Just when you thought the horror genre was dead, along comes “Hatchet”. Written and directed by Adam Green, this is a movie that has the look and feel of an old school slasher flick with buckets of blood and gore and more than its fair share of laughs.
Set in the Louisiana swamps, the movie tells the story of a group of individuals out for some cheap thrills on a haunted ghost tour. And what a group it is; Ben, who has just recently been dumped by his longtime girlfriend, and his buddy Marcus who have skipped out on Mardi Gras festivities because Ben is so miserable, a know-it-all elderly couple, a “Girls Gone Wild” type director and two of his budding actresses, a quiet but beautiful girl who's packing heat and the inept Asian tour guide complete with horrible Bayou accent.
During the trip we hear the story of Victor Crowley, a horribly disfigured man who is accidentally killed by his father and whose spirit is thought to be haunting the swamps. If there is any justice in the horror world, Victor (Kane Hodder) will soon be mentioned in the same breath as Mike Myers, Freddy Krueger, and Jason Voorhees. The ghost tour boat soon become trapped on some rocks and sinks leaving our merry bunch stranded in the swamps right beside the Crowley house an as bad luck would have it, Victor is not as dead as they would have hoped.
It's at this point that the gore goes into overdrive with limbs and heads hacked off, faces ripped apart at the jaw line, and impalings aplenty. It's certainly not for the weak stomached but it will have true horror fans, who have had to suffer some watered down nonsense for way to long, standing and cheering. Horror buffs will also be delighted with the great cameos by Robert Englund (Nightmare On Elm Street) and Tony Todd (Candyman) whose 5 minutes on screen are hilarious.
The movie clocked in at a little less than 80 minutes but according to International Movie Database the European version is over 90 minutes which leads me to believe that there will be an even more gruesome version available when “Hatchet” hits DVD. It's sad that the movie has only been given a limited release but I can only hope that it will find an audience and get the wide release it so richly deserves.
5 stars out of 5
