Hatchet (2006)

The Worst Film Ever

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

When watching this film it reminds you of the 80's slasher genre, Friday the 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween.... You get this direct feel but instead of Jason/Freddy we have the mega-disformed Victor Crowley. In lore the name Crowley has demonic ties, which figure into this character. The setting is deep in the Louisiana Bayou during Mardi Gras. A young disfigured boy whose father kept him hidden, subject to ridicule and pranks. A fire at their home breaks out and Victor is accidently killed by his father. Tourists and citizens who go into the swamp never return. A group goes on a haunted swamp tour only to be stranded deep in the wetlands and hunted by Crowley. The plot is very thin, characters are extremely generic and boring. The acting is atrocious at the very least. There is a lot of language, some subtle nudity and the caveat for the film is it's gore fest of blood and guts. I would give this a solid 5 and as we know this became a series spawning 3 sequels.

There really haven't been any decent slasher movies in the last decade until now. So many people complain that this is a "typical slasher movie" when it really isn't. Slasher movies are all the same in the sense that the bad guy brutally kills his victims with a weapon, but it's the plot and storyline that makes them unique. As a person who loves horror movies and lives in Louisiana, I'd say to watch this movie. Too many horror movies are about ghosts and supernatural possessions, but this goes back to the roots of the classic slasher films and horror movies. Seriously, watch this movie.

I generally love horror movies and tend to be biased in grading them, but I'm telling you to skip this one. This movie starts off with two guys in a boat. They see an alligator and we cut to a group of friends and a Debbie Downer, or David Downer in this case. Apparently his best friend, the token black guy, is trying to take him to Mardi Gras to cheer him up. Anyway, the movie continues when he walks away and his best friend follows him. Main guy complains that seeing the women, topless, just remind him of his attractive girlfriend who left him for a jock. I can't imagine why she left you. He drags his friend to a weird horror shop and Candy Man makes an appearance. They leave the shop because he's close and go to another tour guide place, with an Asian tour guide, and see a director and two random girls making an adult film. Didn't main guy just complain about shirtless girls? Now he doesn't care? They meet the tour guide and join the other tourists: an old couple and a random girl. Best friend is enamored with the brunette film star and they spend the ride flirting. Main guy likes random girl, but she tells him to screw off.Tour guide is obviously full of crap, but they decide to go on a tour with him anyway. When they get on the boat they hear a guy shouting at them not to go. The guide ignores him saying that he's just a random guy who drinks his own pee. They speed off, and the movie shows the guy drinking his own pee. It's not funny, it's nasty, and was not needed. They crash into a rock and get off onto nearby land. As they do that, old man gets his foot bitten off by an alligator.Later, best friend and tour guide asks random girl why she even brought a gun on the tour in the first place and she says that she won't answer a con artist. He admits that he's just looking to make money, and explains that he's done a tour before and it went okay. Tour guide asks again and she answers "my dad and brother were killed, so I got on the tour to find them. It's cheaper than getting my own boat." Blonde film star says it doesn't explain the gun, and random girl replies that the woods aren't safe. Old woman reminds them that her husband needs help. Group ponders staying, because they can't move him around too much, but random girl says they can't stay in the woods because these are "his" woods.She then tells them a story about a guy and his deformed son (elephant man). Elephant man got made fun of by local children. He ended up dying because local teenagers were trying to see him, so they threw fireworks inside his house causing it to catch fire. The dad came home to open the door, but it wouldn't budge, so he used a hatchet; he accidentally kills his son and died of a broken house.After the story, everyone is freaking out and wanting to know what to do. Some suggest they stay there and wait for help, but the random girl says that they can't because they're right in front of his haunted house. She says the road is behind the house, and the blonde girl says she doesn't want to go that way. The old couple decide to go that way to look for some help, and they discover a house (Elephant man's house), and Elephant man comes out to get them. The random girl pulls out a gun and waits until Elephant man kills them both before she decides to shoot him. Really? The group freaks out because random girl told them that he was a ghost, and you shouldn't be able to shoot a ghost. In the midst of this, best friend has climbed a tree and says he sees city lights, but they're pretty far away. The brunette asks where the director is, and we (audience) see him running and Elephant man kills him. Answers that question. The group keeps going before best friend sparks an argument with tour guide, and they start fist fighting. Um? I'm pretty sure y'all don't have time to be fist fighting. Group finds the directors bag and find out he's not a director, he's just a sick guy making films for his own amusement. They later find his body and mourn over him for a short time. I'm just going to keep the rest short. They all run around and the Elephant man kills the tour guide and brunette. They plan to set him on fire and he kills the blond. The remaining three run off and the best friend ends up dying. The main guy and girl get on a boat, she gets drug under water and he reaches for her. Dude, you've only known her for less than a day to be risking your life like that. The monster comes back and attacks them, the end. No, it actually ends that way.Everything is just terrible. The plot makes no sense, the person with the best weapon sucks, and the ending was chopped up. The characters are terrible. The old couple are boring background characters that were upgraded in this movie. The best friend is the trope of the token black guy. The tour guide is just a con artist. The rest are just plain bad. The main guy and his love interest manage to be worse than a freaking con artist, and that's pretty bad considering that the movie WANTS us to hate the con artist.

2003 was a rough year for horror icon Kane Hodder. The official actor of Jason Voorhees since 1988 with his take on the character being without question the definitive fan favorite, Hodder was forced to hand the mask over to Ken Kirzinger for the long anticipated and incredibly hyped "Freddy v.s Jason." The unceremonious and frankly disrespectful dumping was a blow to Hodder, who would go on to mostly do stuntwork and small cameo appearances in various films after being let go as Jason. That was until 2006, when Hodder was cast as the first (And only) actor to play the deformed ghoul Victor Crowley for Adam Green's new horror franchise "Hatchet." While I can't speak to how much the role has eased the sting of being dropped as Jason Voorhees for "Freddy v.s Jason", I can certainly say that it should. "Hatchet" is right up there with the very BEST of the "Friday the 13th" films in terms of quality.Kane Hodder himself is positively terrifying as Victor Crowley. I'll go so far as to say he's the most terrifying killer in slasher movie history. Make no mistake, Victor is a very different character than Jason, and Hodder plays him accordingly. Crowley is far more manic, excited and sadistic in his mannerisms; be it his walking, his facial expressions (Crowley's deformed face often has a twisted smile to it that is downright chilling) or his killing. For Jason, killing teens was just his job. Victor genuinely seems to take pleasure in slowly and painfully dispatching his victims.And slow and painful those dispatchings are..."Hatchet" is one of the bloodiest, nastiest slashers I've ever seen. People are decapitated, chopped in half, slowly disemboweled from the back, de- armed, split down the face, impaled on the blunt ends of shovels...I could go on, but you get the point. It's gory, it's gross, it's foul...And it's freaking awesome. The creativity and downright grossness of the violence in this movie just makes the whole film that much more entertaining.It helps that we actually CARE about Crowley's potential and actual victims. Joel David Moore is quite likable and VERY funny as Ben. He's proved in the past to be somewhat of a saving grace even for the worst movies, so it's refreshing of him to see him at his best in a great one. Parry Shen is another talented actor burdened with starring in mostly terrible film, and like David Moore, he's downright hilarious as scam-artist-sailor Shawn. Richard Rihehle and Patrika Darbo are adorkable as the Permatteos, a midwest couple quite out of their element in the killer stalked swamps of New Orleans. By far the best non-killer performance has to go to Deon Richmond as Marcus, who DESPERATELY deserves more work. He's the most likable of the cast and gets some of the biggest laughs in the film (The tree scene is comedic GOLD), if there's anyone I wanted to survive the movie, it was him.The story is quite simple, but the script and characters make it quite apparent fairly quickly that this is partly a loving satire of the "Friday the 13th" films. It's not just the actors who know they're in a kitschy horror film, the characters know it too. When we laugh at the absurdity of lines like "You look like you been molested by wolves!", we're laughing WITH the movie, not AT it.If you hadn't guessed by my comments on the cast, "Hatchet" is a horror-comedy, and it works extremely well in both the scares and laughs department. The already gifted cast are helped by a very funny script and a director who clearly respects his cast's talents, leading to a very complete comedic experience. That said, when the film is going for downright horror, it can be just as effective; the swamps of New Orleans are unsettling enough, but made more so by some excellent, dark, uncomfortable lighting. It's ugly to look at, but there's no doubt this was director Adam Green's intention...And have I mentioned yet how scary Hodder is as Victor Crowley?"Hatchet" is a MUST watch for any horror fan nostalgic for the "good old days" of slasher movies. It's not a perfect movie, but it IS a perfectly entertaining one. I DARE any so called "slasher fan" to watch this movie and NOT have fun.