Hatchet for the Honeymoon Blu-ray offers solid video and mediocre audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
A darkly humorous gore-fest about the cross-dressing owner of a bridal shop who kills all his customers on their wedding nights.
For more about Hatchet for the Honeymoon and the Hatchet for the Honeymoon Blu-ray release, see the Hatchet for the Honeymoon Blu-ray Review published by Casey Broadwater on September 18, 2012 where this Blu-ray release scored 3.0 out of 5.
With 1963's The Girl Who Knew Too Much and 1965's Blood and Black Lace, Italian cinematographer-turned-director Mario Bava near-
singlehandedly invented the giallo and its key, proto-slasher-film staples—the over-the-top grand guignol bloodletting, the uneasy tone of
eroticized death, and the black-gloved killer wielding a gleaming and indisputably phallic blade. It's the most deliciously baroque of all the horror sub-
genres, high on style and melodramatically intense. Through the 1970s and early '80s, Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and Umberto Lenzi would further
the form with their own lurid b-movie masterpieces of terror, but Bava will always be considered the granddaddy of the genre.
He had his share of both hits and misses, and 1970's Hatchet for the Honeymoon falls somewhere in between. Unlike the later fan-favorite
Twitch of Death Nerve, Hatchet isn't nearly as violent as its slice'em, dice'em title would suggest—the original Italian title, Il rosso
segno della follia, translates more appropriately to The Red Sign of Madness—but its weird-if-overdone Freudian psychological flavor,
creepy imagery, and urbane soundtrack make it a decent addition to the giallo canon.
John clearly has some issues to work out.
The film has a classic giallo cold open hook. A man in black emerges from his train compartment—we get a tense first-person view as he stares down
the corridor—and sneaks into the room of a newlywed couple trapped in a naked embrace. The man raises an enormous meat cleaver and the film cuts
to a surreal, almost dreamy kill sequence—out of focus, shot through glass and water—that isn't explicit at all but still disturbs. When the deed is done,
the man wipes the blood off his flesh-penetrating blade using the now-dead bride's wedding veil, an image that carries the perverse connotation of a
virgin deflowered by death.
There's no whodunnit mystery here. Our man in black is immediately revealed as the dapper John Harrington (Stephen Forsyth), a mutton-chopped
clotheshorse who describes himself as a paranoiac. "An enchanting word, so civilized and full of possibilities" he muses in voiceover narration while
shaving in the mirror. "The fact is that I'm completely mad...no one suspects I am a madman, a dangerous murderer." John is a sociopath of the Ted
Bundy variety—intelligent, charming and charismatic, a deadly ladies' man with an ax to grind against the fairer sex. And he has plenty of opportunity
to grind that ax—or, in his case, a kitchen cleaver he strokes and polishes suggestively—since he runs a fashion house that specializes in wedding
dresses and honeymoon lingerie. His mansion is overrun with trim models in white bridal garb—who often leave the fashion trade to get hitched—and
we learn that several of them have gone missing over the last few months. "A woman should only live only until her wedding night," is his credo.
"Love once and then die!" Police Inspector Russell (Jesús Puente) suspects John, but the careful killer has left no evidence behind. His preferred
method of body disposal is to cremate the remains and use the resultant ashes as a "special kind of fertilizer" for his hothouse garden.
The film is essentially a why-dunnit, gradually unraveling the knots of John's tangled psyche. Like most serial killers, he has mommy issues—including
a sizable Oedipal complex—and in this case they stem from witnessing his dearly beloved mother's murder as a child. He can't recall who
hacked his mom to death, but every time John himself dices up an innocent young women, another gap is filled in his memory and he gets ever closer
to solving this prime riddle of his life. "I must continue killing until I find out the whole truth," he says. It's all bunk, psychologically speaking—and I'll
give you one guess who mommy's killer actually was—but it provides a mostly satisfying framework for the film. Plotting and complex character
motivations were never Bava's strong point, although—to be fair—the film was written not by Bava but Santiago Montaga, the prolific Spanish author
and screenwriter.
What's unusual about Hatchet for the Honeymoon is that it's not just a serial killer flick; there's also a bizarro ghost story element as well.
John's shrew of a wife, Mildred (Laura Betti)—who insinuates that he's impotent—runs the business side of the fashion line and refuses to grant her
husband a divorce, though they actively hate one another. "We will stay married until death do us part," she says, unaware of the foreshadowing in
her declaration. Of course, John finally has enough of her and snaps—he chases her around insanely, wearing lipstick and a wedding veil—and she too
ends up as ashes, which he carries around in a leather duffel bag. Mildred comes back as a specter that everyone but John can see—and then as a spirit
that only he can see—an absurd turn of events unless we consider that the revenant Mildred is just a figment of John's unloosed imagination.
(Possible, but the fact that other people can see her make this theory unlikely.) More interesting is the sub-plot involving Helen—played by
Italo-horror scream queen Dagmar Lassander—a gold-digging model who wants into John's pants, or at least his pockets, and doesn't realize she's
gambling with her life.
Not as violent or as poetically atmospheric as some of Bava's other films, Hatchet is often somewhat unfairly overlooked. There are some
problems with the narrative—which is definitely half-baked, over-explanatory, and Freudian in a rather simplistic way—but if you can get beyond the
cliches, the movie has a charmingly hammy early-1970s swagger, set to a swinging soundtrack with, in one particular scene, a distinct yé-yé/go-go
vibe. And the film does have its moments of skin-crawling creepiness, particularly anytime we enter the grand hall where John keeps a collection of
pale, wedding dress-wearing mannequins with whom he occasionally makes out. There's some Norman Bates here in some of John's effeminate,
momma's boyish qualities, but the character is more of a less-deranged prototype for American Psycho's Patrick Bateman, an ego-maniacal
materialist with an unstoppable instinct to kill.
With Black Sunday—also released this week—and Hatchet for the Honeymoon, we get to see the two sides of Mario Bava's
cinematographic style. The former, shot in stark black and white, is gloomy and gothic and oppressive, while the later is luridly colorful, especially with
that characteristic Crayola-red 1970s fake blood hue. Though it hasn't been given a comprehensive, frame-by-frame restoration—let's face it, no one's
gonna pony up the cash to give that treatment to a second-tier giallo—Hatchet makes good on Blu-ray, with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer
that's true to its slightly beat up source, but still an obvious upgrade over previous home video editions. The print Kino has worked from has its share of
minor age-related damage—white and black specks, small scratches, hairs stuck at the edge of the frame—but nothing out of the ordinary for a film
from this genre and of this time period. More importantly, Kino hasn't touched the image with DNR, edge enhancement, or other unnecessary filtering.
It looks like the print was run through the telecine machine, given some light color corrections, and immediately ported over to Blu-ray. No compression
issues either. Color seems accurate and adequately dense, and though the film will never be sharp sharp, clarity gets a significant boost here,
with more visible detail and fine texture where you expect to see it.
It's one thing for the picture quality to be true to a slightly beat-up source, but I have a much lower tolerance for crackly, damaged audio. Unfortunately,
Hatchet for the Honeymoon's uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 track has splice pops, crackles, and low hisses galore, with a high end that
sometimes clips and muddles the peaks of the score. It's not unlistenable, but you'll definitely notice. There's probably not much that could've
been done, honestly. On the plus side, the dubbed English dialogue is, if not always perfectly clean, at least understandable. I do love the music in the
film; the score is ominous when required—hear those shrieking electric guitar stabs!—and the yé-yé-style dance song that plays when John goes to the
nightclub is ace. Do note that there are no subtitles for those who might need or want them.
Audio Commentary: Tim Lucas, author of Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark, offers up another fantastic commentary
track, filled with insight about the film's production and the director's personal life.
Trailers: Includes high definition trailers for Hatchet for the Honeymoon, Black Sunday, Baron Blood, Lisa and
the Devil, and The House of Exorcism.
It might not be Mario Bava's best film, but it's certainly not the worst, and damn if Hatchet for the Honeymoon isn't a killer title for a
giallo. If you're new to the Italian director and his brand of lurid, knife-flashing horror, you'd probably best be served checking out a few of his more well-
known films first. Longtime giallo fans, however, will certainly want to add Hatchet for the Honeymoon to their collections, especially considering
how few films from the genre have come to Blu-ray thus far. Thankfully, Kino seems intent on remedying this. Their new high definition transfer of
Hatchet is a solid upgrade from previous DVD additions, and the film's extremely informative audio track from Tim Lucas is a must-listen.
Independent film distributor Kino Lorber has issued its Blu-ray slate for September 2012. Releases are arranged through Kino's different distribution branches - Kino Classics, Kino Lorber, Redemption Films, Jezebel Films, and Horizon Movies. The September titles ...
Hatchet for the Honeymoon Blu-ray, Forum Discussions
