Hatchet - A good chuckle, but make sure you're in the mood for it

I'm writing this review after a second viewing of Hatchet. I do love a good/daft horror/slasher movie and this one was billed as being right up there with the best of them, plus even a homage to the classics of the seventies and eighties.

In short, I didn't like it at first. However, after a couple of years I decided to watch it again and see if I missed anything.

Even now, I probably wouldn't say it's an absolute classic, but it is a decent enough little yarn (with plenty of blood).

Did I say `plenty' of blood? I meant TONNES. In fact, the producers obviously know they're going a bit over the top and must have had great fun throwing bucketloads of the red stuff at trees after every kill takes place.

It's quite a short film (it doesn't really need to be any longer) and, after the thumping Marilyn Manson opening song, we meet about a group of people who go on a boat ride into the swamps of America and end up on the wrong end of a maniac's hatchet. The kills are very violent and, if you're looking for gore, you'll find it here. The best part of the film is the characters. Whether they're horrible or nice, they're entertaining. There's plenty of amusing banter between them to keep us amused (special mention to the two *ahem* `actresses' who continually bicker with each other all the way through).

These good characters go some way to make up for the film's major flaw: they don't kill the killer. This slasher film possibly has the most opportunities to either kill, or severely subdue the nutter with the hatchet, yet they choose to run off every time and leave him to `get better' and resume coming after them. This is the most annoying part of the film and, if it wasn't for the snappy, tongue-in-cheek dialogue, I would have found myself getting increasingly annoyed with the whole package.

All in all, this film is far from perfect, but, if you lower your expectations enough and put your brain on hold, you should enjoy the daftness and gore (like I say, it's not on for long!).

Also, kudos to the film-makers for getting Robert Englund, Kane Hodder and Tony Todd on the same cast list.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that