Movie Review: Hatchet

When a group of tourists on a New Orleans haunted swamp tour find themselves stranded, their evening of fun and spooks turns into a horrific nightmare as the legend of a deformed killer haunting the swamps becomes all too real.

The tagline for this film says "Old school American Horror", and there's not a much better quick description I could come up with. It's old school alright, paying much homage to all the fun 70s/80s horror films like Friday the 13th and Halloween.

Our big creepy unstoppable villian, Victor Crowley, has all sorts of tricks that were so common in those films, like popping up out of nowhere and always seeming to know where the potential victims would be next. Then he proceeds to find creative ways to dispose of them one by one. The special effects on the kills are so over the top it was more fun than gore really. The whole movie really is so over the top that it's more fun than frightful.

The negatives? As far as the cinematography and all goes, I thought it was a bit too murky at times and hard to tell what was going on.

All in all, it's a purposely cliched cast of characters and plot yet it doesn't take itself the least bit seriously and in fact is more of a ode to the old movies from which it was spawned. There are a lot of nods and winks and it's pretty smartly crafted so I think some people might not get it, but I think a lot of horror fans will and if so it's a whole lot of fun to watch. It's hit and miss I think when movie tries to be "intentionally bad", and this one does an OK job of it. Repeated viewings will probably be much more fun even.

7/10