Amber BransonBlood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet
(This review contains spoilers.)
I love bad horror movies. But I do enjoy picking them apart.
I have an issue with this movie from the very beginning. The opening scene shows Mary murdering her parents... from start to finish. Then it shows her in the asylum as she's older, then most of her rampage there.
It doesn't leave any mystery, any suspense. At one point in the beginning of the slaughter, blood runs down to obscure the screen. Personally, I would have considered this the place to cut the film to the present-day, letting the viewer think that was the reason Mary Hatchet was a legend. Reveal the remainder bit by bit over the course of the movie.
And why would the cops open fire on a naked, unarmed woman? They had no way of knowing she had killed people in the asylum with her bare hands.
During the opening credits, the viewer is taken back through crime scene photos and news headlines of the history of what was just seen. The only additional information is that her rages are set off by her menstrual cycle. An observant viewer would have noticed the location of the blood on her white nightgown before she started killing her parents.
Then we are introduced to the "Blood Night" festivities: vandalism, masks of Mary marked with blood, legends that she haunts a certain road.
Finally, the main movie begins: Teenagers, preparing for Blood Night '08.
Nate Dushku is a rugged cutie, and is actually the older brother of Eliza Dushku. I'd never heard of him before. Pity.
The teens seem to at least have the sense they're in a cheesy horror movie, and don't take themselves too seriously as they set up a Ouija board on Mary Hatchet's grave.
Nothing happens while they touch the planchette, but when they all stand to investigate a noise behind them, it moves without them.
Enter: Gus (Bill Moseley!) who sits down with the kids to tell them a Mary Hatchet ghost story. At the end of the story we get another crime scene photo, but since everyone in the story is dead, how could he possibly know the details of what happened? The kids don't question him. It's Blood Night, after all. And Gus tells the tale with all seriousness, leaving no room for skepticism.
The teens gather after the graveyard for a party. There is alcohol, sex talk, underwear talk, and.. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. (Or not. The film in the tin for Attack of the Killer Tomatoes turns out to be a 70's porno.)
There are too many teens at the party. There's no way to care about all of them. And of course, when one girl says "I was born here, I will die here," the viewer knows she will not be surviving the movie.
When told to "Get a room," one couple actually goes upstairs to have sex. Their activities are inter cut with the showing of the "movie" and the subsequent striptease of the two main girls downstairs.
And of course, at the climactic moment, there is the first modern death in the movie. No one downstairs hears the screaming over the music and cheering.
The cast of too many teenagers is trimmed down, weird things happen, and panic sets in. Sent upstairs to look for the couple having sex, Dushku's character looks.. in the bathroom? And briefly into another room. It is not until a headless body is thrown through the window downstairs and people start to flee the house that he returns upstairs and finds the naked dead people.
In fact, he seems to discover a lot of the bodies. He is inside looking for his keys when a pair of vandals are discovered dead in the SUV. He's attacked by a bloody head and flees without the keys. Gus has perfect timing though, and pulls up in front of the house at just that moment in a truck with plenty of room for the surviving high schoolers.
He takes them up to the King's Park psychiatric facility, site of the original Blood Night massacre and also, says Gus, be the burial site of Mary's baby. He buried her himself.
A review I read before mentioned a twist that isn't much of a surprise. It's true.
What is a surprise, though, is that the psychiatric facility still has electrical power, 20 years after Mary's bloody rampage.
Five teens go into the hospital with Gus, two couples and a solo guy. Two remain outside, a boy and a girl.
At least these kids have the good sense to run when the blood is gushing.
I won't give away the end, but if you've been paying attention to the movie, it's not much of a surprise.
The missing pieces are filled in with flashbacks, and in hindsight there wasn't much room for discovery of Mary's crimes, though the bits and pieces in the opening credits could have been enough to cut out most of the opening 12 minutes.
The film has more plot than a standard slasher, but still follows most of the genre conventions. The visual framing is good, as are the transitions and inter-cutting. The visual effects are the standard B-movie cheesy fare, and I think the sound effect guys were practicing foley under the influence--some of the sound effects are ridiculous.
If you like movies like Halloween and Friday the 13th, you'll enjoy Blood Night.
The DVD includes a making-of documentary, where they discuss the urban legends that inspired the movie and some things that happened on set. There is a long section about the special effects. (Gallons of fake blood, then more liquid fake blood done in post!) Also in the features section: Outtakes, Teaser, and theatrical trailer.
/Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet. Unrated Director's Cut: Sex, violence, nudity, language. Starring Bill Moseley, Nate Dushku, and Danielle Harris./
I love bad horror movies. But I do enjoy picking them apart.
I have an issue with this movie from the very beginning. The opening scene shows Mary murdering her parents... from start to finish. Then it shows her in the asylum as she's older, then most of her rampage there.
It doesn't leave any mystery, any suspense. At one point in the beginning of the slaughter, blood runs down to obscure the screen. Personally, I would have considered this the place to cut the film to the present-day, letting the viewer think that was the reason Mary Hatchet was a legend. Reveal the remainder bit by bit over the course of the movie.
And why would the cops open fire on a naked, unarmed woman? They had no way of knowing she had killed people in the asylum with her bare hands.
During the opening credits, the viewer is taken back through crime scene photos and news headlines of the history of what was just seen. The only additional information is that her rages are set off by her menstrual cycle. An observant viewer would have noticed the location of the blood on her white nightgown before she started killing her parents.
Then we are introduced to the "Blood Night" festivities: vandalism, masks of Mary marked with blood, legends that she haunts a certain road.
Finally, the main movie begins: Teenagers, preparing for Blood Night '08.
Nate Dushku is a rugged cutie, and is actually the older brother of Eliza Dushku. I'd never heard of him before. Pity.
The teens seem to at least have the sense they're in a cheesy horror movie, and don't take themselves too seriously as they set up a Ouija board on Mary Hatchet's grave.
Nothing happens while they touch the planchette, but when they all stand to investigate a noise behind them, it moves without them.
Enter: Gus (Bill Moseley!) who sits down with the kids to tell them a Mary Hatchet ghost story. At the end of the story we get another crime scene photo, but since everyone in the story is dead, how could he possibly know the details of what happened? The kids don't question him. It's Blood Night, after all. And Gus tells the tale with all seriousness, leaving no room for skepticism.
The teens gather after the graveyard for a party. There is alcohol, sex talk, underwear talk, and.. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. (Or not. The film in the tin for Attack of the Killer Tomatoes turns out to be a 70's porno.)
There are too many teens at the party. There's no way to care about all of them. And of course, when one girl says "I was born here, I will die here," the viewer knows she will not be surviving the movie.
When told to "Get a room," one couple actually goes upstairs to have sex. Their activities are inter cut with the showing of the "movie" and the subsequent striptease of the two main girls downstairs.
And of course, at the climactic moment, there is the first modern death in the movie. No one downstairs hears the screaming over the music and cheering.
The cast of too many teenagers is trimmed down, weird things happen, and panic sets in. Sent upstairs to look for the couple having sex, Dushku's character looks.. in the bathroom? And briefly into another room. It is not until a headless body is thrown through the window downstairs and people start to flee the house that he returns upstairs and finds the naked dead people.
In fact, he seems to discover a lot of the bodies. He is inside looking for his keys when a pair of vandals are discovered dead in the SUV. He's attacked by a bloody head and flees without the keys. Gus has perfect timing though, and pulls up in front of the house at just that moment in a truck with plenty of room for the surviving high schoolers.
He takes them up to the King's Park psychiatric facility, site of the original Blood Night massacre and also, says Gus, be the burial site of Mary's baby. He buried her himself.
A review I read before mentioned a twist that isn't much of a surprise. It's true.
What is a surprise, though, is that the psychiatric facility still has electrical power, 20 years after Mary's bloody rampage.
Five teens go into the hospital with Gus, two couples and a solo guy. Two remain outside, a boy and a girl.
At least these kids have the good sense to run when the blood is gushing.
I won't give away the end, but if you've been paying attention to the movie, it's not much of a surprise.
The missing pieces are filled in with flashbacks, and in hindsight there wasn't much room for discovery of Mary's crimes, though the bits and pieces in the opening credits could have been enough to cut out most of the opening 12 minutes.
The film has more plot than a standard slasher, but still follows most of the genre conventions. The visual framing is good, as are the transitions and inter-cutting. The visual effects are the standard B-movie cheesy fare, and I think the sound effect guys were practicing foley under the influence--some of the sound effects are ridiculous.
If you like movies like Halloween and Friday the 13th, you'll enjoy Blood Night.
The DVD includes a making-of documentary, where they discuss the urban legends that inspired the movie and some things that happened on set. There is a long section about the special effects. (Gallons of fake blood, then more liquid fake blood done in post!) Also in the features section: Outtakes, Teaser, and theatrical trailer.
/Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet. Unrated Director's Cut: Sex, violence, nudity, language. Starring Bill Moseley, Nate Dushku, and Danielle Harris./
