The 258th review overall!
I had a rough show yesterday. Not my best work, but on the positive side, I just have to get through tonight and it’s vacation all I ever wanted! When I got home, to relax I had a nice Busch Latte, that seemed to do the trick. But before all that, I checked out...
Hatchet (2006). Amazon Prime.
Before I begin, searching for this movie on the google is a pain. When you type in “Hatchet”, it assumes you’re talking about the book about the plane crash kid. Anyways, I knew of this franchise but never got around to seeing any of it. I was encouraged to watch it by one of my friends (I think it was Brayn Steedman), then I read an AMA by Kane Hodder (who plays the antagonist) who believes Victor Crowley would be able to take Jason (more on that later), once I saw it was streaming, I felt I had to see it.
The movie starts with Mardi Gras. One man, Ben, is trying to get over a girlfriend who just dumped him by hanging out with a group of his friends on Bourbon Street. Despite the revelry, “big ass beers” and topless women he’s just not feeling it. He tells his buds he’s going to take a haunted boat tour and will meet up with his crew at the hotel. One of his friends, Marcus, decides to be a good friend and goes with him. It made me sad because I knew he just committed the a major horror movie sin and would be punished severely for it.
Do to some unforeseen circumstances, their boat sinks in gator-infested waters. They go out of the frying pan and into the fire because they end up just outside the home of local legend Victor Crowley. Crowley was a deformed kid who didn’t go out much. One Halloween, while his father (played by Kane Hodder, who plays both dad and grown up Crowley) was out as a group of locals toss firecrackers at his porch to scare Victor outside, unfortunately they set fire to the house. Victor’s father can’t break down the door, so he grabs a hatchet and starts swinging. Sadly, Victor, not understanding what’s going on, is trying to push his way out and gets a hatchet to the head. Some say if you get near his home you can hear Victor crying out looking for his father.
The story is pretty standard fare, but I’m going to be honest, I was really surprised by how much I liked it. The movie has some characters that are simply cannon fodder, but everyone who actually matters is fun. The cast is pretty well known too. The main character is played by Joel David Moore who is Owen from Dodgeball, Marcus is played by Deon Richmond from Not Another Teen Movie, who is also my favorite non-cameo character, as well as Kane Hodder (did I mention I met him at a horror convention back in July?) playing Victor Crowley.
That’s not all though! It has some well done cameos too! Robert Englund plays a man who is not long for this world, he also calls his son some things that would SURELY inspire some think (rage) pieces in 2019. But my favorite part of the movie is Tony Todd’s cameo. It only
lasts a few minutes, but it made me laugh out loud. His chewing the scenery is brilliant. He plays a tour boat operator who was forced to shut down his business. He speaks with a thick accent and dramatic pauses in every sentence. He’s explaining to Ben and Marcus why he doesn’t do tours anymore, and you have the spooky sound effects, Todd’s deep voice and ridiculous accent pausing for dramatic effect. The way it’s building you think someone was attacked or killed on one of his tours, but in actuality a customer fell in the water, hit his head, then sued Todd’s business. It’s exceedingly funny how the movie plays up that scene. It also made me wish like Hell that Todd would be in the movie more. Oh well, I’ll have to settle with the awesome cameo.
What surprised me the most, this movie is really funny. It doesn’t ever fall into parody because the threat is very real. There are no characters cracking jokes that you see in lesser horror movies, the dialogue seems natural, but it just so happens there are a lot of funny moments. Another highlight is their tour boat captain, Shawn. He obviously is not from the area and his Cajun accent is even worse (on purpose) than Tony Todd’s was. He ends up going through three different accents and it’s fun watching him bullshit his way through the tour with only a rudimentary understanding of the area. It can be a tough mix to do horror and comedy, if you lean too far into comedy the threat loses its impact. This movie has some very funny moments, but you know, and the characters know, Victor Crowley is somewhere stalking them.
It’s not a perfect movie by any stretch. I didn’t mention a few characters because there’s nothing to them. You have the sleazy director making a porn video, two girls starring in it who don’t add anything, except for the tearful admission she didn’t go to NYU instead she went to Hofstra. That made me laugh. There’s also an older couple that are simply there to correctly the tour boat captain on his facts.
The kills are all over the top and goofy, but it’s fun. As for the baddie, Crowley is a cool villain. He’s friggan huge and very imposing. I also enjoyed in his backstory that his father wasn’t cruel to him. Mr. Crowley clearly loved his son despite his deformities and did his best for him, and Victor loved his father. It actually makes the death even more tragic because it shows the effect his son’s accidental death had on him. Kane Hodder is a guy who spends most of his time with a mask on his face, but the flashback scenes show off how expressive he can be. He says no words but you can see the toll everything is taking on him by facial expressions alone.
Now... as far Crowley vs. Jason. This is a no contest. Granted I’ve only seen the first one of this series, but there’s no way Crowley wins. For one, he gets incapacitated multiple times in this movie, once by a shovel! In Friday the 13th part VI, Jason completely no sells when TV’s Horshack gets a running start, breaks the shovel over Jason’s head, and Jason shrugs it off and punches out Horschack’s heart! I think he’d get several stabs and hits in because he moves a lot faster, but no way does he kill Jason.
8 Dr. Chainsaws!
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