Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
When a group of tourists on a New Orleans haunted swamp tour find themselves stranded in the wilderness, their evening of fun and spooks turns into a horrific nightmare.
Hatchet is a deliberately retro slasher that wears its love of 80s genre filmmaking on its sleeve. The plot is thin and formulaic even by slasher standards — a group of disposable tourists hunted by a deformed killer — with little tension or character development. Acting is mixed at best, though the casting of horror legends like Robert Englund and Kane Hodder adds some charm. Cinematography is competent and makes good use of the Louisiana swamp atmosphere, with impressively practical gore effects that genre fans appreciate. Novelty gets a modest bump for its self-aware, gleefully over-the-top approach to practical effects and old-school slasher reverence, giving it a distinct voice even if the framework is recycled. The ending is abrupt and unsatisfying, functioning mainly as a sequel setup rather than a proper conclusion.