DVD Of The Week: Hatchet (2007)

Before he made Sexy Nightmare Slayers, Adam Green first became a big name in geeky households through his wonderfully OTT homage to old school slasher horror, Hatchet.

A simple set-up sees a gaggle of potential victims stranded at night in the Louisiana swamps when their "ghost tour" boat runs aground.

Lost, cold and wet they soon discover they are not alone and that the area's mythical bogeyman, Victor Crowley (Kane 'Jason Voorhees' Hodder), is after their blood.

Taking the best of the supernatural slasher genre and blending in some almost Scooby Doo-like humour - along with the requisite quotient of boobs and blood - Green drowns his audience in Grand Guignol levels of gore and mutilation that are so far fetched as to be shockingly humourous.

As much a comedy as a horror film, Hatchet is pure entertainment for horror groupies. It has no deep message or hidden subtext; it just aims to shock and amuse in equal measure by balancing each moment of graphic violence with a cheesy joke, witty one-liner or amusing pratfall.

Emphasising the movie's role as a loving, but light-hearted, homage to movies like Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday The 13th, Halloween, Candyman etc we are teased with all too brief cameos by the iconic Tony Todd and Robert Englund.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer fans (well, the males anyway) will also be delighted to know that Mercedes McNab (aka Harmony Kendall) not only has a large role in this as aspiring softcore porn actress Misty, but also spends at least a third of her time on camera topless.

Yes, it's that sort of film!

There's not enough originality in the personality of Victor Crowley - a Jason Voorhees-like mutant child bullied by his peers then accidentally set alight during a Halloween prank (viz. The Burning), who comes back "from the dead" (Freddy et al) with the powers of superhuman strength and indestructibility (Jason again) and a desire for revenge against mankind - but I don't think that's the point.

For me Green is simply trying to reclaim the genre, take it back to a halcyon age - but with a 21st Century budget and effects - to prevent its continued Twilightification. He's making "horror" truly "horrible" again, reclaiming the genre prerogative of  making the antagonist the audience draw, but without sinking to the sickening depths of the torture porn sub-genre.

Even the ending, while by no means original, is still perfectly in-keeping with the old school vibe of the piece... and obviously left the barn door open for last year's Hatchet 2!