★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
So, you wanna see a bloody and stupid fun movie? Victor Crowley is back with his hatchet and stinky overalls!
In this age of serious fare indie horror, you just want to relax to a poorly acted, but funny movie featuring an overgrown mutant reanimated cajun swamp rat with an axe, take out a bunch of tabloid journalists. For that, I give you Victor Crowley! AKA Hatchet IV, the latest in a beloved, but under-seen slasher series. Kane Hodder, once again, switches his Jason mask for the Victor Crowly overalls and looks like he’s still been eating his Wheaties. The Crowley mask, though, is still hilariously oversized… so that’s a good sign. Sadly, we won’t have scream queen and last girl survivor Danielle Harris to reprise her role as Marybeth this time around. I suppose it’s just time to give her a break. Parry Shen is back, though, whom I must assume is a good friend with the director Adam Green, since he has been in all three previous films and died twice! His character from Hatchet III, Andrew, survived, and the story centers around his return to the swamp, lured back by shock-documentarians who want to track the legend of Victor Crowley, and use Andrew to help find him. The film crew’s jet engine cuts out over the swamp, in one of the least convincing jet crash ever staged, but I give the team credit for trying on their micro-budget. Then the surviving crew hops out, and the blood gets shed. Not that it would be a spoiler, but most everyone dies. Badly.
This is a film series that knows what it is and revels in its cheesiness, and it remains a half-cut above the Sharknado level idiocy. It helps that it’s all practical effects. Nothing is quite as off-putting as bad acting AND bad computer graphics. This trailer’s humor hits, for the type of movie it is, and also a half-cut above the Zombeaver level. Sit back, turn off your brain and enjoy some information age grindhouse gore-fest! They really don’t make many movies like this anymore. However, this is NOT a gateway movie. The whole series is over-the-top nasty, bypassing the violence of the Friday the 13th movies, and there are plenty of disposable characters for Crowly to dispatch. Don’t expect any character arcs to develop here. A slow burn, this ain’t. This also isn’t technically a good movie. But it is a fun movie, and it gives you that visceral squirm when he gets somebody. It also is not a mean-spirited film like I spit on your grave, despite all the hyperviolence, it’s still on the cartoonish side.
Victor Crowly is Not Rated (It might have been an NC-17) It is available for rent now on Amazon and YouTube.