VICTOR CROWLEY – Review

Review by Mark Longden

Fans of slasher cinema will probably be aware that this is the fourth movie in the “Hatchet” series, written or directed or both by Adam Green. He’s been going for a while, making TV (Fear.NET’s “Holliston”, and a few horror documentary shows) and movies – a handful of thrillers and short films, as well as this.

“Hatchet” is a comedy-horror series about Victor Crowley, a deformed fellow who lives in the swamps outside New Orleans, and kills people with a…well, you know. If you’re like me, and this is your first toe dipped into the waters of Mr Green and his cinematic universe, well, I don’t think there’s a lot of backstory to worry about. Large mute monster, completely indestructible, laughs, gore, slasher movies. So let’s get into it!

As you might be able to guess from the name, it’s also not exactly a direct continuation of the first three, such as not featuring the star of the last two, Scream Queen par excellence Danielle Harris (although she, along with a few other stars of previous instalments such as Tony Todd, has a very small cameo). It’s ten years since the last time Victor Crowley terrorised the swamp, and the sole survivor, Andrew (Parry Shen) is selling his book and appearing on a chat show hosted by his ex-wife, Sabrina (Krystal Joy Brown). People seem to think he’s the murderer, and when he goes to do a book signing, all the crazies turn up, including a guy who wants Andrew to sign his penis.

Also coming to town for the signing are an aspiring horror movie director, Chloe (Katie Booth), her boyfriend Alex (Chase Williamson) and their friend Rose (Laura Ortiz, a regular actor for Green). They want Andrew to star in their fake trailer for their Victor Crowley movie, and he sort of wants to but gets dragged away by his nightmarish publicist Kathleen (Felissa Rose, who you may remember as the teen star of the original “Sleepaway Camp”). He wants to go home and hide from the people who hate him, but he’s being paid a million dollars to go to the swamp and do a special interview, again for his ex-wife.

So, on the one hand you have a private plane, full of the interview people – featuring Tiffany Shepis, another modern day Scream Queen whose work we’ve enjoyed before; and the other is the tiny movie crew, who go out into the swamp to shoot some footage. They find a tour guide, and I was all “that looks like the goofy guy from the first Scary Movie”, and it was – Dave Sheridan, whose career seems to be full of these sorts of roles. The plane, completely out of nowhere, develops a fault and crashes in the swamp, and the filmmakers playing a latin incantation over and over on their phone is all it takes to summon Victor for another round of extremely gruesome murderin’.

The first thing that’s crucial to say about “Victor Crowley” is it has a complete lack of regard for horror movie tropes, such as Final Girls, love interests making it to the end, and so on. When you’ve seen every slasher movie imaginable, this can be seen as a breath of fresh air, because you’ve really got no idea what’s coming next.

On the other hand, though, it throws the baby out with the bathwater a little. When you see the person you’ve been following since the beginning get their head stamped in a little over halfway through, the only response I had was “why waste so much of the movie on that person, then?” Some tropes are there for a reason, I guess.

Green is a firm believer in practical effects, apparently operates under a “no CGI” rule, and he’s certainly a master of making gore look both slightly cartoonish and kinda believable. Kudos to him and his team on nailing that aspect of things. And, the tiny budget manifested itself most obviously in a solid half the movie taking place inside the downed aircraft, but he made a little go a long way.

The gags come thick and fast, and some of them work, but it’s definitely the work of someone who’s a lot less funny than they think they are. It’s OTT for the sake of it, and if you don’t find lots of swearing and punchlines being a decapitated skull dropped in someone’s lap intrinsically funny, then you might have a tough time with this one.

It’s the casting where Green excels, as his lifetime of horror fandom and horror creation has allowed him to get some serious names in for parts big and small. Felissa Rose is great as the agent, stealing every scene she’s in, Tiffany Shepis makes me wish she’d been a bigger star, and everyone else (with the exception of Sheridan, who’s too old and tired-looking to still be playing this sort of role) is great. Kane Hodder has played every mute, hulking psycho in horror history, and I see a lot of people praising him for not doing much more than standing there and glowering. I guess he’s good? I think it’s his name people are hiring him for nowadays, though.

Ultimately, I liked it, I wasn’t bored by it, and I enjoyed some of the gore-drenched fun, but it wasn’t quite right. Like, it needed more movie to it, not just a succession of in-jokes and kills. There wasn’t a lot of plot, and if you’re going to resurrect your dormant movie series, you probably ought to have a good reason for doing so.

PS- He apparently brought back this series at the insistence of George Romero, who was conveniently no longer around to answer back. There’s a photo of the two of them together which he trotted out at the premiere of “Victor Crowley”, and allow me to suggest the conversation went something like this:

AG: So, George, you reckon I should bring back Hatchet? Huh?

GR: Sure, I guess? If you want to?

AG: Hey everyone! George Romero told me to make more Hatchet movies!

So – a great deal better than virtually every low-budget horror-comedy you’ll see out there, but that’s a very low bar to clear.

VICTOR CROWLEY is currently available on VOD and Blu-ray