Hatchet III (2013)

"A search and recovery team heads into the haunted swamp to pick up the pieces and Marybeth learns the secret to ending the voodoo curse that has left Victor Crowley haunting and terrorizing Honey Island Swamp for decades."

Gore, gore, gore, gore, gore, and even more gore! Yes, "Hatchet III" delivers what everyone has been craving for a very long time!

Three years after the instantly forgettable "Hatchet II", where Adam Green failed, BJ McDonnell's debut as a director breathes new life into a series which most of us had written off. Having said that, this is still Adam Green's baby and, unfortunately, there are places where it shows.

The thing is, you shouldn't be able to go wrong with a slasher film anyway. All you need is a group of people and a monster with supernatural strength to hack them to pieces in the most painful-looking and bloodiest ways possible. Who cares if "Hatchet III" has a thin and formulaic plot? The practical effects are absolutely lush with brutal dismemberments and blood gushing everywhere.

Where the previous "Hatchet" movies went wrong is that they had too much humour and none of it was funny. "Hatchet III" isn't perfect either although the balance is much better this time. It's still meant to be a "fun movie" rather than something to be taken seriously, but at least it is actually fun rather than a chore to sit through.

This is not a SyFy channel movie!

Not to spoil the big surprises for you, but all the usual convention circuit suspects apart from Tony Todd appear again. As Victor Crowley, Kane Hodder proves that he can still do a lot more than sign his autograph, which is nice.

Zach Galligan makes a decent attempt at playing a sheriff, Parry Shen turns up as a paramedic primarily to deliver an anti-racism jibe, and Derek Mears adds the visual in-joke of two former Jasons fighting it out for anyone who cares about remakes. The confrontation between Hodder and Mears could also be taken as "Victor Crowley is better than the new Jason" which, in this case, he really is. In many ways, "Hatchet III" is what the "Friday the 13th" remake should have been.

Even the acting is better this time although I doubt that the target audience of teenagers and "Friday the 13th" nostalgists will notice or care about such subleties. I noticed, particularly in the case of Danielle Harris whose scenes would lag if she wasn't so good in them, and I'm grateful for it.

Now approaching middle-age, Danielle Harris looks really good in this movie too apart from showing her huge, disfiguring tattoos in a hosing-down/shower scene which would be moderately erotic otherwise. At first, I thought she had some terrible wound inflicted on her by Victor Crowley, but then I realised what she'd done and it threw me right out of lust with her. What a shame. I'm sure she'll recover though.

Probably best if you keep your tracksuit on in future, babe.

I'm not going to go into further detail because I know that you'll want to see "Hatchet III" for yourself. I highly recommend that you do so as soon as possible before the usual negativity hits whatever message boards and Facebook pages you're subscribed to. "Hatchet III" is easily this Summer's best horror movie no matter what the "negative Nancies" might have to say about it.

It's taken three attempts, but we finally have a "Hatchet" movie which lives up to the original's tagline of "Old School American Horror". The third time really is the charm.

Black Water (2007)

"A terrifying tale of survival in the mangrove swamps of Northern Australia."

This is just a quick one as there is only so much I can say about a crocodile menacing three Aussies stuck up a tree for 89 minutes.

With lots of suspense, only a few moments where things lag, and very few but effective appearances by the crocodile itself, "Black Water" is one of the best crocodile movies that I've seen for a long time (possibly ever). Based very loosely on "true events" but starring real crocodiles rather than some nasty CGI, this film was very highly recommended to me.

I didn't really like the characters all that much apart from Grace, played by Diana Glenn, and even she annoyed me a couple of times. The most irritating however was final girl Lee, who, interestingly, was played by the real-life girlfriend of Sam Worthington from the other slightly less entertaining Australian crocodile movie of 2007, "Rogue". Maeve Dermody may be nice to look at but her accent was so thick and guttural when she shouted that it was like having a large rake dragged down a chalkboard. Her character needed to be slapped on several occasions too but nobody did it which was frustrating.

Overall, I still enjoyed "Black Water" though it could have been a lot gorier to please my sicker tastes. I know there were some obvious budgetary constraints as this film appears to have been made with a $700,000 grant from the Australian Film Commission. I'm forced to just accept that what they did was adequate for most people but a lot more thrashing, churning, screaming and blood-spurting everywhere surely wouldn't have cost them any extra. At least it was still rated R for "terror/violence and language".

If you enjoy films such as "Open Water" and "Frozen" then you'll like this. The believability of the predicament and use of tension more than make up for the lack of physical action and it's a thoroughly engrossing story even though it isn't actually true. I have, however, rated it as "Just Average" not because of any objectively assessed technical deficiencies but due to my own purely subjective taste.