The fourth installment in writer/director Adam Green's Hatchet series is 2017's Victor Crowley. The film begins with a prologue in which a man and his girlfriend are in the swampy woods of Louisiana, clearly in love. He proposes to her just as the film's titular villain (once again played by Kane Hodder under a lot of prosthetics and makeup) shows up only to slaughter them both after she says yes. It's an amusing and remarkably gory way to start the film. Cue the opening credits and we're off.

Unfortunately from there, the movie slows down immediately. From here we catch up with Andrew Yong (Parry Shen reprising his role from the last film in the series). He's the only man to have met Victor Crowley and lived and while there are those who believe he killed his friends and not Crowley, he's never the less written a bestselling book about his experiences. In fact, he's popular enough that a female fan asks him to sign her breasts (which he does), and a male fan asks him to sign his dick (which he does not). At any rate, his agent, Kathlenn (Felissa Rose), manages to snag a pretty lucrative deal for him: if he agrees to fly back to the swamp where it all happened last time around and agree to an interview, he'll be paid a million dollars. He's not really comfortable with the idea, but he agrees because, well, that's a lot of money.

Meanwhile, a few filmmakers like Rose (Laura Ortiz), Chloe (Katie Booth), and Alex (Chase Williamson) are trying to make a movie about Crowley. By random chance, one plane crash later and Andrew's crew, the movie crew and a few others (including a pregnant woman played by Tiffany Shepis and a TV talk show host played by Krystal Joy Brown) are all stuck in the swamp. Crowley's family home has been turned into some sort of tourist attraction and Victor? Well, he's very much alive and still just as hungry for carnage as he ever was.

Where the previous Hatchet movies may not have been particularly deep, they did at least tie together and build a bit of a mythology for the Victor Crowley character. Not so with this fourth film. Yeah, it ties into Andrew Yong's past a little bit but otherwise, Crowley is just back, people are stuck I the swamp and most of those people are going to die. That's more or less it. If the stories were thin in the earlier entries, here the story is almost non-existent. There's very little character development and very little plot development, and that makes it hard to get too invested in the film. If the humorous side of the picture pulled its own weight then maybe this would be more forgivable but the fact of the matter is that most of the jokes in the film just aren't that funny.

To be fair, the film has some redeeming qualities to it, however fleeting they may be. When we finally do get back to the swamp and Crowley starts his latest killing spree the gore effects are really well done. There doesn't appear to have been any CGI used so they have that great sort of practical effects look to them that horror fans love. There are also a few moments where the film makes good use of some inspired camera and lighting setups to build a bit of tension. Is this enough to save it? Maybe if you're a diehard fan of the Hatchet series, but otherwise, it's too little too late.

Oh, and if you really think Crowley is down for the count for good? Be sure to watch the movie all the way through the end credits.

Video:

Victor Crowley arrives on Blu-ray in a 2.35.1 widescreen presentation with AVC encoding in 1080p high definition. Shot on digital video cameras, there are obviously no problems with print damage to note while detail is generally very strong throughout playback. Black levels are strong and thankfully shadow detail is too, so while much of this movie takes place outdoors at night or inside a plane doused in red light, you'll still have no problem taking in all the nitty gritty. Colors look great, greens in particular and reds as well (lots of bloodshed in a swamp means that these are the dominating hues), really pop here. Texture is fine, contrast too. All in all, the movie translates very well to Blu-ray.