by: KFear
Posted on 03.15.10 in All Horror Films > Comedy > Slasher
Release Date: 2006

Cabin Fever may have created some kind of sickness in the world of mainstream American horror. Eli Roth seems to exploit various groups and cultures with nearly every film he makes, and for one reason or another, other American filmmakers have clung onto the same types of themes and ideas. Call it marketing, but I say it’s Hollywood trying to sell a genre of film, like horror, to the biggest demographic as possible. You can’t blame them, and as a result, you witness slasher film after slasher film of young and beautiful Americans getting knocked off by backwood hicks with shotguns, pitchforks, overalls, and bad English. Lets not forget about our main characters in these films: the funny guy, blond princess, and the dude with the nice car; they all have to be there…somewhere…

Enter Hatchet. A short little slasher flick that’s about a small group of young Americans who are on vacation, wander off the beaten path, and start to get picked off one by one. What makes Hatchet different from all the other teen horror flicks is the sense of humor that it has in response to the same old tired stereotype characters and predicable plot twists that we see in too many American horror films.  It takes those characters and extends and exploits those stereotypes to a whole new extreme.

The plot of Hatchet is much of the same as what I’ve previously mentioned, and if anything, it tries so desperately to be incredibly straight forward in terms of your typical slasher film plot. You guessed it; a group of young Americans are on vacation, they get sidetracked from the fun, get lost in the middle of nowhere, and for some reason somebody or something wants to kill them. Hatchet can certainly be admired for making us laugh at it’s overly stereotypical characters, over the top killer lunatic, and humorous plot advancements, but in the end, Hatchet is still JUST THAT…another Hollywood Horror Film with very few tricks up its sleeve.

So if Hatchet won’t surprise you, it can most definitely make you grin. It does manage to be very clever. When most of our characters are still alive, their interactions and self conflicts can be amusing, to say the least. Adam Green, the films writer and director, simply takes material that is not at all original and tries to use his witty script to his only advantage. As a result, the characters will keep you interested in the film and you might even find yourself feeling a bit disappointed when some of your favorites get the axe…errr, i mean…hatchet.  You won’t necessarily miss them for the duration of the film, but you might find that the film was far more humorous  when all the characters where alive and well.

So this is a slasher, right? So it’s got some good kills, right? YES! If you think that you’ve seen it all (you’ve got some nerve!) then you are dead DEAD wrong. The killer in Hatchet is a HUGE man-beast that slays our main characters in the most satisfying and almost always humorous fashions. Nothing is incredibly realist here as far as blood and guts are concerned, but lets just say that due to all the buckets of gooey red stuff that were spilled, my jaw dropped in glorious wonderment on more than one occasion. If you are watching the film with a friend you will undoubtedly be saying “DID YOU SEE THAT???” after countless kill scenes. The funny thing is, of course he saw “that”,…i mean…he’s sitting in the seat RIGHT next to you. Dumbass! Still, you know what I mean.

• ★★★★★

  Acting:

• ★★★★★

  Blood:

• ★★★★★

  Violence:

• ★★★★★

  Partying:

• ★★★★★

  Language:

• ★★★★★

  Humor:

• ★★★★★

  Predictable:

• ★★★★★

  Girls:

• ★★★★★

  Gore:

• ★★★★★

  Sexuality:

• ★★★★★

  Torture:

• ★★★★★

  Overall:

I thought this movie was good for a laugh...and a few gore scenes were definitely worth my time. Other than that the movie seemed too annoying.