We’ve made it to the final installment – for now – of the Hatchet series, aptly titled Victor Crowley. Director Adam Green is back and everything to this point is still canon. That said, Victor Crowley is an entertaining movie that’s tonally at odds with itself.

Andrew (played by Parry Shen) has written a tell-all book about his encounter with Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder) and being the lone survivor of the third movie. Many people refuse to believe Andrew’s story, despite being exonerated of the murders. On the 10th anniversary of the Honey Island Swamp Massacre, Andrew has begrudgingly agreed to do an interview at the scene of the crime pitting him against an old foe.

From the moment this movie started, I knew this would either be one franchise’s best installments or the worst since the first Hatchet. For Example, the opening scene is set in 1964. A couple enjoys a moonlit boat ride. The guy proposes to his girlfriend, and the scene quickly devolves into juvenile, physical humor. She sobs, smears her makeup into a joker-like fashion, and produces snot-like slime at an alarming rate. I kept waiting for the scene to come back around, much like Robert England’s cameo in the original Hatchet as the reason for Marybeth’s inclusion in that story. This film features three film school students trying to film a trailer for their Victor Crowley movie pitch, which inadvertently brings Victor back from the dead. I thought to myself the opening scene was their finished pitch trailer sadly that is not the case. This situation happens repeatedly in this movie. Great scenes get undercut by obnoxious humor. Sometimes it really worked, other times it was just tone deaf and uneven.

Another aspect I have a love/hate relationship with is its setting. The plane works for most of the movie, but there were moments where it got stale. And the tension in the scene went from claustrophobic to feeling like a budgetary constraint especially when compared to the boat in Hatchet III. You have to wonder what’s Victor doing? We know he could tear through the plane yet he chooses not to. But again, the set piece becomes the site of one of the most heart wrenching deaths in the entire franchise. I won’t spoil it here, but a character dies indirectly after Crowley attacks the fuselage.

One thing Green understands astoundingly well is character. He will hide the final girl in plain sight such is the case with Marybeth in the original Hatchet. In Victor Crowley, it is Rose played by Laura Ortiz. At first, she’s annoying, but she becomes the heart of the movie. Whether it’s dropping truth bombs on talk show host Sabrina (Krystal Joy Brown), explaining a dick-joke call back without much context, or her one liner when facing off with Victor himself. Her delivery is funny and adorable. Yet Victor is out of character in this final confrontation . In any of the other movie, he would have torn her to pieces before she could finish her remark.

Overall, there was more to like than dislike. Green does an amazing job staying true to the franchise’s chaotic energy. He makes perfectly makes imperfect Hatchet. I would recommend sitting through the credits. There is a post credit scene that has me psyched for the potential Hatchet V.

Rating: 3.5/5.

The Hatchet Complete Collection Limited Edition Steelbook is available now from Dark Sky Selects.

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The writer of this piece is: Laurence Almalvez
Laurence tweets from @IL1511

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