Hatchet (Adam Green, 2006)

Well, my fellow Famous Monsters, 'tis the season of the witch once more. And so it begins...

One of the great things about the October horror film challenge is discovering films that one has never seen before, whether through the recommendations of others or simply finally getting round to watching a film that has been in one's collection for some time. For myself this morning 'this the latter, as at long last the hour cones round for me to seeing Adam Green's Hatchet (2006).

Yeah, i know, i should hand in my horror fan membership card - i've long been aware of its status, it's just that... y'know... there are a lot of films out there (the vast majority made long before i was born), and so sometimes it takes me a while to get around to certain flicks. Nevertheless, here we are.

First things first, this is one of those flicks whose mere cast list can bring a gruesomely gleeful grin to a genre fan's face, boasting appearances by Freddy Krueger himself Robert Englund, Candyman and Ben from the revivified 1990 Night of the Living Dead Tony Todd, and four-time Jason Voorhees Kane Hodder in the role of this franchise's own Big Bad - the hatchet-handy Victor Crowley. I must admit that this already august line up was accidentally added to by my brain during the opening credits when i accidentally confused Mercedes McNab (who has a genre pedigree in her own right, not just for her long-running role as ditzy vampiress Harmony in Buffy and Angel but also for 1991's The Addams Family and its sequel) with Mercedes McCambridge (the daemonic voice of Pazuzu him/her/itself in William Friedkin's legendary The Exorcist, as well as boasting a twin-spin of Jess Franco flicks [99 Women and The Marquis De Sade's Justine] amidst an impressive roll of credits). Speaking of Buffy guest actors, we also have aboard (like, literally aboard: a chunk of the movie is set on a boat) Richard Riehle, who replaced the august Donald Sutherland for the franchise's TV incarnation as the Buffster's original Watcher Merrick.

For anyone unfamiliar with the movie's plot, we have here the simple and well-worn tale of a heartbroken young man - Ben, played with an agreeable weasleyness by Joel David Moore - attempting to get over his dumping by his long-term girlfriend (too close to home and too close to the bone, Green!) by attending the raucous Girls Gone Wild bewbs and booze shenanigans of the famed New Orleans (pronounced "Nyorlans") Mardi Gras with a clutch of reprobate friends, including the genre's staple character of wisecracking black sidekick (i don't make the tropes, i just check 'em off the bingo card) Marcus played affably by Deon Richmond. His heart not being into starting the day with an hour's copious vomiting followed by more Bacchanalian revelry of quaffing and boffing, Ben decides to peel off from the rest of the gang and leave them to their Saturnalian devices in favour of investigating the more edifying prospect of a haunted swamp tour - his good pal Marcus reluctantly tagging along in order to keep an eye on our heartsick hero. After first calling at the voodoo shop of the spectacularly-monickered Reverend Zombie (a fun cameo by Todd), but being rebuffed as he no longer runs nighttime riverboat cruises due to a Claims Direct ambulance-chasing insurance incident, the duo are directed to the premises of Madame Marie LaVeau and her Tarot-reading House of Voodoo where they meet try-hard chancer cum tour guide Shawn (Parry Shen) as well as a pair of naive amateur porn starlets - ditzy and literally Clueless valley girl Missy (McNab) and the gorgeous but tragically for Marcus and his designs pubic louse-infested Jenna (Joleigh Foireavanti) - and their entrepreneurial 'director', the pseudonymous Doug Shapiro aka Samuel M. Barrat (Joel Murray). Also along for this trip of a deathtime to where the river'll run red are older couple Jim Permatteo (Riehle) and his wife Shannon (Patrika Darbo), as well as the beautiful but sullen and withdrawn Marybeth Dunstan - who i believe goes on to become very much the Ash Williams of this franchise - here played pre-her regeneration into the second Queen of Halloween (after St Jamie Lee of Curtis, of course) Danielle Harris, bu Tamara Feldman (aka Amara Zaragoza. Seriously, too many names).

Marybeth isn't along on this trip for any fun - as she makes abundantly clear to Ben and his awkward and unwanted advances: she's on search mission for her missing father Sampson (Englund, famed for being everyone's favourite paedophile murderer turned nightmare trickster Freddy but best known in our house as friendly space lizard - no, not a member of the Royal family - Willy from V) and brother Ainsley (Joshua Leonard), who we as viewers witnessed being gleefully rent asunder in the pre-title sequence. After the group ignore the dire warnings of the genre's regular "Don't go to the camp/in the woods/into the house" character (in this case special effects wizard John Carl Buechler continuing the Tom Savini tradition of the gore 'n' grue guy getting a cameo, playing the urine-sipping Jack Cracker) and head on into the mire, Marybeth informs her fellow travellers about the truth behind the local legend of Victor Crowley, a severely deformed man who was raised by his caring father (a cameo from former Voorhees and robot werewolf from Project Metalbeast Hodder, who also plays the adult Crowley under several layers of latex) in the isolated surrounds of the swamplands. Born on the bayou, as Creedence would have it, the young Crowley (played under the makeup by the very attractive actress, member of geek girl collective Team Unicorn and former Mrs Adam Green Rileah Vanderbilt, whom i of course know from undisputed Best Film Ever Made Avengers Grimm) shuns the company of humans due to the bullying and mockery by other children - a teasing that blows spectacularly out of control when a firework prank turns into a full on Cropsy from The Burning inferno that consumes his wooden retreat in flames, and Victor's father's attempts to reach his son by chopping through the burning door with a hatchet end in tragedy when his unfortunate son takes an axe blow straight to his visage.

Of course, Crowley's vengeful spectre haunts the swamplands more deadly than any of the local crocodilian fauna, bringing violent retribution to all those who defile the dank deeps of his domain. The tour group are picked off one by one in a variety of grisly ways (don't you just wish that this would happen to Brendan and his regulation busload of the faeces of humanity in Coach Trip?), all becoming fodder for the Hodder, climaxing in a delightfully unexpected cliffhanger ending - doubtless to be continued in the sequel (to which i shall get round later in the month).

All in all, Hatchet was great fun - a knowingly genre cliche box-ticking romp that packs fun and frights into a fleeting 85 minutes that doesn't outstay its welcome. Remember when most films were c. 90 minutes? I miss those days. BRAVO, JACKSON. Sure to bring a smile to all those raised on a diet of '80s slashers a la Friday the 13th et al, i'd recommend it to anyone else who for whatever reason just hadn't got round to it yet.

Three and a half chainsaws out of five, at least.