Hatchet (2006)
Grade: B-
If you like your kills gory, your villains deformed, and your nudity gratuitous, Hatchet will probably do ya just fine for 90 minutes. The producers were clearly going for an old-school ‘80s slasher vibe here, and they mostly succeed. But there’s absolutely zero innovation.
How much of a retread is Hatchet? Well, one of the guys killed in the opening scene is played by Robert Englund. Yup, Freddy Krueger himself. The titular character who metes out the pain (sometimes, but not always, by hatchet)? Kane Hodder, who played Jason in the Friday the 13th flicks.
The film is set in New Orleans, which allows us some early glimpses of nubile mardi gras boobies. A bunch of bros are partying on Spring break, but one of the bros is being a total buzzkill because his girlfriend just dumped him or some shit. As if that’s a reason to be down on alcohol and seeing young boobies. Lemme ask you, faithful Bloodcrypt readers, has there EVER been a situation in which you’d pass up the opportunity to drink beer and lustfully eye college-age chicks flashing their still-immune-to-gravity college-age titties? Freddy and Jason could run a train on my mom that ended with her brutal disembowelment, and the cure to that horrific shit would be a 40 oz and some college-age titties, STAT.
Where the fuck was I? Oh yeah, so this dude wants to go soak up culture off the main drag (where all the boobs and beer is at); as a result, he drags his reluctant bros to a shady shack advertising a haunted swamp tour. The proprietor? The fucking Candyman, I shit you not. Anyway, they must’ve only had the budget for five minutes of the Candyman, because he sends them on down the road to this Asian tour guide with a ludicrous Cajun accent.
Off they go on their doomed excursion, accompanied by various other tourists, including a super pissed off younger chick who won’t interact with anybody, an old married couple, and a dude who’s basically shooting “Girls Gone Wild: New Orleans” with these two semi-attractive porn starlets whom he frequently prompts to flash the camera and make out with each other. One of them is Harmony from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so that’s a plus if you’re a Buffyphile like me.
After the boat crashes (of course) the surly bitch flashes a .45 and tells everyone they’re screwed because this is Hatchet’s neck of the woods, and she came here to kill him (Freddy Krueger was her dad, and she wants revenge). Why she thought taking a handgun on the New Orleans equivalent of the Disneyland Jungle Cruise ride was an effective plan for battling an unkillable supernatural evil is unclear, but it was a miscalculation.
Turns out this Hatchet dude (real name: Victor Crowley- how old school is that?) is a mutant from birth who got made fun of by the other kids. One night they pulled a prank on him that set Victor’s cabin on fire, and in the process of trying to save him by chopping down the door, his dad accidentally…well, dude’s named “Hatchet” for a reason, amiright?
So Hatchet kills most of these fools one by one in fairly entertaining fashion. Not only is he good with tools, but he’s also super strong and can rip limbs off and shit. I’ll be honest; I’m not even sure what happened at the end because I was pretty drunk by then. However, there are two other Hatchet flicks, so I’m pretty sure that whatever victory achieved over him is short-lived.
BLOODCRYPT 