Hatchetman (2003) (USA)

aka Body Hunter

⭐️1/2

Have you ever seen a low-budget slasher flick? Congratulations. You’ve seen Hatchetman. It’s like all of those lazy-ass slasher/serial-killer thrillers just sadder. The girls at a strip club dance like they have chronic back pain to something that sounds close to but somehow worse than Red Hot Chili Peppers. One of these ladies heads out to go meet up with her special guy but a masked man with a hatchet makes short work of her, severing and collecting her hands. Another stripper gets her cop boyfriend a tie for their one-year anniversary. She looks like someone drew Sherilyn Fenn from memory so I guess she’s the hero. She’s a college gal, stripping to make it through her university days and studying hard to get into law school. There’s a wiener with frosted tips hanging around and he seems pretty pissed at the female gender, constantly referring to them as “fucking bitches.” Red herring or actual killer? The good thing about lazy horror films is that you can never be sure. The strip club owner is a cranky scumbag (I’m just as shocked as you) who looks like the offspring of a drunken coupling between Tony Curtis and Cameron Mitchell and every other male is either a pervert, prick or pud (one guy steals, sniffs and wears the ladies underwear when he’s not working on cars and resembles Max Greenfield but with some kind of Thyroid disorder) and sometimes they’re all three. The women aren’t much better but they do get naked and look uncomfortable, so I have a bit more sympathy for the poor gals. Officer Sonny wants to marry fake Sherilyn Fenn but their relationship is a little rocky thanks to all those handless corpses of his girlfriend’s friends that keep popping up. Everyone pretty much assumes frosted tips is the killer (now I’m sure he’s not) because he dated one of the victims and swore revenge on all the girls (conveniently all living in the same apartment complex) once he got out of prison. He’s out… obviously. The most entertaining aspect of the flick is how a lot of people look like depressing versions of somebody with a bit more star power. It’s lame and horny but never arousing or all that exciting. I’ll give it some points for being charming but it’s only charming because it fails so miserably and my taste in film is pretty stupid. Also, I don’t think that dink’s tips are frosted at all.