Hatchet

Taking horror back to the old school for a lesson in how to maximise blood loss and minimise survivors, Adam Green’s Hatchet eschews everything studios look for in the genre, which in turn is everything horror fans are in search of — go figure. Creating the character of Victor Crowley at the young age of eight (he wrote the story at camp, which got him ejected for scaring all of his fellow campers), Green’s commitment to horror has resulted in a throwback feast of constant one-liners and some of the most imaginative kills of the last decade: the "pop-top,” "head twist,” "shoulder hack” and the pièce de résistance, the "gas powered belt-sander facial.” The plot is simple: a group of tourists visit a New Orleans swamp and end up on the front step of legendary deformed killer Victor Crowley’s rickety house. One by one they’re knocked off in brilliantly planned and executed kills, leaving nothing more than an excessive body count that ticks all the boxes of what a slasher film should be. Green packs the DVD with ample extras that leave no stone uncovered. "Guts & Gore” reveals every cast and crew member’s kill, focusing on deaths no one’s seen before that could be done on set with just rubber and latex. "Anatomy of a Kill” explores the physics of the "pop-top,” in which a woman’s head is torn in two by the brutal separation of her jaws. But best of all, is the commentary, which features Green and producer Will Barrett "MacGuyvering” a Honda car battery with some extension cords to pull off when an explosion on the lot knocks out the power. The cast joins in later to reveal "ghetto” secrets, which include how there was a porno called Powertool Massacre shot on the same set at the same time and talk of a Hatchet sequel.