HALLOWEEN HORROR: Hatchet (2007)

Before he made Sexy Nightmare Slayers, Adam Green first became a big name in geeky households through his wonderfully OTT homage to old school slasher horror, Hatchet.

A simple set-up sees a gaggle of potential victims stranded at night in the Louisiana swamps when their "ghost tour" boat runs aground.

Lost, cold and wet they soon discover they are not alone and that the area's mythical bogeyman, Victor Crowley (Kane 'Jason Voorhees' Hodder), is after their blood.

Taking the best of the supernatural slasher genre and blending in some almost Scooby Doo-like humour - along with the requisite quotient of boobs and blood - Green drowns his audience in Grand Guignol levels of gore and mutilation that are so far fetched as to be shockingly humorous.

As much a comedy as a horror film, Hatchet is pure entertainment for horror groupies. It has no deep message or hidden subtext; it just aims to shock and amuse in equal measure by balancing each moment of graphic violence with a cheesy joke, witty one-liner or amusing pratfall.

Emphasising the movie's role as a loving, but light-hearted, homage to movies like Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday The 13th, Halloween, Candyman etc we are teased with all too brief cameos by the iconic Tony Todd and Robert Englund.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer fans (well, the males anyway) will also be delighted to know that Mercedes McNab (aka Harmony Kendall) not only has a large role in this as aspiring softcore porn actress Misty, but also spends at least a third of her time on camera topless.

Yes, it's that sort of film!

There's not enough originality in the personality of Victor Crowley - a Jason Voorhees-like mutant child bullied by his peers then accidentally set alight during a Halloween prank (viz. The Burning), who comes back "from the dead" (Freddy et al) with the powers of superhuman strength and indestructibility (Jason again) and a desire for revenge against mankind - but I don't think that's the point.

For me Green is simply trying to reclaim the genre, take it back to a halcyon age - but with a 21st Century budget and effects - to prevent its continued Twilightification. He's making "horror" truly "horrible" again, reclaiming the genre prerogative of  making the antagonist the audience draw, but without sinking to the sickening depths of the torture porn sub-genre.

Even the ending, while by no means original, is still perfectly in-keeping with the old school vibe of the piece... and obviously left the barn door open for Hatchet 2!

Game For A Laugh

Looney Tunes Monopoly, which we played earlier this month, was one of the best

What some of you may not realise about me is that my gaming interests aren't limited to just roleplaying games and skirmish wargames. Rachel and I also host an (almost) monthly Monopoly Club.

Joining us at the table are Clare and Pete, making this a kind of spin-off from the Tuesday Knights (our roleplaying group).

Pete is a collector of the many, many themed-Monopoly sets and so every time we get together we play a different iteration of Monopoly.

In the two-and-a-half years we've been going, we've traded property and bankrupted each other in the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons to Harry Potter, James Bond to The Simpsons, and Indiana Jones to Scooby-Doo.

Our little group not only keeps a running league table of our various victories but also a table of our gradings of how well produced and how innovative these reskins of the classic game are. 

If you want to learn more about our adventures in board gaming (or just check out some of the eccentric hacks of the classic original board game), then please visit Don't Talk About Monopoly Club (it's the first rule of Monopoly Club).

All this talk of board gaming, reminds me of the recently announced documentary: The Hobby - Tales From The Tabletop.

This fascinating dive into the culture of board gamers "explores the passionate world of modern board gaming, following enthusiasts who find community and meaning through games".

Scream (2022)

Kicking off with an inventive reworking of the classic Scream opening (girl home alone, answers phone, ends up talking to stranger etc). the fifth entry in the franchise proclaims its creativity loudly but not smugly.

Full of meta-commentary on the nature of "requels" (films that aren't straight-forward sequels, but aren't complete reboots either, mixing in legacy characters with a crop of core characters), the self-awareness of the Scream franchise, and toxic fandom, 2022's Scream is a knowing thrill ride from start to finish (even its bland name gets a ribbing).

After Tara Carpenter (Jenna 'Wednesday' Ortega) is attacked by a new Ghostface, her estranged sister, Sam (Melissa Barrera) races back to Woodsboro with boyfriend Richie (The Boys' Jack Quaid).

It turns out most of Tara's friends have some kind of connection to the original attacks - as orchestrated by Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) - making them all potential suspects and potential victims.

As bodies start to mount up in a new wave of ultraviolence, Sam and Richie turn to retired deputy Dewey Riley (David Arquette) for assistance.

Initially reluctant, it ultimately doesn't take much to persuade Dewey that his job is to protect the imperilled next generation of Woodsboro.

The murders continue, attracting the attention of Dewey's ex-lover news reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and eventually even drawing professional 'final girl' Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) back home, reuniting the original surviving protagonists of the franchise.

Taking place 25 years after the original murders, it's not just technology that's moved on (and this certainly plays a role in the story) but so have special effects: several of the attacks are far more graphic and squirm-inducing than anything we've witnessed before in these films.

Scream is not a film for the squeamish or hemophobics.

Usually, I like a monster in my horror flicks, or some kind of supernatural aspect, but quality human antagonists - such as the ever-changing Ghostface - are able to pique my interest thanks to the elegance of James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick's screenplay, blending Scooby-Doo mystery with adrenaline-hyped action.

I thought I'd sussed out who the killer was early on, but the smart script continually wrong-footed me, proving my guess totally wrong as the film entered its blood-soaked final act, and making the eventual revelation of Ghostface's identity - and motivations - all the more satisfying.

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who gave us the wonderful Ready or Not, Scream is laden with Easter Eggs - including tributes to the late Wes Craven - and references to other horror movies and franchises, smartly woven into the metatextual observations about these films and the people who watch them, while still being a full-on shocking slasher picture.

I was slightly underwhelmed by 2011's Scream 4, but I still can't believe it took me so long to get round to watching this 'new' offering... because it turns out that it's probably my favourite entry in the franchise since Wes Craven's peerless original.

Scream - aka Scream 5 - is the perfect wrap-up for the franchise, which makes Scream 6's impending arrival on home video in the UK all the more intriguing, especially with its non-Woodsboro setting.