Digging Up the Marrow (2014)

If you say "lower-budget passion project about monsters", I'm usually going to reply with "yes please". However, with Digging Up the Marrow, I'm having some slight viewer's remorse.

This "found footage" mockumentary is a strange mix of smug self-congratulation and geeky love letter from writer/director Adam Green. The creatures are drawn and designed by Alex Pardee and sculpted by Greg Aronowitz and they, along with the excellent Ray Wise, are the best thing about it.

We follow Green as he abandons writing duties for his then-popular (and real) TV show Holliston to go monster hunting with a man called William Dekker (Wise). Accompanying them is Green's real-life cinematographer and collaborator Will Barratt, who acts as camera man.

Wise was cast as an audience "signpost" of sorts so that they didn't get too convinced that this might be real and feel cheated at the first big reveal. While I get the logic of this, Wise's amazing, intense, wild-eyed self sits awkwardly next to literally everyone else onscreen. From Green's staff to cameos from other genre names, the acting in this is worse than daytime soaps. The dialogue, apparently scripted, does nothing to help matters as it's so uninteresting and long-winded that it comes across as bad improvisation.

This kind of criticism - and sadly, it's one I have with some regularity in this sub-section of horror - always makes me ponder the nature of "reality" a bit. Yes, the point of this is that it's meant to be amateur and real, so what's the problem? The problem is that to be enthralling and tense, this shit still needs a framework of considered, careful choices on which to drape its reality. As a filmmaker and horror obsessive himself, I would have assumed Green had better judgement than what is shown here.

And to get petty for a second, Green and his staff are almost exclusively shown wearing T-shirts advertising his own work... It's just a bit much? 

Is this a meta wink? Or does Digging Up the Marrow just have something in its eye?

And they all look brand new. I don't know why this irritated me so much.

This took five years to make, and I have to be brutal and ask, was it actually worth it? I see what he was trying to accomplish, but he just didn't get there soon enough or enough, enough, for my liking.

"Dig it up" on Shudder now. (...sorry).

Hatchet (2007)

This was swapped with Creepshow for tonight's viewing, as I thought it would make an interesting next day bedfellow to The Final Girls. 

Both are a more modern day homage to "old school American horror", but whereas last night's was heavy on the comedy and light on the gore... Hatchet is heavy on both. We see someone get disemboweled in the opening scene!

Well look who it is!

Even though it's a comedy, Hatchet is darker both literally and figuratively than The Final Girls. Taking place in a New Orleans swamp largely at night, it's nastier, dirtier, wetter and more gory. We get guts and tits within the first 5min.

This ultimately became the first of three films set over a period of a few days, and this one introduces us to the legend of Victor Crowley: the Jason Voorhees character of this franchise. And just who is Victor chasing around the swamp?

The group is full of tropes (bimbo, heartbroken college dude, middle aged couple from the Midwest) but the dialogue is quick and witty enough that they don't irritate or appear too on the nose. Besides, the kills come thick and fast too, so there's no time to get bored. If there's one thing that drives me crazy in slasher films, it's too much talking!

What recommends this film and makes it stick in the mind more than anything else I think, are the creative kills. Director Adam Green and special effects artist John Carl Buechler went far with these, and with no CGI! So every snapping bone and tendon, and every spurt of blood was right there in front of the camera. These kills are bonkers, and I was reminded tonight that I giggle like an idiot when I see this stuff. Is that weird?

Hatchet is one of those rare films that you can tell is horror made by a horror fan. And an attack by belt sander, plus cameos from horror movie royalty make me a very happy one whilst watching this.

Fun fact: IMDb trivia tells me that there's actually only one death by hatchet in this film.