Simply put, Hatchet is an awful lot of fun. Rarely does any movie, yet alone a horror movie, have me grinning from ear to ear from start to finish, only to be interrupted with occasional bouts of uproarious laughter. To love Hatchet is not to praise it as a highbrow, post-modern piece of art, but (as the publicity so rightly states) to support a return to old school values in slasher movies. So you may ask ‘why so enjoyable?’ I am known for being overtly loud during gory, over the top deaths in horror movies. I have enjoyed watching them for years and I just can’t control my laughter and reaction to those scenes in horror movies, like a kid who’s had too much jelly and ice cream, and Hatchet had me virtually bouncing up and down at times in my seat, each and every glorious death was a joy. A common mistake with horror movies over the last decade or so, is one simple problem – not enough victims. When paying to see a slasher movie, I don’t want an engaging storyline or wasted minutes on pointless character development, I want a body count and I want to see every minute of every death, the gorier the better (I am normal, it’s the principle, you understand?). Adam Green’s master stroke is that he does exactly what he set out to do and doesn’t waste a single drop of blood. I would actively encourage people to go and see Hatchet at the cinema, not just for the added cinematic effect of having loud sound and music cues, that made me jump more than a few times, but also because it has just occurred to me that although most of us grew up with slashers, we only ever really got to see them on video. For me it was an age restriction issue (although I did manage to make Freddy’s Dead in err… 3D – still got the glasses too), but also because they were mostly straight to video and mostly still are. So go and join the Hatchet Army and fight for it to be shown at your local cinema, because it’s not just Hatchet counting on your support, but the future of slasher movies and a return to the big screen of a tradition that, like Victor Crowley, should never die. Duncan Bowles is a filmmaker and ‘director monkey’ with Too Many Monkeys.