2006/18/81m

“It’s not a remake. It’s not a sequel. And it’s not based on a Japanese one.”

Director/Writer: Adam Green / Cast: Joel David Moore, Tamara Feldman, Deon Richmond, Kane Hodder, Mercedes McNab, Parry Shen, Joleigh Fioreavanti, Patrika Darbo, Richard Riehle, Joel Murray, Robert Englund, Joshua Leonard, Tony Todd.

Body Count: 11

Dire-logue: “It’s not working – are you sure the number is 9-1-1?”

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‘Old School American Horror’ sayeth the cover… Hatchet opened to a lot of eager reviews of the “best thing since sliced head bread” variety from various horror ‘ficionados and so, when it eventually washed up on our shores in October of 2007, I was hoping it would remove the sour aftertaste of Rob Zombie’s Halloween right out of there like a keg of Listerine.

On paper it should be perfect: Hodder, Todd, Englund, a true slasher movie fan at the helm, the woods, lost group of tourists, local myth of psycho killer, and still Hatchet and I just didn’t get along. It’s like a blind date set up by your friend who thinks you’ll be perfect for each other but then it turns out that maybe they just don’t know you that well.

Anyway, enough of that tripe, what’s it about?

Recently dumped college boy Moore is dragging his heels around New Orleans Mardi Gras, much to the annoyance of his frat buddies (including director Green in the cap) and opts to take a haunted swamp tour he heard about, accompanied reluctantly by best pal Richmond.

Turned away by Tony Todd’s two minute cameo, they find fake-accented Parry Shen is willing to take them, along with a retired couple, a porno director and his two bickering starlets and a mysteriously quiet local chick who’s looking for her croc hunting Pa and bro (Englund and Leonard) who were offed in the prologue. Their guide soon proves himself incompetent by grounding the tour boat and a croc attack leaves the group staggering around the woods when they happen upon the house allegedly inhabited by a legendary ghoul…

After a flashback tale of poor Victor Crowley, a horrendously malformed child looked after solely by his father (Hodder, out of makeup for a change) who was tormented by local kids who torched his house while the boy was still inside and a botched rescue attempt by daddy left him with an axe in the face… Nominal heroine Feldman tries to guide the group elsewhere but is too late and the hulking Crowley quickly sets about doing away with them one by one.

Hatchet does what we expect it to; the tourists are ripped limb from limb, hacked, sawn, skewered and beheaded with liberal lashings of gore, all of it CG-free, which is admirable, although at times the less-is-more route would have been advisable, although the film was released at a time when ‘horror’ was being cut down to PG-13 levels of acceptability to suck in a younger audience, Hatchet provided a sort of nihilistic flip-off to them and piled on the grue. And the tits.

It was mostly the misbalanced frat-style comedy that shot it in the foot for me. The gags are obvious as Richmond does the typical token black dude thing while McNab is dumber than a box of hair (“call the police, they’ll send the cops!”) and Moore is just the unlucky schmuck. Shen comes out of it the best – possibly the reason he returned for the sequel as a different character – and Feldman is a functional, if not a little lifeless heroine, replaced in Hatchet II by the preferable Danielle Harris.

Green’s skills markedly improved by the time the follow up surfaced in 2010, achieving where most sequels fail by completely outdoing the original film. That’s not to say Hatchet is a bad film, it’s just a bit…juvenile? Who knows, maybe it was supposed to be, but it’s bookended plot means that it geographically goes almost nowhere, seemingly set in a patch of woods about thirty feet in diameter. As if unsure whether he wants to shock us or make us laugh, even Green himself seemed to be aware of the flaws during the screening of the second film at FrightFest, a product he was evidently more at home with making and is consequently far more accomplished.

Blurbs-of-interest: Deon Richmond was in Scream 3; Parry Shen was also in Dead Scared; Josh Leonard had the lead in Madhouse. Mercedes McNab used to play dim-witted cheerleader (and then equally incompetent vampire) Harmony in Buffy. John Carl Buechler, director of Friday the 13th Part VII and makeup artist on a gazillion other films cameod as Jack Cracker (and had a bigger role in Hatchet II). Hodder, Englund and Todd’s services to the genre are huge and I hope at the very least you know which three icons they’re most famous for playing.

2004/18/80m

“Only one detective can stop the Poe Killer before he completes another tale in his book of death!”

Director: Jeff Burton / Writers: Burton, Erik F. Hill & Bill Vincent / Cast: Anita La Selva, Jason Carter, Bill Vincent, Spice Williams-Crosby, Jennifer Lantz, Gunhild Giil, Erik F. Hill, Curtis Hall, Casimir Borowicz, Bonner C. Upshaw III, Robert Leeshock, Dee Wallace Stone, Dennis Haskins.

Body Count: 12

Dire-logue: “I am the wind that comes out of the night!” – well, you certainly do blow

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There’s something appealing about the concept of ‘The Edgar Allan Poe Killer’, a serial murderer who bases his slayings around the tales of the master of the macabre – how could it go wrong? Answer: budget.

Starting well with a murder that puts a great spin on The Tell-Tale Heart, detective Burt Williams has been trying to catch the fiend for three years and is eventually struck off the case by his FBI daughter (!) who is close to tricking the killer into meeting her by posing as another IQ-challenged internet victim.

Meanwhile, a quintet of dope-smoking, “law enforcement students” of her cop-turned-lecturer father decide to take a trip out to the hoise where the killer, his identity known but notoriously elusive, used to live and, by contrived change, has just taken FBI daughter-girl hostage! The road where the house is located is a dead end, in case you were wondering what the hell the title was about.

While FBI daughter-girl awaits her fate beneath a giant pendulum, our Poe-wannabe stalks and slaughters the “law enforcement students” before a showdown with the father-daughter cop team.

There are some fun murders, like a sword through the head, pitchfork in the face and a decapitated head being spewed out of the bowling ball return conveyor thingy, all set to the killer’s quotes of Poe’s most famous works, “never more” being the appropriate follow up to one brutal kill.

Sadly, the whole project is undermined by the amateur-night performances (Stone and Haskins briefly cameo) and camcorder-esque photography. Still, at a mere eighty minutes, it doesn’t outstay its welcome by much.

Blurbs-of-interest: Dee Wallace Stone is also in Popcorn, Scar (the ‘less good’ one) and Rob Zombie’s Halloween retooling; Spice Williams-Crosby was in Fatal Games under her previous name Marcelyn Ann Williams.

1981/18/82m

“Everyone has nightmares about the ugliest way to die.”

A.k.a. Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone!

Director: James Bryan / Writer: Garth Eliassen / Cast: Jack McClelland, Mary Gail Artz, James P. Hayden, Angie Brown, Ken Carter, Tom Drury.

Body Count: 16

Dire-logue: “Peter! That could’ve been a fatal mistake, jumping off a log!”

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One of the many horror movies of the “Don’t…” oeuvre of the early 80s, Don’t Go in the Woods may have the achieved the notoreity of finding its way on to the Video Nasties List but it’s possibly even more well known for being a hysterically inept exercise in how not to go about making a slasher film. It’s that film you saw when you were 12 and thought you were so tough for sitting through. At 25 you realise it was just crap.

Starting with silent credits and then aerial footage of some mountains that looks as if the camera was mounted on a vibrator, atop a washing machine in an out of control prototype helicopter, DGITW quickly piles up a worthy body count as a girl running along a stream dies, then a birdwatcher gets his arm lopped off and a couple of oddly dressed day walkers die. We don’t get to see the killer or even really how any of these people die but it’s fairly comical, given that all the audio was dubbed on afterwards to ‘improve’ the sound, rendering any dramatic nuance lost in horrible sounding dialogue that’s either shouted or whispered.

Don't wear an oversized bowtie in the woods

We meet our quartet of dreary central characters, pink-shirted Peter, know-all man o’ the wild Craig, and two women who are virtually identical save for hair colour, Ingrid and Joanie. Between random murders, we return to the group to listen to Craig droning on about survival and how man is the most feared animal of the woods until he is mercifully the first one killed off.

The others scatter and while Joanie goes it alone, Peter and Ingrid discover more bodies, kill an innocent bystander and find their way to safety only to run back into the woods to search for Joanie and finish off the killer, who, in the meantime, has killed a couple in a VW camper, an artist, a fisherman and – somewhat randomly – beheaded a guy in a wheelchair. Why the fuck would someone wheel themselves up a mountain unaided? The guy even falls out of the damn thing at one point. And why was there an unsteady girl on rollerskates earlier on – are we to believe she skated up the mountain?

Don't know the hell that is? She's been skewered through her painting

There are numerous other questions raised by the sheer randomness of this project: the killer, when finally shown about halfway through, is some beardy guy who jangles when he runs, yet nobody hears him approaching… One early victim is tossed off a cliff face and lands on some rocks literally five feet from some people playing in a waterfall and they totally don’t notice!

Eventually, when Peter and Joanie defy the title of the film and return to the woods, they take with them a hunting party, the almost perfectly spherical sheriff and a fucking doctor from the hospital. Things end in a suitably nihilistic way (possibly the scene that got it banned) and it wraps with a stultifyingly horrendous song that can must be heard to be bought.

Don’t Go in the Woods sucks. It sucks so hard I feared that it might suck a hole in the fabric of space and take us all with it. But it’s funny as hell and worth seeing for a dare if nothing more. The dubbing situation is amusing on its own but when coupled with the abysmal acting of virtually all involved, it just becomes one more reason not to visit Utah.

Don't give up the day job

Blurbs-of-interest: Mary Gail Artz (Ingrid – redhead) became a successful casting director soon after this faux pas and has credits on a lot of big films, including Halloween II and House of Wax in the horror realm. Angie Brown (Joanie) was in All-American Murder.

2010/79m

Director/Writer: Adam Green / Cast: Danielle Harris, Tony Todd, Kane Hodder, Parry Shen, Tom Holland, R.A. Mihailoff, A.J. Bowen, Alexis Peters, Ed Ackerman, Colton Dunn, David Foy, Rick McCallum, John Carl Buechler.

Body Count: 18

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Vegan Voorhees’ first world premiere! Yay!

I realised I hadn’t been to FrightFest for a decade – my last foray was for Cut, the Molly Ringwald/Kylie Minogue Australian answer to Scream, which disappeared without a trace thereafter.

Once settled in the back row, a camera flash caught my attention and I heard the signature purr of Tony Todd’s voice all but ten feet from me – “we’re saving this seat for Adam,” said a small dark-haired girl to his left – Danielle Harris! And a couple of seats closer, do I see the outline of Kane Hodder’s head?

OK, so I’m way too shy to approach but Adam Green gathered the group to the stage after the film for some Q&A and, on his own, introduced the film. He’s a genuine guy and evidently a gem to work with as his entire crew returned to work with him on this sequel to a film I’ve never really thought that much of, therefore my expectations for more of the same weren’t exactly high. Lo and behold…Green’s preamble that his growth as a director has provided a positive knock-on effect for the end product and it’s true, he has surpassed his first effort.

It’s a rarity in the slasher realm for a sequel to actually pick up where its predecessor left off and Hatchet II begins with Marybeth fighting off Victor Crowley after he grabbed her from the boat. She escapes and is rescued by returning character, Jack Cracker, who, upon realising what family she’s a part of, boots her out and sends her in the direction of Reverend Zombie.

Tony Todd relishes narrating the backstory of Victor Crowley, going further back than before and therefore permitting Kane Hodder some dialogue as Crowley Sr. as we learn of the curse that was beset on the unborn child, giving some origin to his apparent ongoing survival, and providing space for a quick ‘greatest hits’ style montage of some of Crowley’s kills.

Zombie agrees to accompany Marybeth back to the swamp to recover the bodies of her father and brother as long as she brings along her Uncle Bob and they go with a group of local croc hunters and fisherman, who are competing for $500 bounty on Crowley’s head, including the twin brother of phoney tour operator Shawn (again played by Parry Shen – this time affecting a rubbish French accent), an estranged couple who can’t keep their hands off each other, and every-line’s-a-gag guy Vernon.

Up to this point, the film kinda drags its feet, devoting more screentime to Harris and Todd and the film is almost half over by the time the group get back to the bayou. The big dude quickly appears once the hunting party separate and so begins the carnage and Green has gone all out on a parade of dementedly twisted – and often hilarious – slayings: faces go into outboard propellers, there was quite possibly an axe up the arse and the world’s most phallic chainsaw makes an appearance, as does the power sander used in the previous film and there’s a great tabletop decapitation that had the whole audience applauding.

Almost everything works better this time round the carousel: Crowley’s make-up appears less rubbery and Danielle Harris makes a more appealing Marybeth, simply by the virtue of who she is. Green stated that his entire crew returned for the sequel, which had sets built by the same team from The Dark Knight and told of an E. Coli outbreak that attempted to wipe out most of the cast and crew throughout the shoot.

The dedication of the team allowed for amusing cameo appearances from Mercedes McNab and Joleigh Fioravanti via the recovered camcorder brandished by the amateur pornographer from part one and listen out for the mention of Leslie Vernon during Zombie’s pitch to the hunters.

Bottom line is that Hatchet II just works better, scoring high points for striking its comedy-horror balance, assembly of genre faces and the apparent love all involved had for the project.

Blurbs-of-interest: Danielle Harris played Jamie Lloyd in Halloween‘s 4 and 5 and Annie Brackett in Rob Zombie’s remake and its sequel as well as Urban Legend; Tony Todd was also in iMurders, Scarecrow Slayer and the first two Final Destinations; Kane Hodder played Jason four times and appears fleetingly in Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. Parry Shen was in Dead Scared. R.A. Milhailoff was in Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.

Hence, discreetly switching channels to experience the forbidden fruit, I was prompty terrified by what I saw. Legend tells us – and it’s confirmed by the inlay notes in the DVD – that some poor schmuck committed suicide a few days after the broadcast.

When it was released to DVD ten years afterwards, I had to take a look to see if I was damaged. And this moment, where plucky presenter Sarah Greene ventures into the understairs cupboard to look for one of the missing girls, gave me the uber-willies…

So you might not understand what you’re seeing, but the door slowly creaks open when the camera and sound guys go looking for her and reveals a glimpse of this freaky man’s face, who may or may not be the ghost – unaffectionately known as Pipes by the tormented family – eerily staring back at them.

The effect is lost over time to some degree; Michael Parkinson’s unintentionally hilarious possession and the rubbish acting of the bubble-haired psychologist lady but back then…woah, frightening stuff!

No killer or final girl profiles here, this is a celebration of those underlings who made the most of their fleeting flirtation with stardom. And usually died.

THE DOOMED SECURITY PERSONNEL

Overview: Doomed security personnel (DSPs) are as old as the hills in the slasher realm. They’re the cop or security guard, hardly ever credited with a name beyond something like Officer Bob, who just happen to get in the way during the killer’s tantrum and commonly end up near the top of the body count list, crumpled and forgotten in the corner with a barbecue fork sticking in their eye.

Linguistic Snapshot: “Hello? Who’s there? This abandoned roller disco, which is rumoured to be haunted after the murders ten years ago tonight, is off-limits after hours!”

Styling: Almost all DSPs are adult males who wear uniforms with epaulets, sometimes hats, the faithful flashlight, buckled belts and – if they’re lucky – holstered weapons (fat lotta good they’ll do). Security guards are quite often overweight and usually seem to bear facial hair of some description.

Hallmarks: A lackadaisical work ethic is a must, there’s no time for motivation in this job. Just hang around with your coffee and doughnuts and dismiss the hysterical teenage girl who says everyone is dead… Hey – she’s a pretty lil thang!

Downfall: Despite being a full grown man, DSP is often more naive than the teenagers who will later die, though it is his job to go and check out that weird noise, but he’ll also squat down to feel for the killer’s pulse and ignore the final girl’s pleas to turn around or follow her in the firm belief she’s just mental and he can best the bastard!

Genesis: The first DSP I can think of is probably Jennings the cop in Black Christmas who is supposed to guard the sorority house but instead is found in his car with a cut throat.

There’s Mr Garrett who makes the fatal error of investigating the basement in Halloween II; Todd the country music loving security guard in The Initiation; the cop who shoots the wrong Santa in Silent Night, Deadly Night (“so far all you’ve done is harm!”) and the campus security cop, Mitch, who we don’t know if is dead or just asleep in Final Exam.

Wake the hell up!

Legacy: In the late 80s, DSP turned up all over the show, such as the ill-conceived ‘comedy cops’ from Halloween 5 who were given their own clown-theme every time they bumbled on to the screen before Michael answered our prayers and did them in with a pitchfork.

When Scream pushed open the floodgates for the 90s rebirth, we all cooed “Noooo!” when Sarah Michelle Gellar’s ride home got out to help a stranded stranger fix his truck in I Know What You Did Last Summer, knowing well in advance of him that this cop was about to eat some hook and even the assigned agents in Scream 2 were swatted away like flies by the killer.

However, there were a couple of exceptions made in both Halloween H20 and Urban Legend where the campus security guards not only lived but were also instrumental in the heroine’s escape and apprehension of the killer. LL Cool J may have survived multiple bullet wounds when mistaken for Michael Myers (they look so similar with their pasty white- …uhhh) but he returned to drag Jamie Lee Curtis away as she stabbed her brother and Loretta Devine’s blaxploitation loving rent-a-cop saved Alicia Witt’s ass, also surviving being shot, and got to kick some major killer-ass in the sequel, and she did it all with sassy one-liners and attitude.

There’ve been plenty more failed attempts of rescue by police academy failures – the poor schmuck ranger who utters but a handful of words to Desmond Harrington in Wrong Turn before an arrow goes through his eye; the nightwatchman of the haunted fairground in Dark Ride who might’ve just saved the day were it not for the head-splitting blade the killer thunked in his noggin and lest we forget the Valentine horndog, Detective Vaughn, far more interested in Denise Richards’ slender derriere than solving a murder case that he quite literally loses his head over.

Yes sirree, anyone considering a career in security should pick their assignments carefully, ‘cos you’re not safe at prep school, university, the woods, the old abandoned fairground, the mall, your squad car, hospitals, dilapidated hotels, factory yards, or even space…

It kind of reminds me of that scene in the first Austin Powers where the poor, unnamed henchman’s wife is informed of his untimely passing… Poor schmucks just trying to make a decent living – let’s hope they’re all drinking buds in the next life, comparing wounds and playing trumps over how prolific a maniac it was who got them in the end… RIP, not-very-good security dudes, if only you swapped shifts with Bob.

2003/18/99m

“Be careful what you wish for.”

Director: Sharon Ferranti / Writer: Lauren Johnson / Cast: Moynan King, Hollace Starr, Virginia Baeta, Melanie Freedom Flynn, Amanda Spain, Lava Alapai, Nora Stein, Neil Wilson, Eric Vichi.

Body Count: 8

Dire-logue: “I just don’t like to see ladies bothered by people who’re bothering them. It’s…bothersome.”

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A lesbian camping trip slasher film immediately sounds like blood-coated porn for 15-year-old boys, stocked with silicone-boobed blonde bombshells making out with each other. Well think again, Pizzaface, Make A Wish is about proper lesbians.

In what was most likely the first gay-centric slasher flick (despite what the producers of HellBent might say), a group of gal-pals gather for Susan’s birthday camping trip where they become the victims of the customary off-camera psychotic. Could it be the jealous boyfriend of the gone-straight hasbian? A horny hunter who keeps turning up to perv? Or the escaped patient being tracked by a private detective?

Sloppy murders ensue and the running time is padded out with intermittent sex scenes that would look exploitative if the director weren’t herself a family member. At least she creates an interesting group of gay women, which includes a childlike wiccan and a tree-hugging vegan and almost all of the group have had liaisons with birthday girl, Susan and all have an array of sensible shoes. Ferranti doesn’t force any issues of sexuality or feminism, much as it’s gay-boy brethren HellBent, the orientation of the characters is more or less incidental.

Now, I’ve been camping with lesbians and they’re nothing if not prepared for the wilderness. I hoped the last chick standing would go all A-Team on the killer’s ass with a gadget she’d been previously had no use for, or at least throw a cat at them.

Essentially, it’s nothing more than Friday the 13th‘s gay cousin with a confusingly inconclusive finale that’s lacking in the clarity department. All the same it’s a fairly diverting product worth a once over.