Remember when I said I loved horror films because they're almost never actually what they're purportedly about? Throw all that out the window. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes, a deformed hillbilly out in the bayou killing tourists is just that.Ben (Joel David Moore) is trying to get over his last relationship but all the partying in Mardi Gras New Orleans just makes him feel more lonely and depressed. He decides to go on a haunted swamp tour and his best friend Marcus (Deon Richmond) reluctantly accompanies him. The tour guide (Parry Shen) spins a fanciful tale of local legend Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder) only to be corrected by Marybeth (Tamara Feldman), a local with a secret of her own. Things really get dire when the tour boat gets stuck and the group is forced to venture into Crowley's swamp to find their way back to civilization.
This is a really fun movie and very underrated, considering I had never heard of it before one of Ain't It Cool News' yearly horror movie round-ups (which they don't appear to be doing this year, sad face.) The actors are not A-listers but you've seen them in things and they convincingly sell the dialogue and respective relationships between their characters. The humor works and so does the gore. Being horribly mutilated by a hatchet to the face on top of an existing deformity makes it difficult for Hodder's Victor Crowley to emote but his choice of weapons and various methods of dispatching these interlopers points to a sense of whimsy I appreciate in my spree killers.
Working against it are some amateurish camera work, a boring start (just the Bourbon Street scenes, not the gator poachers right at the beginning), and a truly abrupt end. Otherwise, this is a fine entry into the slasher hall of fame.
Pumpkin rating: 3.6/5
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