Day 16 - Hatchet (2006)

I remember seeing the early teaser trailers for Hatchet before it came out, and getting all excited over its promise of being, "Old School American Horror." Well it didn't disappoint. This is another one of those throwbacks to the classics, this time to the golden days of the slasher genre, both paying homage to and parodying, perhaps most notably, the Friday the 13th series.

In this tribute, a group of people taking a haunted swamp tour while celebrating Mardis Gras become stranded in a part of the Louisiana swamp haunted by dark legends of a supernatural killer. This deformed giant of a killer, Victor Crowley, played by Kane Hodder, proceeds to stalk and kill off the group one by one. No surprises there. In fact, there are no surprises at all in this movie. In true tribute to those old gore spattered oldies, every aspect of this film is predictable. This isn't the only flaw here either. For all its bluster, there really isn't anything scary about this movie. This is due mainly to its complete predictability. Like other films with such problems, what it lacks in fear it tries to make up for in gore. The acting is about fifty/fifty. While the lead roles are surprisingly well done, some of the smaller characters, of course, are overacted. On the other hand there are cameos from both Robert Englund and Tony Todd, a nod to those classic killers that they've portrayed.

As over the top as the violence and gore is in Hatchet, how mediocre the acting, and even despite the fact that this isn't a very scary movie, still, something just works about it. This is one of those horror movies that is just fun to watch, particularly if you miss those "Old School American Horror" movies. Not having seen it yet, I'll be reviewing Hatchet II, sometime in the next month.

For Day 17 I'll be reviewing My Soul to Take (2010).