Movies
[Review] ‘Victor Crowley’ Should Have Stayed Dead
Horror fans were irate when they learned that Kane Hodder had been replaced as Jason Voorhees in New Line Cinema’s Freddy vs. Jason (2003). Independent filmmaker Adam Green‘s response was to create his own throwback slasher and cast Hodder as the film’s iconic villain. Hatchet (2006) introduced Hodder’s Victor Crowley, the bayou-butcher who hacks up a group of tourists during a New Orleans haunted swamp tour. It hit the slasher sweet-spot, mixing innocent humor with incredibly well done over-the-top special effects. While Hatchet has since become an iconic franchise, none of the sequels have been able to recreate the magic of the first film. The latest, Victor Crowley, is easily the worst of the bunch.
Taking place a decade after the events in Hatchet, lone-survivor Andrew Yong (Parry Shen) has become a celebrity and best-selling author. The film, written and directed by Green, painstakingly follows Yong as he appears on a morning talk show, signs books for fans, and takes off on a private jet to return to the location of the infamous murders. You see, Yong has been offered a hilarious great sum of money to do an on-location interview…
Meanwhile, a film crew are working on their own film about the murders and are planning to shoot a trailer to show financiers. While location scouting, they perform the same voodoo curse that gave birth to Victor Crowley, which causes the plane to fall out of the sky and the bayou-butcher to return.
While Hatchet cruised along with frantic energy, Victor Crowley is painfully slow, with each and every pointless scene feeling as excruciating as a visit to the dentist. Green somehow hits rock bottom with Victor Crowley, digressing the franchise from a wickedly fun and inspired slasher to a Troma-esque dick joke. That’s not hyperbole as there’s literally a moment where a “fan” places his penis on a table and asks Yong to sign it (albeit, they don’t actually show it). A complete deviation from the spirit of the first Hatchet (imagine if the next Friday the 13th was all dick and fart jokes), most of the comedy is insufferable and juvenile.
Another crime is the underwhelming special effects that look astoundingly cheap, which may or may not have been because of Green’s decision to hang on every shot for way too long. And much like the film’s tone, the death sequences are another insult to Hatchet, shifting from dead-pan serious to goofy winks that are trying way too hard to be funny. In fact, even the finale is bogged down by a continual attempt at humor in which Green force-feeds jokes into a sequence where Crowley stands around waiting for something to happen.
Honestly, it’s a bit startling to see the digression from Hatchet to Victor Crowley. I think it’s fair to call this one of the worst sequels in a long time, if not one of the most disappointing. Victor Crowley should have stayed dead.
This week kicked off with the release of hippo horror movie Hungry at home, and four more horror movies have arrived for at-home viewing as we head into the final weekend of June.
Here are the new horror movies that released on Friday, June 26, 2026!
The Halloween season can no longer be contained to the months of September and October, with “Summerween” becoming a thing in recent years. Essentially, it allows for Halloween to bleed into the warmer Summer months, and the first ever Summerween movie has arrived.
The Asylum released Summerween onto Digital outlets today.
In the film from writer/director Ryan Ebert, “On Summerween, a former circus clown escapes a mental institution to return to his abandoned mansion and hunt the teens partying there.”
Cole Chapleski, Chase Breithoff, Logan Roe, Sophia Sabol, and Clint Morrison star.
Director Ryan Ebert is the man behind a string of recent indie horrors we’ve covered, including Shark Side of the Moon, The Jolly Monkey, Jurassic Reborn, and Predator: Wastelands.
A witchy coming-of-age story from Dark Sky Films, Camp is now playing in select theaters.
Check your local listings to find a theater near you.
Camp is from writer-director Avalon Fast (Honeycomb, The Serpent’s Skin).
“Emily is the root cause of two devastating tragedies very early in her life, and she feels the weight of these accidents as though cursed. At her father’s suggestion, she takes a position at a summer camp for troubled youth to ease her guilt. When Emily arrives, she is welcomed by the other counselors, who accept her as she is and surround her with peace and forgiveness.
“As Emily begins to believe in a new kind of life, she starts to hear a voice whispering from deep in the woods — one that urges her to go home, and one that may be impossible to ignore.”
The film stars Zola Grimmer in her screen debut alongside Alice Wordsworth, Cherry Moore, Lea Rose Sebastianis (Castration Movie Part 1 & 2, In A Violent Nature), Ella Reece, Austyn Van de Kamp (This Too Shall Pass), Sophie Bawks-Smith (Honeycomb), Izza Jarvis, and Aiden Laudersmith.
Producers Tyler Perry and Jason Blum have joined forces for Peacock Original Strung.
The film is now streaming only on Peacock.
“A talented violinist takes a prestigious job as a music tutor for the gifted daughter of an influential and enigmatic family. As she becomes entangled in their opulent world, unsettling secrets begin to surface, forcing her to question her safety, her dreams, and even her sanity.”
Malcolm D. Lee (Scary Movie 5, Space Jam: A New Legacy) directs from a script written by Alan B. McElroy (Wrong Turn, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers).
Chloe Bailey (“Swarm“), Lynn Whitfield (Jaws: The Revenge), Lucien Laviscount (“Scream Queens”), Anna Diop (Us), Coco Jones (Vampires vs. the Bronx), Langley Kirkwood (“Banshee”), and Romy Woods star in Peacock’s Strung.
Produced by Diablo Cody, director Meredith Alloway’s Forbidden Fruits brought a new coven of witches to the big screen earlier this year, and it’s now streaming on Shudder.
Lola Tung (“The Summer I Turned Pretty”), Victoria Pedretti (“The Haunting of Hill House”), Alexandra Shipp (Tragedy Girls), Gabrielle Union (Breaking In), and Emma Chamberlain star in Forbidden Fruits, released by IFC and Shudder.
Free Eden employee Apple secretly runs a witchy femme cult in the basement of the mall store after hours. But when new hire Pumpkin challenges the group’s ‘girl boss’ ways, the women are forced to face their own poisons or succumb to a bloody fate.
“Forbidden Fruits grabbed me by the neck the very first time I read it,” Diablo Cody said. “It’s one of the craziest, most creative, beautifully bonkers projects I’ve ever worked on.”
Meagan Navarro writes in her review for Bloody Disgusting, “Forbidden Fruits may not necessarily forge new terrain in the teen satire space, but Alloway brings so much style and energy to her well-cast single-location stage play adaptation for the Gen Z crowd.”
The film is an adaptation of playwright Lily Houghton’s stage play Of the Women Came the Beginning of Sin and Through Her We All Die. Alloway and Houghton co-adapted.
This week’s new release roundups are presented by HUNGRY.
All aboard the swamp tour from hell – this hippo isn’t playing games…
HUNGRY is now available on Digital. Watch it now!
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