Hatchet (2006)

Hatchet came out in 2006, was written and directed by Adam Green and stars Joel Moore, Tamara Feldman,and Deon Richmond, along with a supporting role from Mercedes McNab, or Harmony from Buffy!

First of all, holy cheese on a cracker. I just had to get that out there. If you want some fantastic, no-cut-aways gore, watch this movie. Seriously. There was no cutting away to the shadows on the wall, and the effects were creative and well done. I really wish I could have seen it in theaters, or in HD or something. Whoa.

Now that I'm finished gore-geeking out, on to the review. This movie is billed as a Horror Comedy, and it manages to fulfill the requirements of both genres in a way that is quite satisfying. It is what I think so many Horror Comedies fail to be, which is funny but still frightening.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) manages both, but even Shawn of the Dead, (2004) which is often cited as people's favorite Horror Comedy, fails in this respect. A zombie friend one keeps chained up to play video games with is funny, but all the bite, so to speak, of the zombie threat is neutralized. Needless to say, Hatchet does not end on such a light-hearted note.


The scene I found the most interesting on an intellectual level involves two older, Midwestern tourists who are dispatched early on. Everyone is stranded in the bayou near the house of Victor Crowley, and the only way out of the swamp is to pass this haunted, murderous house. The husband, Jim, has been injured by a crocodile, and Ben and Marcus, the College guys in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, are helping him to walk. Once they find out the house is haunted, they immediately abandon the older man. His wife, Shannon, takes him on her own shoulder, leading him towards the road and the house. As she walks with him, she says "Everything's going to be just fine... We have the Good Lord with us, baby. The Good Lord will protect us." Of course they are both immediately and gruesomely killed.

The fact that Shannon utters those lines moments before her death is quite significant. In horror, no matter the medium, the true terror lies in the fact that no one, not even God, can save you. There is no escape. Belief is, in fact, often the way deeper into trouble. Take Bug, (2006) with Ashley Judd, or Kate Hudson in Skeleton Key (2005). These examples don't necessarily deal with religion, exactly, but they show the downsides of belief in a way not usually seen in the media, that faith in the wrong thing can hurt just as much as positive faith can heal. I think this illustrates what the true purpose of Horror movies is: not only as a catharsis, a release of all the negativity inherent in the human psyche, but as a outlet for ideas that, though valid, are considered unacceptable in society.

One last thing: The tag line to this movie is ridiculous:
"It's not a remake. It's not a sequel. And it's not based on a Japanese one. HATCHET: Old School American Horror." A Japanese what? I mean, I know the meaning is inferred, but that just sounds bad syntactically. Come on, people. Also, a movie based on an earlier Japanese film would be a remake as well, so that's redundant.

Movie: A
Syntax: D-