Victor Crowley (2017)


I had heard about Hatchet being a throwback to the slashers of old.  When I saw it in the last year, though, I found that other than some good makeup on Kane Hodder as Victor Crowley and a few bloody and inventive kills that I just didn't get it.  It was made in 2006 and had so much of what I hated about horror in the 2000s, right down to characters that were awful and did little more than annoy.  From what I understand the meat of the series are the second and third entries, which I will get to.  However, for reasons of watching certain releases, at this point I ended up skipping to the fourth movie, Victor Crowley.

10 years after the events of the first three films Andrew Yong (Parry Shen), the lone known survivor of a massacre in Honey Island Swamp, is on a book tour.  No one really believes that he and the others were attacked by a resurrected Victor Crowley, a deformed boy turned vengeful spirit who was killed in his house in the swamp in the 1950s, was responsible.  Instead, they think that Andrew managed to get away with murder, and that includes his ex-wife Sabrina (Krystal Joy Brown), a popular tabloid talk show host.  However, he can't resist going back to the location of the massacre when his publicist Kathleen (Felissa Rose) informs him that he's been offered a million dollars to do a documentary. 

Hopping on a plane and flying the 33 miles from New Orleans to Slidell, from which they intend to take a boat to the swamp, ends in disaster when engine trouble results in a forced landing near Crowley's home.  It's now a tourist spot, but it is a location that amateur director Chloe (Katie Booth) and her friends Rose (Laura Ortiz) and Alex (Chase Williamson) intend to use for a promotional trailer for their film.  In an effort to get the voodoo spell that resurrects Crowley correct, Rose calls up a bunch of YouTube videos of people saying it and, since one presenter (Tony Todd) gets it right, Crowley shows up and starts murdering everyone once again.  

I understand what Adam Green is trying to do with these movies.  He's trying to cast many of his heroes, including current b-movie actors, in his films so they can all get together and have fun.  He wants his characters to be amusing and make the audience chuckle, while he wants Crowley to scare everyone and he wants the kills to be as inventive and over-the-top as possible.  On the latter he doesn't do too bad of a job - Felissa Rose's death scene is almost as memorable as a certain one involving a curling iron from Sleepaway Camp - and Kane Hodder is having a whale of a time playing Crowley.  The makeup is good on him as well.  Too bad some of the scenes, like the opening one, looks like Victor is slicing up mannequins. 

This still had many of the same problems as the first Hatchet.  Parry Shen played a shady tourist boat operator in that one, and Andrew Yong is nowhere near as annoying, but many of the other characters are.  Even Andrew is so wrapped up in his own little world that none of them can get together to do a the job of lifting some chairs off of one of Sabrina's crew, Casey (Tiffany Shepis).  The only two that give it even a little try are her boyfriend Austin (Brian Quinn) and dimwitted park ranger and wannabe actor Dillon (Dave Sheridan).  

Therefore, once again, it's waiting for people to die so they shut up.  Perhaps that's Crowley's real motivation: lure the most annoying people to his swamp and cut them to pieces.  In that case he may be the real hero of the series.  

Victor Crowley (2017)
Time: 83 minutes
Starring: Parry Shen, Laura Ortiz, Kane Hodder, Felissa Rose, Dave Sheridan 
Director: Adam Green

 

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