Review: Victor Crowley
By William Pattison
For Horror Bob’s Blog
For my review this time I have the fourth film in the
Hatchet franchise, though this time director/writer Adam Green has simply
titled it Victor Crowley after the film’s supernatural slasher.
In this fourth edition of the franchise we are introduced to
Cloe (Katie Booth), her boyfriend Alex (Chase Williamson), and their friend
Rose. These three are trying to make a film on Victor Crowley and Cloe came up
with the idea to have Andrew Yong (played by Parry Shen), the survivor from the
last time Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder) massacred people in the film and the
trailer they are planning to shoot to entice investors. They try to meet and
talk to Andrew at a book signing for his book I Survived but his agent Kathleen
(Felissa Rose) pulls him away when she gets a call about a big interview at the
scene of the massacre. So Cloe and her friends head to the swamp and meet up
with Dillon (played by Dave Sheridan), a swamp tour guide with aspirations of
being an actor. Cloe has Rose recite the magic spell that rose Victor Crowley
from the grave but Rose can’t pronounce it right. Cloe uses Rose’s phone and programs
videos of various people saying the spell from Youtube. Suddenly they hear a
loud plane crash. It is the plane Andrew Yong was in to get to his interview.
It ended up crashing right near the ruins of Victor Crowley’s house.
Unfortunately in their rush to check out the crash Rose drops the phone which
is still playing the spell being said. The spell brings Victor Crowley back and
Cloe, her friends, and the survivors of the crash must now this undead terror….
First of all, I can’t say I’m a fan of the Hatchet franchise
or Adam Green’s writing. I’ve seen all of them and I have to say this is the
weakest installment to the franchise. The acting was way over the top which
really messed with any attempt at tension that Green tried to create. Honesty,
the only performances that I found even slightly tolerable were Parry Shen as
Andrew and Tiffany Shepis as the camera girl Casey, even though she spent most
of her performance trapped and unable to move under some metal pieces waiting
to drown. The humor in this film, yes this is supposed to be a horror comedy,
was really crude and didn’t impress me at all. Finally, due I suspect to lack
of budget the gore FX looked horrid, like they were done by amateurs. Shoot,
the fake head of the girl in the opening scene where she gets her limbs hacked
off and then her head did not even look like the actress at all. It looked like
the majority of the makeup budget went to the Victor Crowley character makeup.
So, I can honestly say that even if you are a fan of the
Hatchet franchise I doubt you’re going to really enjoy this outing but who
knows.
Keep on Creepin’, Horror Bob’s Blog
