Feb 27: Hatchet

"When a group of tourists on a New Orleans haunted swamp tour find themselves stranded in the wilderness, their evening of fun and spooks turns into a horrific nightmare."

   Hatchet is a very hit and miss movie. The dialogue and the characters are disgustingly bad, but the special effects are amazing. The only question is, do decapitations and bodies being ripped apart make up for a completely unlikable cast of awfully written characters whose deaths you eagerly anticipate? The answer is... kind of? Obviously a movie like this needs some sort of plot to string together the awesome gore, but Hatchet's is so weak you really can't help or hold it against it. The film has a "token" black guy, a stereotypical Asian, a middle-age religious couple, two bimbos who have more breasts than brains, a "nerd", and the empty shell of a girl we're supposed to cheer for. You can assume the filmmakers were going for some sort of spoof factor, but it is just all so terribly bad. The blonde bimbo is probably one of the stupidest people I have seen in a film.

She makes Paris Hilton look like Stephen Hawking. 

   Hatchet is frustrating but actually enjoyable. As the gang is chased through the Lousiana bayou by some steroid pumping deformed redneck (named Victor Crowley), they actually choose to fight back instead of simply running away until they're all dead. Of course, the characters are not the smartest bunch of people to exactly know how to kill a giant man-baby murderer so, you can assume how it all plays out. The creature's back story is unique and interesting, and the myth Hatchet tries to set up has the smallest weight behind it and at least adds Victor Crowley to the footnotes of horror history. 

Part Sloth from The Goonies, part Uruk-Hai, part Mickey Rourke

   Overall, Hatchet is enjoyable...if you can look past the piss poor dialogue and acting. Each death is unique and original with marvelous, yet hilarious, special effects. If anything, Hatchet is worth a viewing for the gore itself and, at 84 minutes in length, it's not like it's going to take a chunk out of your day. If you enjoy campy horror with awesome violence, Hatchet's for you. As for an actually legitimate well-made movie, Hatchet fails as a whole, but I'd still recommend giving it a shot. 

The Good:

amazing special effects

The Bad:

dialogue, acting, and pretty much every other aspect of the movie

The Ugly:

Victor Crowley- just look at him 

Overall: 6.0/10

Best Quote:

Sadly, nothing worth mentioning. 

P.S. The film does feature The Candyman (Tony Todd) and Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). So, it could be somewhat their seal of approval?