It’s good to see Kane Hodder working again.

Halloween is almost upon us, and, as is the norm with my favorite month of the year, sketchy movies are rampantly abundant wherever one turns for cinematic entertainment.  So just how does one select a candidate for SMSC when there are so many goodies to choose from?

One simply looks for clues, such as sketchy Louisiana swamplands, Patrika Darbo, Patrika Darbo having her head squeezed until it bursts, the sleazy dude from One Crazy Summer, and a Robert Englund cameo.

This week’s pre-Halloween voyage into all things cinematically sketchy takes us into the haunted swamplands of pre-Katrina New Orleans during Mardi Gras, for Adam Green’s 2006 horror-comedy Hatchet.

College student Ben is having a rough time.  His girlfriend of eight years has just dumped him, and he’s stuck roaming the drunken, wild streets of the French Quarter with his breast-obsessed buddies, which is, for some reason, the last place he wishes to be.  What shall bring Ben (and his Newbury Comics tee-shirt) some welcome distraction and entertainment?

How about a nice, cheesy tour through the haunted swamps of Louisiana?

Dragging his hormonally-driven friend Marcus along (quite reluctantly), Ben finally finds a local shop owner who is still willing to take tourists into the swamp, conveniently ignoring the warnings of others who insist that the swamp has been closed for years.   Joining the boys on their escapade are tourists Mr. & Mrs. Permatteo (the lovely Ms. Darbo and hubby), Shapiro (the wanna-be porn director), Misty and Jenna (the unsuspecting ‘actresses’), and Marybeth, a local gal whose secretive demeanor tends to add an air of mystery to her.

As we’re taken through the hilariously corny swamp tour, it soon becomes clear that tour guide Shawn is not the expert he seems to be, as he fumbles through the fabled stories of the swamps with his fake bayou accent (we soon find out that Shawn is an Asian immigrant from Detroit) and shares with his passengers thetale of Victor Crowley.  Crowley lived with his father in a secluded house in the swamp, where they lived in solitude, away from the cruel torments of local children.  You see, poor Victor Crowley was born deformed, and his father kept him hidden away in order to protect him, until one night when a group of local teenagers attempted to smoke Victor out of his house by throwing fire crackers at the wooden structure.

As Crowley, Sr. returns to find his boy screaming and desperately trying to flee the building, he grabs an ax to try to break down the front door.  Unbeknownst to daddio, little Victor’s head was up against the door, and daddy dearest ended up slashing his face with the ax accidentally.

Legend has it that Crowley’s ghost haunts the swamplands, crying out for his father in the night.  As Shawn’s rickety tour boat runs aground, the group soon suspects that the legend just might be true.

Crowley, portrayed by Kane Hodder, is a hilarious incarnation of a horror-film bad guy.  While the film makes several attempts to get the viewer to pity our villain, Crowley’s exaggerated features and decrepit makeup provides nothing more than comic relief.  Though the film’s name would imply our bad guy’s weapon of choice, I’m fairly certain I saw no hatchet during this film.  I saw shovels, tire irons, and bare-handed mutilation, mind you, but no hatchets.  Disappointing.

Relieved to find that Hatchet was labeled a horror-comedy, I didn’t feel so bad for routinely laughing my ass off during this showing of sketch.  Marcus, our hero’s buddy, provides ample laughs throughout the film, even down to his final few minutes on screen.  Crap, did I just ruin it for you? Yeah, Marcus gets off’ed.  But what shall become of our heroes, Ben and Marybeth? Will Marybeth find her missing brother and father? Will Ben shut the hell up about his ex-girlfriend? Will the porn stars find out that Shaprio is a fake?

And now, my sketchy little friends, I leave you with this week’s Sunday Morning Sketch Cinema quote of the week:

Jenna: [sarcastically, to Misty] What a genius! You do know the vibrator goes in your cooch and not your ear, right?

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