Saturday 24 March 2012

Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet

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Year:2009
Country of origin:USA
Director:Frank Sabatella
Genre:Modern slasher
Starring:Samantha Facchi, Danielle Harris, Nate Dushku
Rating:3/5
IMDB link:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1161404/
Tagline:Will you make it through the night?
Favourite line:"Hello, Mary."

Modern take on the classic slasher genre.

The plot:
Twenty years ago, a young girl called Mary, 12 years old, brutally slayed her own parents.
Locked away in a mental institution, she was raped by a guard and became heavy with child but, when the child was born, it was taken from her.
Bereft, she took her own life.
Now the present day, the town where Mary lived ‘celebrates’ her life on Blood night, an evening when the youths of the community get up to all manner of creepy mischief. Halloween come early.
Thing is, Mary may not be quite as dead as everyone believes and, as the yooofs start to die, a new chapter in Mary’s story is about to be written.

And a schizophrenic beast it is, too.
The first fifteen minutes or so, fleshing out Mary’s backstory, are about as good as any modern horror you are likely to see. Intense, claustrophobic, stylish, scary, it promises much.
Then everything changes.
Out with the class, in with the cliché, as we meet the young things ripe for slaughter, and a motley collection of fuck-ends they are, each more despicable than the last, mere meat for the cleaver.
But it is deliberate. That’s the thing that just about allows writer / producer / director / cleaner Frank Sabatella to get away with it. He clearly knows his horrific onions, and simply serves up what is expected for the genre.
Fair enough, I suppose.
So, generic slasher fare, then, but special mention must go to the gore which, though infrequent, is spectacular and damned imaginative.
Horror throwback that just about delivers.

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