Hatchet (USA. 2006) Horror/Comedy

TRAILER HERE!

Director/Writer: Adam Green

It's a human gut reaciton to expect fantastic originallity everytime a new wunderkind appears on the scene. We want to be smacked with more blistering originality then we can handle, man! YEA….Stop. This makes no sense. The idea of re-designing the wheel every time is absurd. The wheel works. There’s a reason it works. All it needs to do is roll soundly, absorbs shocks smoothly and scare off dirt. It can even be a little sparkly to impress the crowd. I don’t mind. It just needs to roll. ‘Hatchet’ for all intents and purposes is nothing more then a sturdy wheel with cool skull stickers on its side.

“A motley crew of tourists embark on a boat ride of the haunted Louisiana bayous where they learn the terrifying tale of local legend "Victor Crowley"; a horribly disfigured man who was tragically and accidentally killed with a hatchet by the hands of his own father. But when the boat sinks and the ghost story turns out to be real, the group tries desperately to escape the swamp with their lives...and all of their pieces”

There’s nothing here that we haven’t seen here before. Freaky deaky Serial Killer chases a bunch of 20 something around in the woods. That’s it. And it isn’t all “A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF THE GENRE” either The first thirty minutes draaaaag along thanks a pile of so called “buddy” comedy hijinx. The heroes are two dimensional cut-outs with only the lightest of character window dressing (One of them just broke up with his girlfriend. One likes to sleep around) that has no impact on the rest of the film at all. It doesn’t really matter because when the pace finally does pick up everyone becomes screaming interchangeable meat dummies. The serial killer (Victor Crowley) cheap scare first appearance reveals him to be nothing more then a generic hillbilly reject. He’s mutated, wears suspenders and uses sharp implements. There’s nothing else to it. The only interesting part is who’s going to bite it and how. Even then the gore doesn’t BLOW you out of the water. It’s fun to watch, but you’ve definitely seen it before. Adam Green has a firm directorial hand but he hasn’t crafted himself as an individual auteur yet. And there’s nothing wrong with that. As negative as all of the above sounds it’s actually better then almost any slasher film you’ve seen in the last five years. It’s the same story you’ve heard before but told solidly and with enough enthusiasm to keep you interested.

Hatchet is a little bit creative, has plenty of gooey gore and the performances aren’t all completely grating. It isn’t the second coming (as many have trumpeted) and that’s one of the reason it works. It’s a warm fuzzy sticky blood covered blanket that we’ve curled up in before.