he rips his arm off, then he throws him into a tree, smashing his face, then he rips his spine out, and THEN he rips him in half.
Then we have a Marilyn Manson song intro flying through and under the swamp, into the sewer, then up to the streets of Mardi Gras. Titties everywhere and people getting drunk and crazy. Then we have the introduction to the main characters. One of them, played by Joel Moore (as the character of Ben) who’s trying to get over his girlfriend of 8 years. The rest of his friends decide to stay at Mardi Gras, but his BEST FRIEND FOR LIFE Marcus, played by Deon Richmond follows him.
Ben had heard of a ghost tour from some friends of his at college and decides to check it out but Rev. Zombie (played in a Cameo by Tony Todd) doesn’t do it anymore due to some “funny” story about a lawsuit. So they go to another store and find this little asian guy with a fake ass southern accent giving ghost boat tours. In the shop we have Mercedes McNab and some other chick showin’ their tits for some guy Shapiro played by Joel Murray who has just a little miniDV camera trying to convince these two chicks they’re going to be famous. $40 bucks a pop later and they’re on a retard bus headed towards the swamp.
On the bus, Ben meets Marybeth who doesn’t want to talk while Marcus decides to hit up on one of the skanky softcore porn chicks. Ben isn’t as lucky as Marcus. Once on the boat, the fake talkin’ asian guy starts ‘er off. They’re warned by Jack Cracker (played by John Carl Buechler) not to go off into the swamp. The go in anyway and asian tour guide spouts off all these shitty ghost stories while Shapiro has the chicks showin’ their tits again. Blah Blah until they get stuck on some rocks and the boat begins to sink Wilfred Brumley lookalike Richard Riehle (playing Mr. Permatteo) decides to walk across a tree to get to shore but falls and gets chomped on the leg by a gator. The boat’s sinking and they all decide to get to shore and drag the fatass Permatteo to shore. Oh yeah, Marybeth shoots the gator and that’s why it stops.
Anyway, so they’re on shore and we find out that the asian guy isn’t really southern and that they’re at the Crowley house. Marybeth tells the story of what happened to Victor Crowley, and how he was a freak and how his dad loved him, but when some kids accidentally light the house on fire, his dad tried to break in with a hatchet, but Victor was on the other side of the door and Daddy Crowley (played by Kane Hodder) gets him in the face with the axe/hatchet.
Then Mr. and Mrs. Permatteo start limping towards the Crowley house, hoping to find help, but all they find is Victory Crowley (Kane Hodder again). Crowley is one big motherfuckin’, elephantman lookin’ guy, and he comes runnin’ out of the shack and hacks Mr. Permatteo between the neck and shoulder and keeps hackin’ away at him, blood sprayin’ everywhere. Everyone tries to run and Crowley grabs Mrs. Permatteo and rips the top of her head off, blood sprayin’ everywhere. The wigglin’ tongue was a nice touch.
So then we have characters in the woods gettin’ lost and picked off one by one. First it’s Shapiro who runs into Crowley and gets his head completely turned around and ripped off. Then the rest of the group finds themselves back at the shack again. The one dark haired softporner gets a grinder to the face here, very nice, but Crowley’s knocked off with a shovel, then they run but the asian guy gets caught by the leg and the leg gets ripped off, then he’s decapitated by shovel. Then Crowley finishes up on the dark hair with the grinder to the face. The lighting is dark, but you can see she gets fucked up pretty good. Then it’s Marcus and Ben and Marybeth. That’s because Ben is in the shack trying to find some gas when parts of Mercedes McNab parts are thrown into the shack. Ben finds the gas and they light Crowley up. Then it rains and puts the fire out and Crowley gets back up and comes after them.
They’re in a cemetery all of a sudden and Crowley’s there. Marcus gets caught and his arms get ripped off, spewing blood everywhere and then Crowley gets slammed against a tomb, more blood splattering. Ben and Marybeth run back into the woods and to Marybeth’s dad’s boat (That’s why she’s there, she was lookin’ for her dad and brother, the first two in the movie) and an iron bar pins Ben’s foot to the ground and they move it forward to impale Crowley. Then they’re on the boat and they think they’re ok and Marybeth gets dragged into the swamp, and you see a hand extend into the water and she grabs it and it turns out to be Ben’s arm, ripped off by Crowley and she screams and he’s yelling and the movie ends.
My thoughts:
This flick was stupid. I generally like horror comedies, but this one was just done so poorly. The humour was juvenile and retarded, something fratboys would think was funny, but then you have this interesting character in Victor Crowley and great gore gags but the Characters, aside from Marybeth, were just stupid and annoying and I couldn’t really get into the story because of them and the humour. The dialogue was horrible, the story could’ve been good but Adam Green really dropped the ball on this one. I appreciate the passion he had for making a good horror film, but he failed…miserably.
When I first saw the teaser “moneymaker” trailer with the shots of the swamp and the little girl narrating, I was SO excited to see this movie and I expected a serious, hardcore, balls-to-the wall scary flick and it was just this stupid buddy-comedy-esque dumbass shit and I fucking hated it. This could’ve been such a great story and they fucked it up and I’m PISSED about it because I actually bought it thinking, hell yes, finally a great horror flick because I’d heard so many good things about it and I had that trailer in my mind and it was just, it was just fucking BULLSHIT! I was/am SO PISSED, I cannot describe how pissed I was when first watching this flick. So this flick gets a one skull for great gore by Beuchler’s group and a character and story that COULD’VE been good. I don’t suggest seeing this flick unless you want to see boobies in the first half or you’re a gore fiend. If you expect a well told story with interesting characters and depth, stay away from this one.
Oh yeah, I’ll probably also be reviewing this one on the upcoming BACKWOODS HORRORSHOW, so stay tuned…
