Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet

Let's see how many times I call this one Molly Hatchet before I'm done. So I just came across this browsing Netflix last night. I think I may  have heard about it before, but I didn't keep up with it. It wasn't until I saw "starring Bill Moseley and Danielle Harris" that I decided I would give it a watch. I'm glad I did too, while Mary Hatchet isn't a particularly original, or even well made movie, it still manages to be good fun. Maybe I was just in the mood for something light, I dunno, but I laughed my ass off.

Blood Night is the name a small town has given to the day that an escaped mental patient who commited several murders, Mary Hatchet, was caught and killed. Turns out as a child, one stormy night Mary just up and murdered her parents with scissors, which is what landed her in the mental institution. Fast forward to her in her twenties, and she gets a visit from an overweight, creepy orderly who's feeling all rapey. Mary is told that the baby dies during birth, and then snaps and goes on a murder spree.

So that's the backstory we're given on the title character. The movie then shifts to present day, and a bunch of high schoolers are planning their Blood Night shenanigans. Ouija boards by Mary's grave, toilet papering houses, egging people, etc. Lots of "Halloween-centric" goings on. Being that they're teenagers, there's also drinking and pre-martial sex aplenty. Eventually, the kids start getting killed off in fairly brutal fashion. It appears that Mary Hatchet has returned to do a little Blood Night celebrating of her own.

Here's the thing about Blood Night, I'm not sure if the people responsible for it were attempting to create an homage to 80's slashers, but that's exactly what they ended up with. It's predictable to the point that I'm willing to say that if you don't figure out what's going on the second Danielle Harris appears on screen, then you've probably never watched a movie before. The kills are all pretty gory, and the effects were mostly practical. Make-up is good, copious amounts of blood, heads being split open, all that kind of fun stuff. There's plenty of nudity, an entire house full of cliched characters, and the town apparently only has one or two adults, one of whom is the alcoholic Vietnam war vet, who works as a caretaker in the cemetary, played by Bill Moseley. So see? It's an 80's movie, only it was made now.

If you've got Netflix and 80 minutes or so to kill, I'd recommend giving Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet a shot. It won't be for everybody, but if you're in the mood for some mindless entertainment, filled with boobs, blood, and a body count, you could do a lot worse.