For the fourth installment of his Hatchet franchise, writer-director Adam Green took an old-school approach. Not only did he make the film in virtual secrecy, he time-traveled back more than 10 years to recapture the magic that made his debut feature so memorable.
Victor Crowley works as both a solid return to form and as a subversive thumb in the eye to the issues that historically plague film properties once they move beyond the second or third sequel.
But, boy, oh boy, the gore.
Victor Crowley is delightfully, gleefully gory. If you listen closely, I’m pretty sure you can hear Green giggling behind the camera with each spectacularly bloody kill.
There’s a moment in the original Hatchet that has stuck with me all these years. It’s a genius sequence devised by Green when Crowley (Kane Hodder) first appears, looming over an unsuspecting victim, before lifting him up and literally tearing him in half.
Whereas the two direct sequels had their fair share of gross-out moments, Crowley’s impact felt diminished, or even taken for granted. Victor Crowley is a great character, one of the best movie maniacs to be imagined since the heyday of Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger and Leatherface. But with each successive film, viewers knew what to expect.
Victor Crowley removes that familiarity. We’re back to uncharted territory here, which means the long slate of victims in this fourth film represents a buffet line of brutal possibilities as to how they will meet their gruesome demise. To his credit, Green doesn't disappoint. If anything, Crowley's kills in Victor Crowley are more over-the-top, more insane and more inventive.
The basic gist of the story is that years after the original swamp tour massacre, the lone survivor, Andrew (Parry Shen), reluctantly accepts a lucrative offer to go back to the swamp with a film crew to provide commentary on how he feels seeing the locale again. His ex-wife Sabrina (Krystal Joy Brown), a popular talk show host, is on the trip to lend her star power to attract ratings. At the same time, unbeknownst to Andrew or Sabrina, a college-aged filmmaker and her two friends have ventured into the swamp to make a sizzle reel trailer for a low-budget horror movie based on the legend of Victor Crowley. A few moonlight incantations and a plane crash later, and the two disparate groups find themselves joining forces to try and get out of the swamp alive.
Green nicely succeeds in giving Crowley some genuine character development following his resurrection. There are several moments where Crowley reveals a personality, at times vulnerable and at times comical, that provides a deeper context for his pitch-black malice and undeterred path of devastation.
But one of the best things about Victor Crowley is Green’s acknowledgement of the pitfalls that bedevil most sequels, and his wink-wink embrace of the ridiculous circumstances that cause Crowley to be reborn. This is by far the funniest film yet in the series, and actor Shen is a welcome and familiar presence after having survived the first three films.
No spoilers, but be sure to keep watching once the credits roll. Green takes a cue from Marvel Studios by sneaking in a wonderful mid-credits sequence that will delight long-time fans, and hopefully means that Victor Crowley is not the last we’ve seen of Victor Crowley or the dreaded Louisiana swamp his evil spirit calls home.
Victor Crowley is now available through Dark Sky Films to purchase on Blu-Ray and DVD, or to rent or buy on most streaming Video-on-Demand platforms.
Victor Crowley
4 out of 5 stars.
Unrated. 93 minutes.
Directed by Adam Green.
Starring Kane Hodder, Parry Shen, Laura Ortiz, Dave Sheridan and Krystal Joy Brown.
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This article appears in Feb 8-15, 2018.