Berserking it like Scream never happened, Adam Green’s salute to the slasher’s gory days is well-tutored in the old school, but in serious need of a lesson in suspense.
More scenario than plot, the movie sends two college kids (Joel Moore and Deon Richmond) plus assorted bimbo axe-fodder into the New Orleans swamps on a boat tour gone wrong, and dumps them on the doorstep of the local mutant hick.
The first act plays like a corny fratboy comedy; the rest a headless-chicken run-around as coherence gives way to lurid carnage. Green worked on an aborted Cabin Fever sequel, and for all its retro licks, that’s what Hatchet recalls most: an uneven comedy-horror homage that gets by on enthusiasm.
