Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder, Jason from four of the Friday the 13^th films) is a deformed crazy-man, (who might be an angry ghost, it’s never really made clear) living in the swamps outside of New Orleans.  When a group of nine of the most annoying characters this side of Magnolia take a haunted swamp tour through Crowley’s neck of the woods, the dismembering begins with shovels, belt-sanders, random pieces of sharp metal, Victor’s bare hands, and of course, the title weapon figuring into much of the carnage.

Trying to create a very straight-faced homage to the slasher films of the eighties sounds like a fun idea.  Unfortunately, Green stacks the deck against himself by making his film a little too much like those he’s referencing, right down to their flaws.  For those of you counting, this is the third mention in this review of the annoying characters that had me rooting for Crowley to just kill them all at once.  The jokes in the film are almost all derived from racial and sexist stereotypes that are never particularly offensive, but definitely not funny either.  What he does well is handle the sheer ridiculousness of the manner in which Crowley dispatches his victims.  And let’s face it; nobody ever went to a slasher film for the character development.  They came to see the cast get hacked into several pieces while the blood runs down the screen.  In this way, Hatchet does not disappoint.

Green also scores points with the horror crowd by giving cameos to several actors beloved in the genre.  Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street) and Joshua Leonard (The Blair Witch Project) play a father and son who fall victim to Crowley in a brief prologue.  Tony Todd (Candyman) shows up in a surprisingly funny role, getting great mileage out of his deep, threatening voice and hammy acting style.  The only other member of the cast that delivers a decent performance is Joel David Moore (Dodgeball).  He gives off an unexpected leading-man quality that belies his past work as a stock nerd character.

In a way, trying to revive the traditional slasher film is something of a thankless task.  These films have been spoofed so mercilessly in the past two decades, there is no way for them to be brought back in the same form, and have audiences take them seriously.  Earlier this year, I reviewed a film called Behind the Mask:  The Rise of Leslie Vernon.  It twisted the idea of the slasher film by humanizing the killer and exploring the genre in a mockumentary format.  It’s a great example about the places an old idea like the slasher film can be taken when given a fresh approach.

Despite all my complaints, I will admit that there is some fun to be had with Hatchet.  It’s just too bad that Green didn’t focus more on making his killer frightening and his cast of characters a little less clichéd.  Before his next film, hopefully someone can convince him to learn from the mistakes of the films that he so obviously loves and not replicate them out of some kind of blind allegiance.