- Directed by B.J. McDonnell
- June 14, 2013 (US)
A search and recovery team heads into the haunted swamp as Marybeth learns how to end the curse that left Victor Crowley the supernatural terror of Honey Island Swamp.
Story wise Hatchet III is pretty much what you would expect. The barest of plots with enough characters to get killed in imaginative or just simply entertaining gory ways. Mercifully this is a horror movie with no message or theme beyond carnage and honoring the slasher genre. I hate that modern trend of the message horror film. Anywho…
The story continues from the end of Hatchet II. These three films form one continuous story in what can be looked at as an homage to the first few Friday the 13th films though that might not be intentional. The movie is such a continuation that Joel David Moore makes a comedic cameo as Ben who has barely been clinging to life since Hatchet.
No smack intended but maybe a bit of a problem was Adam Green. I think this is a little funnier than the first few and a little better put together. Green doesn’t direct this one rather leaving it in the hands of Hatchet and Hatchet II cameraman B.J. McDonnell who balances the comedic and serious duality often found in 80s horror.
Given the quality of this one and my general enjoyment it would appear Adam Green in the first two had far too many hats on to give each aspect he handled the proper attention. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Just sometimes you need to step away a bit from your baby. Be there to make sure things turn out the way you want (like he did here) but don’t be such a control freak that you can’t let somebody else handle something when over extended.
Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder) was barely seen in the first two movies. Green kept him in shadows or far enough back that details were not discernable. Maybe it was a limitation of budget or maybe it was just smart horror movie making. Here we get a much clearer look at the central figure of the series and it’s been well worth the tease. The prosthetics are unsettling.
Victor Crowley is much more out of control here. He is shown as an unbridled force that cannot be stopped by conventional means like guns or a smashed in head. He takes in all sorts of damage and keeps coming. The major goal of the characters is to get the ashes of Victor’s father so the urn can be smack against his head (I think) to kill him. I lost track on that. What I am certain of is it allowed a hilariously bigoted cameo by Sid Haig as Abbott McMullen who is a distant cousin of Victor.
Haig is a legend whose memory will live on among horror fans and genre connoisseurs for generations to come like that of Rondo Hatton. McMullen shows pretty late in the story long after you think they are through all the notables they can fit. It was a welcome surprise to see him deliver the funniest moments/lines of the whole series thus far!
The eternal Final Girl Danielle Harris returns as Marybeth picking up from the final moments of Hatchet II just after she crushed Victor’s skull there. Walking into the local police station with his scalp she is quickly arrested but in a very common trope when the station is all but abandoned she gets released by the remaining officer and some random person that knows enough to end the slaughter this time.
Once Marybeth leaves Honey Island Swamp McDonnell keeps things moving managing to present a high quality low budget film. The carnage count is high but the horror count is low. It takes on a much more action oriented presentation with armed individuals spraying bullets.
Joining Harris, Haig, and Hodder is Gremlins alum Zach Galligan as Sheriff Fowler, returning Hatchet series actor Parry Shen as Andrew, and 2009 Friday the 13th reboot Jason Vorhees Derek Mears as Hawes. Shen’s best moment is where they hang a lantern on him playing yet another Hatchet movie by turning the refence into a moment of possible accidental racism.
Hatchet III is the best distillation so far of the Hatchet concept though it lacks scares. It expands upon without undermining the mythology. It may focus more on action than being a slasher, but it’s not such a different animal that you can’t see the connection.
Warren Watched A Movie 