There is a long history of movie monsters such as the Hammer Horror classics of Dracula and Frankenstein, to name but 2, but in 1978 an iconic movie monster would hit the screen’s in John Carpenter’s Halloween. That would be the unstoppable killing machine that was Michael Myers, and unlike the 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a franchise started immediately with Halloween 2 following in 1981 (the Texas Chainsaw sequel did not follow to 1986
Today, Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw, has had almost as many movie appearances as Myers with a prequel and more recently a 3D outing, Texas Chainsaw 3d.
Myers and Leatherface would be joined by another iconic monster, when taking revenge for the death of his mother during the final scene of 1980 Friday the 13th, Jason Vorhees, the hockey mask-wearing killer would kill teenagers in a staggering 10 sequels and a reboot with another new film scheduled for 2017!
However in 1984 Jason, Michael and Leatherface faced their biggest competition when the late Wes Craven gave us Freddy Krueger who Nightmare on Elm Street and unlike these previous killers, would dominate the big screen with big openings in the films numerous sequels. Prior to the reboots of these iconic movie killers with bigger budgets, the big showdown occurred in 2003 when Freddy vs Jason faced each other, although the ending didn’t give a conclusive winner yet incredibly a sequel has yet to occur, with both films being rebooted instead.
Many movie monsters have joined their group over recent years including Pinhead from Hellraiser, Ghostface from Scream, Jigsaw from Saw etc but the one that caught our imagination was the 2006 Hatchet which introduced us to the killer in the swamp that was Victory Crowley, which had the bold tagline its not a remake, not a sequel and not based on a Japanese one.
With a cast that includes Joel David Moore from Dodgeball, Mercedes McNab from TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and horror movie icons, Robert Englund (Elm Street’s Freddy) Tony Todd, best known as the Candyman and Kane Hodder (who was Jason in four Friday the 13th films) as the films movie monster Victor Crowley.
The story is simple enough, a group of tourists head to New Orleans having heard the stories of the legendary killer Victor Crowley and only when they are stranded in the swamp they realise there is truth to the story and are now all potential victims for him.
Great production values and original and extremely gory deaths at the hands of Victor with the odd moment of comedy too
It’s well worth giving a chance if you like a movie monster! Due to the fans of the film know as the #HatchetArmy, two sequels followed with deaths even more unique and original and as gory. One sad note though is how these films have been treated in the UK, all 3 films have been released by different companies so only the sequel was released on BluRay. My collection is odd through this as I luckily won the sequel in a competition.
The films director, Adam Green would also show he is a great talent, with his cable car thriller Frozen released in 2010. He has gone on to have a hit TV series Holliston and most recently had a hit with Digging up the Marrow, as well as oversee the final Crowley instalment Hatchet 3 having written the script.
Who is your favourite movie monster? Are you a fan of the Hatchet films, we’d love to hear from you here at Barking Mad About Films
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