Joel Moore, Tamara Feldman interviewed
Legends are hard to come by in movies; but it looks like the warped mind of Adam Green has possibly come up with a new one. His name – Victor Crowley, in the flick Hatchet.
A group of kids decide to extend their Mardi Gras plans for a trip to the local New Orleans bayou. Unfortunately for them, thatâs where Victor has been living since he was a child â and killing everyone and anything that comes near.
Born severely disfigured, Crowley grew up to the torments of the children in the area; one Halloween, the local kids decided to pull a prank on the Crowleys by scaring Victor out of the seclusion of his cabin â a trick that ended in tragedy. Since that day, Victor Crowley was rumored to haunt the swamp, calling out in desperate pain for the aid of his father and seeking revenge on those who plagued him.
Hatchet stars Joel Moore, Tamara Feldman, Deon Richmond, Mercedes McNab, Joleigh Fioreavanti, Parry Shen, Joel Murray, Richard Riehle and Patrika Darbo, as the hapless bayou travelers, and legends in their own right â Robert Englund, Tony Todd, and Kane Hodder as Victor Crowley.
For both Joel and Tamara, being on set with that ‘trifecta of horror’ was terrifying. “Kane was able to create this new monster, and he is one scary cat,” says Joel. “I’m 6’2″ and I can hold my own, but this guy is 6’5″, 200 some odd pounds of pure scary. But it was really cool; they’re all such great guys and have found their place in history with these roles. But he kept his distance from the other cast because he wanted it to be a separation from when he got into his Victor Crowley mode, so we would have a genuine fear attached to it. So the girls never met him, and it’s funny ’cause he was the stunt coordinator as well. He’d hide himself in a big hoodie, and then hide behind a tree to get into character â and literally the girls would cry.”
And cry they did, Tamara admits. “[Kane] wouldn’t break character and he wouldn’t let us see him, he wouldn’t talk to us, he wouldn’t do anything out of character. And so when he was around, he was scaring the shit out of you. And we didn’t get to see him before the first time we see him on screen. And he was wearing this huge coat and mask, so you couldn’t see anything except his eyes. He would just stand there and motion with his hands and not say anything. He went and hid behind the tree, Adam yelled ‘action’ and we’re supposed to run up there; he jumps out and throws the hatchet at us â and that’s the first time we ever see him. It was so scary.”
The chance that Victor could be the next Jason or Freddy was definitely intriguing to the cast. Joel notes, “This isn’t a guy who just creeps and stalks his victims, he’s randomly showing up in front of them after being a few steps behind him. This is true to life; the first time you see Victor, he comes running and yelling out and chases some people down. It’s no stalking with the hatchet, really creepy, it’s scary â there’s no f**kin’ around. It provides a true throwback to the ’80s horror and slasher films; there’s no CGI, it’s all prosthetics. They made it work the way it should be, and Adam went out of his way to make it that way. This is a mark in horror.”
Hatchet mixes horror and comedy â in a way, the first part of the movie is pretty much a comedy, and the second half is pure fear. “It just brings you in, and you forget you’re going to get scared,” says Tamara. “It’s ok to laugh, and then it’s ok to scream right after.”
Adam came up with the story for Hatchet when he was about 8 years old; 20 years later, he was able to see it come alive. “I think he has a very active imagination; I think what he’s attracted to is warped, but I don’t think the man himself is warped. He’s entertained by blood and gore, and I can’t blame him,” Tamara adds.
Joel realized very quickly how passionate Adam was for this story and script. “The ideas he made up in camp 20 years ago, when we were all kids… He wrote a great script. And the fact that Adam was able to bring Kane on board was pretty cool. It’s a piece of art in a way, and it’s paying homage to that genre.”
Hatchet frights up theaters September 7th; it’s rated R.
Source: Steven Chupnick
