Saturday, July 12, 2014

Saturday Night Special - Hatchet 3 (2013)

I know, I didn't post last week.  It was the July 4th holiday and I got food poisoning, all right?  Sheeesh.  Cut a guy some slack, willya?

Let's say you wanted to make a horror film.  And you were reasonably good at it, and had a decent budget.  I'm not talking a couple of college guys with a videocamera, here.  First thing you'd need is a villain, right?  Someone suitably scary, and mean, and unkillable, because wtf good does it do you to have the guy die at the end of the first movie?  No sequels!  So you'd want someone like Jason Vorhees, or maybe Michael Myers.  You wouldn't want that Freddy Krueger guy because he's already dead, and stopped scaring people after like, 5 minutes into the first movie.  And, technically, Jason is dead now, too, but let's not quibble.

So you come up with a guy named Victor Crowley.  Now Victor, he was just a misshapen lump of a mentally challenged boy, you see.  He wasn't all bad.  But the first movie is all about the villain's back story, so let me sum that up.  Victor Crowley lived alone with his dad in the swamps of the Louisiana Bayou.  Some kids accidentally started a fire in the shack they lived in, and old victor and his daddy went up in smoke, if I got the story right.  Victor died stuck inside the shack, trying to get out to reach his daddy.  Years later, Victor Crowley's ghost haunts the swamp, tearing people apart with the savage strength and crudity of a mentally challenged, misshapen version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Sounds like a good villain, right?  He's unkillable because he's a ghost, he's got the insane strength of Jason Vorhees' and Michael Myers' lovechild, and he's meaner and uglier than a heat-stroked swamp gator.  Now you need someone good to play him.  I know!  The actor who played Jason Vorhees a few times, Kane Hodder!  Perfect!   Let's get that guy!  So you do.  You cast Kane Hodder as your villain, and you're halfway there.

Now you need a heroine.  Jamie Lee Curtis from the Halloween movies!  Shit, no, that's not going to work, she's really famous and old now.  You want someone young.  Corey Feldman, Jason's arch-nemesis!  Damn, too late, he's passed on.  Aha!  From Halloween 4 and 5, the little girl who managed to survive Michael Myers twice!  She's perfect!  Is she still acting?  You're damn right she is.  And so you've cast Danielle Harris to play your heroine.

Now, this is the third movie in the series.  Marybeth (played by Danielle Harris) has kicked Victor Crowley's ass for killing her father and brother, twice now.  And the ghostly remains keep getting up and coming after her.  So by a mix of luck and persistence, and a little bit of unkillability on her part, Marybeth manages to shoot the guy in the face with a shotgun until he doesn't have a face, and then cut him in two with a chainsaw longer than she is.  Then, just to make sure the guy stays dead, she takes the remains of his head to the local police station, to let them know that, oh, by the way, there's a dozen bodies out in the swamp, and Victor Crowley's dead.  Yea, Marybeth, that's great and all, but it's generally not a good idea to walk into a police station covered in blood, carrying a shotgun, and holding the remains of a guy's head in your other hand.  Woopsie!  Into the clink Marybeth goes.  And that's just the first ten minutes of Hatchet 3.  You really think Victor Crowley's dead?  Think again.  You have most of a movie to go yet.  As everyone in law enforcement heads out into the swamp to clean up the remains of Marybeth's little party, you just know it's more meat for the slaughter.

Zach Galligan, from Gremlins fame, shows up as Sheriff Fowler, but I can't remember if he was in Hatchet 2 or not.  Sid Haig pops up as the creepy old guy that Sheriff Fowler's ex-wife has to talk to in order to get old man Crowley's ashes.  If you've ever wanted to see Danielle Harris naked and covered in blood, here's your chance.  Come to think of it, she was naked and covered in blood in the recent remake of Halloween, as well, so I guess being naked and covered in blood is her thing.  I like it!  Let's see more of it!  Hatchet 4 should just be two hours of Danielle Harris, naked and covered in blood.  I don't even think you need a villain for that.  Save money on extras, and on-location shooting, too.

This was a pretty decent horror flick.  After the first movie sets up the story line, it's pretty much blood and gore all the way through until the end of the third movie, with the occasional short break thrown in to introduce more cast members so they can then be torn asunder.  By most reports, Hatchet 3 is better than Hatchet 2, but I can't particularly recall Hatchet 2.  So maybe that's about right.  I wouldn't call Hatchet 3 scary, or even particularly tense, like perhaps the early Halloween movies, but it's at least as entertaining to watch as a Friday the 13th movie, and that's what it's really all about, isn't it?  Entertainment!  I mean, let's face it here.  The Halloween movies are dead.  The Friday the 13th movies are gone.  Freddy's so long dead you could kick his ashen skull for a field goal and not even feel a glimmer of worry.  All we have left is Hatchet, and Victor Crowley, and the unkillable Marybeth, played by Danielle Harris.  Bring on Hatchet 4, I say!

In other news, I have a summer cold, which are supposedly the worst colds you can get.  Yea.  Life sucks, and then you die, hopefully not at the end of a hatchet wielded by Victor Crowley.  Also, Netflix has season 2 of Hemlock Grove, in addition to Hatchet 3.  Go spend your long summer days watching horror!  Because, wtf else have you got to do?  Work on your tan?  Vacation?  Bah.  Every camper in every Friday the 13th movie thought they were on vacation, and LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM!  Yea!  So, don't go on vacation.  It's scary out there.  Stay safe at home and watch horror films.

Until next week, when I'll hopefully have seen most if not all of Hemlock Grove, and can review that.  Enjoy your summer, and I hope everyone had a nice 4th of July.  Or, you know, a nice third of July and fifth of July, if you don't happen to reside in the states.  Honestly, I don't expect Hemlock Grove to be particularly good.  Why, you ask?  Famke Janssen, of course.  She was the acting linchpin of the first Hemlock Grove, and if you recall, she died at the end of last season.  I think.  So unless she's somehow back for Season 2, I'm going to be watching a couple of homo-erotic teenaged emo fellas going about their daily lives.  Sounds like Twilight, the series.  Blech.  But wtf, like I said.  What else have I got to do?  Maybe they'll bring Famke back, or introduce someone else I can lust after.  I can only hope.

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