Hatchet, directed by Adam Green, is a disturbingly funny horror film about a group of tourists in New Orleans who end up on a haunted swamp tour. After their weird tour guide sinks their wimpy boat in gator infested waters, they are forced to wander the woods in search of civilization. In the dark and rainy forest, the tourists encounter Victor Crowley, a vengeful deformed maniac who calls the swamp home, setting out to kill anyone who dares venture on his land.
I love scary movies, but am also deathly afraid of them. Unfortunately, I was forced to watch this one alone. Hatchet literally made me cover my eyes and scream “ewww!” atleast 7 times. The film is chock full of bad acting and cheesy dialogue, but is bloody as hell, and hilarious and laughable at the same time. The characters types are stereotypical of horror films, and the storyline is pretty generic as well until the end (but too bad I can’t ruin that for you). Victor Crowley is one gross looking deformed person, and his hunting methods aren’t exactly pleasant. Hatchet is a great on the couch at home movie night film (in fact, I will probably make my boyfriend watch this with me again this weekend). Oh yeah, and props on main character Ben’s Newbury Comics shirt. I’ll be sleeping with the lights on tonight.
/Film Rating: 8.5/10
December 21st, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Oh wow, no. ;)
Hatchet has some of the worst production values I have ever seen, and not in a “college guy on the come up” way that you can let slide or even admire. The charter boat seems like it’s part of a Universal Studios-gone-ghetto ride, and Crowely is straight out of the worst made-for-Fear.net movie ever.
How did we go from low budget horror like F13/Halloween that still look beautiful and strongly capture the style/spirit of that decade to a “new classic” like Hatchet, which piles on cameos from great genre actors but wastes them, has as much classy/sexy nudity as a GILF Hooters, and looks grainer than a .25 cent snuff film? For real. Also, New Orleans is a CREEPY place - to me it felt like the East Side’s Santa Carla, but Hatchet bottles none of its atmosphere, just the beads and a hint of Voudou shops. I do not get the praise for this flick. Too juvy in execution/general. Horror in the Oughts needs higher standards IMO. Steve Miner is rolling his eyes.
December 21st, 2007 at 9:12 pm
I can’t believe you liked this film…I saw it in Toronto at the After Dark Fest and thought it was horrible…..
I mean even the opening shot just looked so bad and I knew I was in for a real treat lol….
December 22nd, 2007 at 6:39 am
Yeah i must agree. I was really looking forward too this flick but when i saw it i was sooo disappointed! From time to time it was kind of funny but scary? No way. Ridiculus is the word, which is too bad. As TheDohDoh said, how did we go from F13/Halloween to this?
But there is hope for scary movies still. Just take a look at movies like Wolf Creed, 30 Days Of Night, The Descent, Black Water and the work of Rob Zombie (in my opinion he’s the best horror-maker out there today) and such, now that’s scary shit.
December 22nd, 2007 at 1:32 pm
@Markus,
Totes agree, man. That Rob Zombie’s Halloween was maligned but Hatchet was shot into outer space with critical praise is one of this year’s great travesties imo.
I totes agree that Zombie is the foremost horror director working today - he reenvisioned Michael Myers just like Nolan has with Batman, or even how Aronofsky would have with Batman: Year One. His film is separate from the (already decaying/weak) franchise - a standalone - and it’s strange how fanboys ripped him apart for adding a new layer of dread and surrealism to Michael. I think a lot of people missed the point of Zombie’s film, taking his transformation from Columbine-tyke to hulking brute in context of the real world. It wasn’t. It showed that Michael was inherently evil incarnate from a young age, and that when locked up and isolated with no way to kill, that evil manifested itself in physical growth to unleash itself from its cage. He was more than a “serial killer” - his transformation was almost Lynchian, to get slightly pretentious on my part. I also dug how Zombie’s film bled into a total recreation of Carpenter’s in the latter part of the film, while still shaking it up.
Also, one of the problems people had with Zombie’s version was the same “problem” in the original - that he would stand outside the school window in broad daylight et al. It’s horror people, damn. At least Zombie didn’t allow Michael to drive a car w/o the knowledge to do so as he did in the original. Mikey like the DMV?
The main reason Zombie was dismissed so quickly was the “white trash” aspect - he took Michael out of the suburbs and into a hippie-dropout hillbilly hell. So what?? Evil can come from anywhere, and it’s just as scary either way (look at the recent news). In fact, I think Zombie was making a point about class - a mythical murderer going to a suburb of sheltered peace that he wanted to be apart of as a kid and ruining it for his sister.
The only slight I saw in his version was the almost complete lack of trick-or-treaters on Halloween night, and also Malcom McDowell’s Lumis was too aloof for me.
Either way, Zombie’s film had more vision, was quite appealing to look at from an aesthetic point of view, was scarier in terms of gore/psychology, actually more original and even funnier than Hatchet, which had the quality of jokes one might see on a Big Johnson tshirt in 6th grade. And Hatchet had just as many “took me out of the plot” cameos as Z’s Halloween. I could go on and on. Z’s Halloween > Hatchet. That is one of the only remakes that have worked - screwing up Eric Red’s The Hitcher (which is a masterpiece) was almost totally forgiven, same with TCM: The Remake.
And I love how it made almost $70 mill and AICN Talkbackers still say it flopped. I guess they’d rather have a Halloween sequel starring 50 Cent’s G-Unit and Perez Hilton.
December 23rd, 2007 at 2:04 am
i have a feeling this movie, had it not sponsored the site itself, would’ve received a different rating. and i’m not talking a higher one. good journalism, huh?
December 23rd, 2007 at 3:00 am
Diesel: Nope. Elaine Mak reviewed this film, and had no idea that Hatchet had advertising on /Film. We also had a much bigger advertising sponsorship from Kite Runner and even a huge reader contest, and the same reviewer gave that film a 4 out of 10. So… Try again…