HATCHET III (BJ McDonnell). See listing. Rating: NNN
Hatchet II ended with final girl Marybeth (Danielle Harris) turning the bad guy’s skull to pulp with a shotgun. Repeatedly.
Fortunately, you can’t keep a good maniac down, and it turns out Victor Crowley regenerates back to his hulking, murderous self every night thanks to a centuries-old voodoo curse. (Hey, why not?) So all Hatchet III has to do is wait for the sun to go down – and the victims start piling up again.
This time, Marybeth is locked up after arriving at a sheriff’s station covered in gore and babbling about the indestructible maniac who’s just hacked his way through dozens of people, so Victor gets to hunt the police and paramedics sent out to investigate her story.
This cleverly gives the movie a much-needed change of venue – and allows for an infodump in which a very insistent journalist (Caroline Williams, of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) explains the nature of the Crowley curse and Marybeth’s connection to the killer. And because this is the third chapter of a trilogy, it all comes together in the last 10 minutes, as a handful of survivors of Crowley’s various massacres converge on Honey Island Swamp for a final, bloody confrontation.
Directed by newcomer BJ McDonnell (with creator Adam Green writing and producing), Hatchet III is reasonably satisfying. It’s not as loose or funny as the first instalment, or as intense as the second, mostly because Williams is a terrible actor and struggles with her cumbersome expository dialogue.
But Harris is solid, and Zach Galligan (yes, the guy from the Gremlins movies) puts a decent spin on the role of the foolhardy sheriff who disregards multiple warnings to charge straight into danger. You’ve certainly seen worse.
At the Big Picture Gerrard. See listings.
