Review by Ben Bussey
There’s a great moment maybe twenty minutes into Hatchet 3. Paramedics have come to Victor Crowley’s swamp, done the obligatory gaping in shock and awe at the number of hideously mangled corpses here there and everywhere, and as clean-up operations commence, they bring Crowley’s ‘corpse’ onto their boat. At last! They’re going to take him back to New Orleans! Imagine that – Victor Crowley doing his crazy, limb-ripping thing amidst the hustle and bustle of Mardi Gras. That could be potentially be so large-scale, and so much fun, and it would really give this franchise the shot in the arm that it so desperately… oh, wait, he’s left the boat and gone back in the swamp. And now a bunch of people who talk too much are going into the swamp after him. In other words – it’s the exact same thing all over again. Again.
Adam Green may have relinquished directorial duties to BJ McConnell, but Hatchet 3 remains a clear case of SS,DD: same shit, different director. An early scene sees Green (also returning screenwriter) reprise his cameo as the Mardi Gras drunk, and he pulls a face when Sherriff Zach Galligan summarises the plot of the first two films and dismisses it as atrocious storytelling. However, just because you tell a lazy, repetitive story with a nod and a wink doesn’t somehow change the fact that it’s a lazy, repetitive story. Likewise, just because you cast a few old horror fan favourites and throw in a ridiculously OTT kill every so often doesn’t mean we can overlook everything else. It’s really quite disheartening to see how a franchise which was founded on a pledge to break from the norms of the early 2000s (lest we forget, Hatchet was “not a sequel, not a remake, and not based on a Japanese one”) has wound up sticking so rigidly to its own formula; a formula which, frankly, wasn’t exactly flawless in the first place.
Funny thing is – I say this as one of the few who didn’t seem to hate Hatchet 2. I saw that at its world premiere back at Frightfest 2010,* and while I didn’t fall head over heels in love with it, I thought it was fine for what it was. It probably helped that this was exactly how I felt about the original Hatchet; didn’t hate it, didn’t love it, thought it was okay-ish. But okay-ish can only stretch so far. Eventually it reaches a point where you need to pull your damn finger out and advance, or otherwise just piss off. Now, Hatchet has officially reached the point where it needs to piss off.
Much as was the case in Hatchet 2, the first scene of Hatchet 3 commences barely a second after the final shot of the previous film, with Marybeth (the returning Danielle Harris) standing over the eviscerated remains of Victor Crowley – and, of course, about a minute later it’s clear that he’s not dead after all. Struggling her way back to town, she heads straight to the police station to tell her story and endure the obligatory/gratuitous shower scene, tastefully done of course (i.e. we don’t see her tits – and curiously, that’s the nearest this instalment comes to showing nudity, which is about the only deviation from the Hatchet formula). Naturally, Zach Galligan (who still barely looks a day older than he did in Gremlins) doesn’t believe a word about the supernatural killing machine Crowley, but he does suspect Marybeth herself of mass murder, and subsequently heads out to the swamp to investigate; but in his absence, his scheming journalist ex-wife Caroline Williams (yes, fans of fan-pleasing casting, that’s Stretch from TCM2) smells a juicy story in waiting, and pumps Marybeth for information. Cue a lot of talking, a lot more embellishment of the Victor Crowley legend, and a grand plan for just how they can finish him off once and for all… you know, just like the one Tony Todd came up with in Hatchet 2. Once again: SS,DD.
Yes, it’s got a bit of novelty casting, which doesn’t end with Galligan and Williams as we have Derek Mears – AKA new Jason Voorhees – who, naturally, is there to do battle with Kane Hodder (no prizes whatsoever for guessing how that turns out). Yes, it throws in a few of the standard visual references (check out the Halloween homage from the first scene in the still above). And if anyone gives a shit, it has yet another role for Parry Shen, who starred in the first Hatchet then returned as his own twin in the second. I guess someone finds his continued reappearance funny, I don’t know. I guess there might also be some people who find Cody Blue Snider’s blabbermouthed shit-scared deputy funny too, whereas I just wanted him to shut the fuck up the second he started speaking. Maybe if Green had also let someone else write this one it might have worked out better, because yet again we just have a slew of intensely unlikeable characters who spout way too much contrived, unnatural dialogue with an obligatory ‘fuck’ every two or three words, all of whom take way too long to meet their inevitable grisly demise.
Any slasher movie is invariably going to have a hint of ‘been-there, done-that’ about it. That’s fine. But when a movie series simply repeats itself as brazenly as the Hatchet movies have, it’s just taking the piss. It will come as no surprise that the big final showdown still leaves things just that bit open enough for a fourth movie, which I’ve no doubt will materialise at some point – but I have to wonder who’s going to care by then, beyond the ‘Hatchet Army’ diehards. And even if the potential might remain for a more entertaining follow-up should Green and company finally decide to change the fucking record, I seriously doubt that’s going to happen, and I’m certainly not going to hold my breath waiting for it.
(Oh, and if it matters, the DVD has no extras whatsoever.)
Hatchet 3 comes to Region 2 DVD on 31st March 2014, from Metrodome.
* In all honesty, that Hatchet 2 review is probably a little too kind; as tends to be the norm at festivals, I posted the review within hours of seeing the movie, which isn’t always the best approach.