The Friday the 13th Series

Yesterday was Friday the 13th, and I took the opportunity to maximise my school holidays by sitting down with a few beers to watch the entirety of the Friday the 13th slasher series. Well, the first eight films at least: I left out Jason Goes to Hell, Jason X, Freddy vs Jason and the execrable…

Hatchet III (2013)

Hatchet III continues the escalation that Hatchet II began: where the first sequel replaced unarmed tourists with armed hillbillies, the second sequel upgrades to an entire SWAT platoon (and consequently, even fewer female characters). The same intensification is evident in the gore, which is more excessive but less imaginative than the earlier films. Where Hatchet…

Hatchet II (2011)

Story: Hatchet II retells and reconfigures Victor Crowley’s origin story, which seems fitting given the recasting of MaryBeth (the first film’s Final Girl) and the way its chief inspiration, the Friday the 13th series, would reinvent Jason Voorhees with each sequel. The main plotline is a double-edged revenge story (for MaryBeth and Victor) which is…

Hatchet (2006)

Hatchet is generally described as a horror-comedy, but the qualifier doesn’t quite fit. It’s not exactly horror – Hatchet is hardly trying to scare its audience – but its jokes are mostly in-jokes, references or cameos that will put a grin on horror fans’ faces without really being funny. This is a horror film made…