Character Analysis: Victor Crowley (Hatchet)
“He was indeed a 'monster,' sanity was no friend of his” ― Dies Irae
● Series: Hatchet
● Name: Victor Crowley.
● Occupation: Urban Legend.
● Origin: Honey Island Swamp.
● Height: 6’3.
● Weight: 270+ pounds.
● Alignment: Neutral Evil.
● Likes: His dad, killing, his swamp.
● Dislikes: Anyone who dares enters his swamp.
Ah, horror, the genre defined by the screams of the innocent dealt by the monsters hiding under your bed. Horror has undergone many eras over the course of its existence, but almost nothing in its near limitless selection can quite compete with the thriller of Slashers. The undead, unrelenting and unkillable terrors of the night that do all they can to mutilate their victims. You know ‘em, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Leatherface, Chucky and so many more have been cutting their way in the silver scream since the 80s. It's fitting that, to pay respect to the true impact these legends have had on horror, it takes a new, modern legend paying homage to the industry. A legend created by the love of slashers, starring many well known horror stars and housing the craziest slasher to ever hack teenagers apart. He’s hatchetface himself, Victor Crowley.
But compared to the rest of the slasher we and others have analyzed, will The Bayou Butcher thrive or have to bury the hatchet? Rise from your grave, grab your weapons, and journey with me to Honey Swamp Island to find out.
Before We Start…
(Editor's note: This is being uploaded here due to Spycrab having issues with blogger.)
This time around, the media that will be used for this blog is very straightforward, possibly the most straightforward series that we’ve done so far. Hatchet is fairly extensive, especially for an indie film, but only in the form of the mainline film series and the many comics that take place before or after the movies. There are 4 films and around 9 comics, including a Hack/Slash crossover, all of which we will be taking a look at. The comics in particular give a lot of content to be analyzed in a vs setting. We did still use 2 sources in particular for this blog though, they will be listed below.
Sources:
● Respect Victor Crowley (Hatchet film series)
Since this section is on the shorter side, we’re going to use the rest of it to give a VERY BIG DISCLAIMER. Hatchet is a very extreme series with its gore and is chalk full of nudity, we won’t be showing any of the latter outright, but some of the scans do contain it. As for the former, we won’t be hiding the gore. Some topics, scans and images may also prove to be uncomfortable for those who are weak around gore. If you aren’t able to stomach gore, excessive amounts of blood and the mention of sexually explicit kills, we suggest you tread carefully.
Background
Among every corner and environment of Earth, the unspoken and absolute rule that ties all of nature together is that for every prey, there is a stronger predator waiting to feast on them. At the top of the animal hierarchy lie the apex predators, the toughest animals on the planet with no natural superiors. In the jungle, there’s the lion. In the ocean, there’s the shark. In the swamp, there’s the gator. But in the face of inference outside of nature’s control, even these apex predators have something to fear. The Lion fears the hunter, the shark fears the whale, and in the case of Honey Island Swamp, Louisiana, the gators fear the undying curse of Victor Crowley.
Before Honey Island Swamp became the hunting grounds of this stray and damaged soul, it was once a peaceful environment for the various wildlife in Southeast America and a community for families alike. One of these families was Thomas Crowley and his wife, Shyann Crowley, who relocated from New Orleans for a chance to settle down. Unfortunately, Shyann was struck with a deadly illness that was slowly killing. In an act of grief and seeking for ways to cope with his depression, Thomas made an impulsive decision to cheat on his wife with her nurse, a woman named Lena, as she was literally dying in the other room. When she ultimately passed, the resentment for her husband and nurse enabled her to walk again. Standing in front of the new couple, the undead Shyann laid a curse from the blackest of dark magic on the future child of Lena and Thomas. Months later, the day of the child’s birth came, and out from the womb came a deformed, diseased child that brought decay to the swamp. They say that upon seeing her child’s face, Lena fell dead, and Thomas was left alone to raise the child on his own. This child was Victor Crowley, a boy born as a curse and destined to be A Monster.
Holding onto the last remaining semblance of a family, Thomas took care of Victor and showered him with affection. Because, for all of his mistakes, there is nothing that Thomas values more than family. Thomas shielded Victor from the outside world, protecting him against kids who would pick on him and trying to get a look at “the monster”, partially keeping Victor in the house for all of his life, even till adulthood. Their love was real and genuine, but it was all brought to an end by the same kids on Halloween night, attempting to startle poor Victor by throwing firecrackers at his cabin’s porch. These firecrackers caused a fire that soon engulfed the whole cabin, and Victor, who was locked inside due to the fire having been ignited, continuously cried out for his father. His father soon came, armed with a hatchet, desperately trying to cut down the door and save his beloved son. As he hacked away at the door, his panic swinging eventually broke it down. But unknown to him, Victor was on the other side, and the hatchet hit him directly in the face - instantly killing him. Afterward, Thomas tried to confront the kids who had lit the place ablaze, but the kids denied everything and hid behind their parents. In the decade left of his life, Thomas lived it alone in the swamp before succumbing to a broken heart.
The day after his death, though, something strange started to occur in Honey Island Swamp. People who passed through there, whether it be fishers, gator hunters, or boats going through its rivers, all began going missing. Found only as mutilated corpses with no detectable trace of who, or what, killed them. At least that’s what the officials say; the locals know otherwise. They know that these killings were the work of Victor Crowley’s ghost. For you see, the curse had finally taken effect at the death of the last of Victor’s bloodline, and he was reborn as a repeater. An entity stuck in the night that he died, forever cursed to relive that same moment over and over. His body may be the same as it was at the time of its death, but his soul carries an undying wraith. Cursed to eternally live in agony, Victor’s rage at the world grew to an uncontrollable degree as he lashed out against all who set foot in his swamp. Killing is the only way he knows how to numb his suffering, the only way to release his anger, and the only way to stop the pain, even if for a short time. Night after night, death after death, Victor continued roaming the swamp, looking for his daddy, the sole thing that gives him comfort. Because, just like his dad, there is nothing Victor values more than his family and all who stand in his way die.
No one knows the exact body count, but for decades, Victor Crowley’s fury reaped the lives of thousands of people and monsters. So next time you feel yourself being drawn to Honey Island Swamp, know that it's home to the most bloodthirsty, vindictive, and savage monster in the whole world. Victor is forever doomed to be a monster, that’s the only thing that Thomas couldn’t save him from. Born as a monster, lived as a monster, and died as a monster, Victor will never rest until he can do so as a human, just like the rest of us. For the vengeance of Victor Crowley conquers death itself.
Skill And Experience
In the several decades since his birth in the 1960s that Victor has roamed Honey Island Swamp, he’s proven why its territory and why all stray from his bog. No one knows the body count, it's been said to range from the hundreds to possibly thousands, and that’s without mentioning the wildlife he’s killed, in particular Alligators - even large ones - that he’s straight up ripped in half. Here are what we think are the most notable ways he’s maimed someone. Victor Crowley has teared a man’s intestines out and choked him with them so hard that his head popped open, he’s somehow managed to get someone’s nards on a tree and worst of them all, ripped a woman who was holding onto a phone’s arm off and then proceeded to shove the arm up her vagina so far that the phone that was still being held onto poked out of her mouth. Told you, these movies are some nasty stuff and no I’m not linking that, you’re welcome.
Victor, a majority of the time, is purely motivated by fiery rage that blinds him to most strategies and has a strong bloodlust when he’s hunting, yearning for the kill because it's the only way he knows how to numb his own suffering. But this doesn’t mean he has no skill or smarts to him whatsoever. He has incredible knowledge of the layout of his swamp, cutting people off and their faces before they can get away, and has shown decent craftiness like exploiting enemy weaknesses. Other than that though, he is very stealthy, making no detectable noise when he’s approaching or slicing, killing people before they or anyone around them even notices. He’s got a damn good arm, able to nail people in the back from several feet away even when they’re running or flying, with his hatchet flipping multiple times before it lands. More impressively, he can also perfectly impale someone’s foot with a rod when he’s several feet away and behind a tree with no clear shot. Told you he had a good arm!
His skills are best shown in his many fights, because while you may think he’s only killed humans, Victor has fought several supernatural entities and predators and has always come out victorious. Besides just the standard victims, Victor has taken on Dimitri Dragovich, a bear wrestler, a group of armed hunters, the mafia, a SWAT team, a cursed swamp monster made to cancel out his own curse, a pumpkin monster that utilized veins to ensnare and barf on Victor, a deformed beast made by the spirit of Halloween itself, Nosferatu, a group of 4 vampires, Bigfoot, a two-headed towering monster, a group of centuries old skinwalkers, a group of little demons and then a giant demon, a snowman with ice powers, an alien clone of himself and just straight murdered himself. As in, the curse created 2 Victors and they fought, with it being implied that a whole militia of Victors duked it out for the swamp. As for other fights, he’s scrapped with a professional vampire hunter after he became one himself and Cassie Hack, a world renowned slasher hunter who defeated Chucky previously. This paints Victor’s accomplishments very well, having gone through thick, thin and more thick with no signs of slowing down.
Equipment
Hatchet
Say that again. As the name of the series suggests, Victor’s main weapon of choice is his trusty hatchet. This hatchet is the same hatchet that his father accidentally killed him with, and since Victor is a spirit trapped on the same night he was killed in, the hatchet that was used to lay him to rest is essentially bound to him. While the hatchet itself may not be much, that arguably makes it all the more impressive with how Victor uses it. He’s used this hatchet to swiftly cut faces off, split a man’s head open, as well as scalp and decapitate someone. With enough swings, cut off major portions of the body or slice it in half. He’s so proficient at using it, that he can impale you with the head of the hatchet and chuck it to tag any fleeing victims.
Knife
Stolen from the pesky, and now very dead, hunters who have entered his swamp, Victor’s gotten his hands on a knife after it was stabbed in his eye, using it to then slice the chest of the guy who stabbed him in addition to cutting open another’s face and throwing it at the last hunter.
Chainsaw
One of Victor’s favorite murder weapons, allow us to introduce you to his absurdly giant chainsaw that he’s picked up from the ground to split 2 people in half vertically and horizontally. He even has distinct, smaller chainsaw laying around that he’s cut off heads with.
Belt Sander
Another tool from the abandoned shed of Honey Island Swamp that Victor has repurposed into a method of mutilation, Victor has utilized a belt sander both for breaking through reinforced walls that normally wouldn’t budge and grinding the brains off of the bastards hiding behind them.
Weed Whacker
Last power tool I promise, in any case, Victor has a weed whacker to whack and hack your body apart. The blunt end also makes for a skull shattering battering ram that can effortlessly knock people out.
Shovel
Moving to more typical tools, Victor has a shovel perfect for digging graves and giving said graves occupants. Though Victor’s not crazy about that first part, so the part that involves killing people will have to do.
Pitchfork
A tool used to murder a girl after Victor hitched a ride on her car and fittingly before he met face to face with actual fucking demons, Victor’s pitchfork is strong enough to pierce through a car roof, though he later gave it up for his signature hatchet. He has his priorities I suppose.
Claw Hammer
Pried off of a shed wall during one of his kills, Victor used a standard claw hammer to utterly demolish someone’s face, and I do mean demolish, he swung that baby on the poor dude’s head a lot before he finally decided to stop.
Firepoker
Both for poking fire and your eyes out, Victor’s grabbed this sucker from a fireplace and used to stab through the roof of a house to catch someone on top.
Fishing Rod
Taken from the corpse of a fisherman who tread a little too close to the waters, Victor’s used a regular fishing rod to reel in someone into his open embrace from the eye socket, ouch.
Spear Rope
I’m starting to think Victor’s running out of ideas, but at least this time the premise is done with a much stronger tool. Regardless, Victor’s been shown to use a rope with a bladed end to stab the back of victims that are running away, grappling and pulling them back to him for them to be brutally massacred.
Defibrillators
Upon resurrecting while in a body bag in the back of a hospital truck, Victor disposed of the paramedic looking after him by grabbing a pair of defibrillators and delivering a shock so powerful it blew up his head. This truck and its defibrillator remained in the swamp, so technically Victor can access these.
Anchor
Believe it or not, Honey Island Swamp’s many rivers still attract boats to pass through, and when they do, Victor is obliged to take them down. With all the boats he’s broken, he’s obtained anchors which he swings around to strike his foes, hitting them with enough force to smash their body open.
Blowtorch
While fighting the soul of one of his previous victims who had come alive as a snowman, Victor pulled out dual tanks and an extinguisher out of admittedly nowhere that acted as a flamethrower, melting the snow and ice composed entity in seconds. Prompting Victor to then… piss on him?
Improvised Weapons
As a slasher inspired killer, it should come as no surprise that one of Victor’s strongest attributes is his own creativity and improvisation when it comes to securing a kill. In his case, anything near him can be considered a deadly weapon, ranging from metal poles, arrows, your own intestines, alligator heads and more. He’s also used more situational, environmental hazards such as boat and plane propellers, which is one of the series’s favorite types of kills.
Abilities
Cursed Repeater Physiology
Before he was born, Shyann Crowley, his father’s first wife whom he cheated on as she was dying of cancer, had laid a curse on her husband for… y’know, doing that. A curse which, on the day of Victor’s birth, resulted in the swamp gaining sentience and mourning as its plant and animal life grew ill and died. Victor himself was born painfully disfigured and disease ridden, being affected by the curse so much that the mere sight of him caused his mother to die on the spot. Besides essentially being a walking voodoo curse and destined to be a monster, Victor wasn’t actively being too supernatural, that was until his untimely death after being trapped in a burning building and hit in the head with a hatchet by his father. After this, Victor became what is known as a repeater, a ghost trapped in the night he died and forced to relive the exact moment of his death over and over. He returns to the swamp only at night time, meaning that if dawn approaches specifically in Honey Island Swamp, then his ghost will sleep until the next night.
I know what you’re thinking, doesn’t being a ghost mean he’s incorporeal? Although his spirit certainly wanders the swamp, it takes physical presence by specifically manifesting its body at the time of his death. The exact details we’ll discuss later on, but this has done wonders for Victor physically. Not only does this mean Victor is self sustenance, not needing to eat, sleep or breath as he can emerge from water without struggle and feast on fear and violence, and never grows tired on the hunt. More importantly, it’s drastically improved his strength and durability to superhuman degrees. Now he can shrug off arrows to the eye and chest, along with gunfire, later on he’s shown to be practically immune to gunfire, and even tanks it and arrows in rapid succession. An alien clone of his could even remain alive as a torso and leap around. He’s so tough that being light on fire and having his blood drained by multiple vampires hardly slow him down. In fact, his blood is so unique that vampires biting into it are rejuvenated and its mutation has amplified their strength, speed and viciousness. Though there have been other times when he’s been bitten by a vampire and his blood was rather acidic for them. He also can piss I guess.
Enhanced Senses & Extrasensory Perception
After decades of hunting and killing people at night in his swamp, Victor has heightened his senses to the point of being able to seemingly see in the dark without issue and able to hear a singular tear drop falling down a tree from a solid distance away. More strangely, his senses are able to detect relatives of people who were responsible for his death.
Teleportation
As expected from a slasher of his caliber, Victor has displayed the power of instantaneous teleportation. Disappearing and appearing the moment you look away, and as shown in the scan above, materialize out of nowhere even if you’re looking at the area he appeared in.
Adaptability
Victor’s body, ever since he was cursed and supernaturally corrupted when becoming a repeater, has undergone various injuries and mutations to the point of his body completely shifting how it works in response to biological attacks. This is best shown when he was bitten by multiple vampires at once, though he did not flinch at their attacks, his body adapted to their vampiric abilities and caused him to turn into a vampire hybrid, sprouting wings to take into the skies which soon were imbued into his arms. We know this is because of Victor’s body adapting to these types of attacks because earlier on in these same comics, he withstood a bite from Nosferatu and didn’t alter.
The Curse Of Victor Crowley
Hold onto your hatchets, because this is where the story of Victor Crowley gets fucking crazy.
The blood curse that Shyann Crowley laid on her husband’s newly impregnated wife that culminated in Victor’s birth caused Victor to become a living pestilence that corroded the swamp, giving it sentience and a desire to consume flesh and blood as well as causing lifeforms in the swamp to shrivel and die. This curse, made from the blackest of voodoo magics, only really took effect at Victor and his father’s death, causing Victor to become a repeater and the curse to grow stronger. Now without restrictions, this curse passively spreads like a far-reaching whirlpool, drawing people into Honey Island Swamp without them even knowing it. It does this by manipulating certain events, for example, the moment the curse was recited it caused a plane approaching the swamp to break down and crash.
This is important because the curse’s intent is to lure people into dying to Victor so that the swamp may feast upon flesh, once someone dies in the swamp, their spirit remains trapped within the swamp in the same condition they died in, being able to take refuge in the realm of the living on Halloween night to chat or seek revenge much like a tree growing in the desert. Nothing natural can stop this curse, the only thing that can is another curse and even then, The Curse of Victor Crowley being the most cursed place on earth means that it's able to literally absorb weaker curses and nullify their effects.
This is all just how the curse operates, after all it is a curse centered around Victor, and it effectively makes Victor as unkillable as you can get so long as it remains active. Victor is a repeater, a spirit stuck in the night of his death and forced to relive his death night after night. Through the curse, Victor is able to manifest a physical presence in his body in the exact moment he died. Whenever the swamp exists, the curse does and Victor is able to manifest this physical body, this even works when he’s dragged outside of the swamp like in space. What this essentially means is that, no matter the physical damage, the curse will restore Victor to his normal condition. He’s been shot in the head, stabbed and blasted through the chest, had his chest ripped open, gunned down into swiss cheese and vaporized into nothing, but his body has restored back to normal and he’s gotten back up every single time, most of the time being restored immediately.
Destroying his soul is an option, but that’s not foolproof as the curse can duplicate Victor’s spirit to create multiple Victors in physical form that don’t exactly get along. Still, this proves that so long as it's night time, as that’s when he’s able to hunt, and the curse exists, Victor won’t go down from physical attacks and a new Victor will be made in the face of spiritual attacks. Even if you somehow manage to lift the curse, Victor is able to be brought back if the curse is recited in the swamp, although that’s very specific and very stupid.
Resistances
● Pain & Disease Manipulation: Was born with tumors and illnesses, causing great pain that was only amplified when he became a repeater.
● Blood Manipulation: Victor’s blood is shown to be vastly different from regular blood, vampires biting him have either caused the vampires to be empowered and healed or spit it out due to it being acidic to them.
● Fire Manipulation: Is completely unbothered by being light aflame, the curse is also able to restore him from this.
Forms
Vampire Hybrid Victor
During his fight with a group of vampires, Victor was featured on by all 4 of the vampires at once. While not the first time he’s been bit, this caused something peculiar to happen to Victor’s body. Though he initially shrugged the attack off, his body soon took in the vampire’s fluids and altered itself, sprouting wings and taking to the sky as he turned into a vampire hybrid. Over the course of the next night, Victor’s body further adapted by molding his wings into his arms and giving him talons, using these to latch onto people, fly them up and send them flying back down with a punch. His other tactics involving his new powers include creating gusts of wind that can part trees and send leaves everywhere, and being a vampire, he obviously has the same fangs and ability to drain the blood out of anyone he bites. Comparing him to the vampires that bit him means his potential blood sucking can leave you as a drained husk given enough time. On the downside, this form does give Victor an exploitable weakness in your typical vampire sense, wooden stakes and holy water are shown to hurt him to the point of vaporization. If this happens, the curse will still bring Victor back but it won’t retain his vampire form.
Feats
Overall
● His birth, because of the curse, caused the swamp to become alive and life in it to wither away.
● Became a repeater upon his death, wandering the swamp forever in search of his father.
● Has claimed the lives of many of the curse’s lifespan, the exact body count is unknown but we know it exceeds the thousands.
● Specifically, he’s killed SWAT officers, the mafia, witches, souls possessing pumpkins and snowmen, demons, vampires, straight up monsters, other curses, Bigfoot, an alien clone of himself and himself.
● Has found the spirit of his father more than once.
● “These are somebody’s balls!”
Power
● Peeled the skin off of a head by only slightly grabbing onto it.
● Consistently shown to rip off human limbs and body parts like jaws with little difficulty, even physically extraordinary humans.
● Ripped the spine out of someone through the chest. (101,971 KgF)
● Bench pressed a large section of a tree.
● Lifted up a 15 foot American Alligator over his head and ripped it in two. (0.5 Tons)
● Can casually rip out hearts.
● Fully ripped a woman’s head open by the jaw.
● Punched a hole in a man’s chest and later shown to be able to punch off heads with ease.
● Ripped someone in two with his bare hands.
● Splattered someone by slamming them on the ground with one arm.
● As a vampire, he picked someone up into the air and punted them back to the ground so hard his body was torn apart.
● Threw someone so hard it broke a grave. (89 Kilojoules)
● Broke through a wooden door and punctured a human skull with his hand.
● Effortlessly shattered a wooden door. (516 Kilojoules)
● Scales to Nosferatu, who upon awakening, was able to violently burst out of a large tomb.
● Shook a plane wreckage by rocking it back and forth and ramming into it.
● Launched Dimitri Dragovich several feet and through a tree with a single hit, destroying the tree, and Dimitri had previously fought bears. (91 Megajoules)
Speed
● Smacks away a gun from someone’s hand before they can fire it.
● Rushed a group of survivors before they could react.
● Has shown to be able to blitz the human perception, appearing and attacking before people have time to react. (34.3 m/s)
● Reacted to an RPG as it was approaching him. (300 m/s)
● Scales to a vampire hunter, who seemingly avoided a massive explosion that she detonated standing in front of.
Durability
● Withstood a chair slam, which broke the chair like a freakin’ toy.
● Got back up after being lit on fire and kicked in the balls by Cassie Hack.
● Shrugs off rapid crossbow fire, gunfire and knife wounds.
● Survived being in front of a house that was hit with an RPG. (200 Kilojoules)
● Upscales a group of vampires, who can endure a grenade explosion that destroyed an entire cabin, one hell of a grenade.
● Lived after being dropped onto a boat full of explosions and having all those explosions detonate in his face, only dying because his vampire form gave him a weakness to a stake.
● When fight aliens who abducted him, he survived him and his house being launched out of the UFO and crash landed onto earth in a massive explosion. (51 - 376 Tons of TNT Using Re-Entry Speed & 4 Megatons of TNT Using Measured Speed)
Scaling
Cassie Hack
Well, Cassie Hack is back at it again, fighting everyone’s favorite slashers one issue at a time. In this case, Cassie’s had a gruesome run in with our swamp hillbilly with a hatchet, Victor. In their encounter, although Cassie displayed being able to hurt Victor with her weapons, she was ultimately physically overpowered by Crowley in close quarters when her skill couldn’t save her against Victor’s brute strength. Victor was even able to blitz survivors on par with Cassie in terms of speed, so Victor should be able to get that sweet, sweet scaling from the slasher hunter.
● Can crack concrete with her bat.
● Swung her bat so fast it caught fire. (Mach 5 & 8.3 Megajoules)
● Rolled off of an exploding snow blower so fast she created afterimages.
● Took an attack that knocked both her and Vlad through a wall.
● Physically comparable to Bomb Queen, who can tank their grenades blowing up in their face.
● Should scale to Diaboliq, who can vaporize walls with her power. (205 Megajoules)
● Scales to Libby, who can…
○ Live after crashing and exploding a van. (72 Megajoules)
○ Survive a brutal house explosion alongside Cassie. (0.32 Tons of TNT)
Weaknesses
Victor may appear as an invincible killing machine in many ways, but just as any other monster, Victor Crowley has faults that can be exploited. While he isn’t without skill, in fights he acts more like a feral monster driven by uncontrollable rage then a skilled killer. He itches for the kill, as it's the only way to calm his anger, thirst for vengeance and pain at his own agonistic existence. The curse that keeps him alive isn’t perfect either, it explicitly only brings him back when it is nighttime at Honey Island Swamp, as that’s the night he died in and the form the curse makes him take on. If you survive till daytime, Victor will fade away and return the next night. This also applies if you leave the swamp. Victor isn’t entirely confined to the swamp, but he shows no interest in leaving it and has let victims go if they wander outside.
Although specific, if one were to expose Victor to his father’s ashes, that is technically reuniting him with his dad which will cause him to melt on the spot due to the curse falling apart. He can be brought back from this if his curse is spoken again in the swamp, but it's still at least an incapacitation method. Moreover, the curse makes it so Victor manifests wherever his swamp and house are, if the swamp is destroyed then Victor will be unable to be brought back. A specific weakness that curses like Victor’s have is being able to be lifted, absorbed and nullified by the use of another curse. While Victor’s curse is the strongest in the verse, if he is faced with another, stronger curse, his curse can be negated.
Overall
● Attack Potency & Durability ranges from Wall-Building at a low end, City Block-Small City at a high end.
● Speed ranges from Subsonic on his own, reaching up to Mach 5 through Cassie Hack scaling.
● Fairly skilled and very experienced, though he is driven by uncontrollable rage, he still maintains levels of skill and ingenuity in his fights with various monsters.
● Decently sized arsenal of typical tools repurposed for murder.
● Useful abilities, such as his Enhanced Senses, Teleportation and Adaptability, with a few neat resistances against Pain, Disease, Fire & Vampiric attacks.
● His adaptability has resulted in his Vampire Hybrid form, where he has wings, talons, fangs and the ability to create gusts of winds as well as suck the blood out of your body..
● The Curse of Victor Crowley and his physiology as a Repeater grants him varied immortality, able to manifest physical bodies for his spirit and able to duplicate his spirit if it is ever destroyed.
● Main weakness is the curse being able to be negated through another curse, as well as the curse only allowing him to fight at night, so outlasting the curse’s effects is a possible means of surviving Victor.
● The franchise got Kane Hodder, Robert Englund, Tony Todd and many more horror iconics together.
Possible Opponents
Keeping to the spirit of what we did in our previous analysis, we’re going over our favorite matchups for our favorite hatchet wielding maniac. Comparatively though, Victor doesn’t have a very expansive spread, so we only have 4 matchups that we really like to go over. We’re mentioning this because we invite you, the viewer, to come up with your own Victor matchups if you feel up for it. Give some love to this relatively obscure slasher series and who knows, maybe we’ll see them and have another matchup to gush over. Right now though, it’s our turn to discuss the matchups at hand. Enjoy the highlight wheel!
Jason Voorhees (Friday The 13th)
Spycrab: The matchup that introduced me to Hatchet all the way back when Season 7 of Death Battle was ongoing, this one has really stuck with me as both a Jason and Victor matchup. Admittedly, it is an original vs inspiration matchup, which is a reason I can understand why some would be put off by this, but unlike the traditional original vs inspiration, I think this has more to it. Victor may be heavily inspired by Jason himself, but Hatchet as a whole is sort of like the fan interpretation of a lot of trophies in slasher films, it’s so wildly different from any other slasher series and Victor differs from Jason in some regards because of this.
For example, The Pamela and Thomas comparison especially is one that really demonstrates this, Jason listening to Pamela’s fading spirit as the only guidance in the world while Victor is in a never-ending search for his father’s spirit as that’s the only thing that would give him peace relates to the theme very nicely. The potential is good too, the gore and usage of the swamp/lake environment is a treat and seeing the curses clash could lead to some really neat visual effects on top of the brutal slugfest. It’s a fun time and definitely a worthy alt for both.
Iceking: Ahh yes the forgotten Jason matchup. Normally, I’m not too big a fan of inspiration vs original matchups but for whatever reason in this case, I actually kind of dig it. I mean it’s two of Kane's most iconic characters that are known for haunting an area that they died in and ripping apart anyone who dares enter. So it does have pretty decent connections and is also probably both’s most debatable matchup. Since Victor can actually keep up with Jason pretty well in stats and has a similar immortality to Jason himself. So while it’s no Michael Myers, I think there’s still a lot of fun to be had here.
Art The Clown (Terrifier)
Spycrab: A far more simpler approach to a Victor matchup, this one just sounds entertaining. The theme of gory, over the top indie films with a strong inspiration from older slasher movies isn’t a lot, but it gives the matchup a really good vibe. It being a David vs Goliath type matchup with Victor standing taller and being much bulkier fits this mold, since Art’s unpredictable nature opens itself for a ton of mockery against Victor to make him go blind in rage. In particular, a scene similar to the cradling of a baby scene in the first Terrifier can work with the concept of Art trying to get a reaction out of Victor purely for laughs. I don’t think I need to touch the potential much, as it’s… Hatchet and Terrifier, these series are known for their gore and mutilation. I will say that I will probably like this matchup more when Art’s supernatural side is fleshed out more however.
Iceking: Not too much to be said here other than this is a very fun matchup. That definitely has lots of gore potential and I could actually see this being a live action if it happens since David Howard Thorton and Kane Hodder are usually pretty down with doing fan stuff so that’s a plus.
Choo-Choo Charles (...)
Spycrab: Is that Choo-Choo Charles from Choo-Choo-Charles? Dude… fuck yes. But uh, yeah this’ll need some explaining. The theme isn’t apparent at first glance, but it actually is solid. Both are unstoppable, bloodthirsty monsters from country horror series that are the center of a supernatural phenomenon, in particular curses which relate to their bloodline, haunting a secluded swamp-like environment which they have made their personal hunting grounds as a result. It strangely really works and Victor fighting the absolute monstoricity that is Choo Choo Charles would no doubt make for an interesting animation.
If you couldn’t tell, Victor has fought monsters arguably just as absurd as Charles, he’d definitely be able to handle him with his usage of the environment and his own brute strength. I’d love to see both put the other’s endurance to the test; Charles repeatedly killing Victor while Victor hacks away at Charles, trying to make an invincible behemoth go down. For a climax you could even have Vampire Hybrid Victor fight Hell Charles, and have the atmosphere get crazy with a harsh storm and hurricane being created because of their fight. There is a lot to be done here and the atmosphere, tone and vibe the matchup brings makes me not help but love it, it’s very close to being my favorite for Victor but not quite.
Iceking: What have I done? And why do I not regret it? Anyway the dynamic is literally
Naoko Kirino (Pumpkin Night)
Spycrab: Now time to discuss my absolute favorite for Victor, Naoko Kirino, though I should begin with introducing Pumpkin Night as a series as it's a very underground horror manga. The slasher inspired series revolves around an immortal spirit known as the Pumpkin Night, the messenger of hell acting as a curse inflicted on Japan, it seeks hosts in victims who were wronged, outcasted by society and who carry a desire for vengeance against their oppressors. Its most powerful host just so happened to be Naoko, once an ecstatic schoolgirl horrifically bullied for being too weird to the point where her bastard bullies played a prank by voting her for prom queen, or Pumpkin Queen as its a Halloween tradition, and putting firecrackers and sulfuric acid in the pumpkin. Scarring her face beyond recognition and causing her to go frantic, which was met by the bullies using their parents to lock her up in an asylum and covering up the whole incident.
Naoko, now broken out of the asylum, is hunting for her bullies as a slasher while reconciling with the one person who didn’t make fun of her, which was her crush, Kazuya. From here on out, the whole criminal underworld and outcasts from society fell in love with Naoko as the girl who never got in and got her revenge. At this point, Naoko wasn’t blindly killing, but rather serving the Pumpkin Night’s purpose as the messenger of hell by communicating with the voices of the wronged who had died and going after their abusers who got away scott free. As well as now trying to put her rage against the world aside by living her life with Kazuya. The series isn’t fully translated, or at all officially translated, and is still ongoing, but that is Naoko’s story as far as I can interpret.
I think this really complements Victor’s character and Hatchet as a franchise, not only does it have a really cool vibe with both being extremely gory series heavily inspired by slashers. As well as it being a fun east vs west and Victor being a Jason Voorhees inspired killer with a hint of Leatherface while Naoko is a Carrie inspired killer with a hint of Michael Myers. Theme wise though, it goes into everything I want a matchup for either to cover. How Victor was bullied and how those bullies ended up burning them as they received a brutal face wound which would never heal, how this event forced them into becoming the monster weirdo that they were always treated as due to a curse which took refuge in them as their greatest tool, how both’s thirst for vengeance has driven them mad to the point of seeing the world with nothing but rage but how both look for comfort in searching for the one person who treated them like a human being - wanting nothing more than to rest and reunite with them. On top of that, Naoko now serving as a messenger of hell means she helps souls looking for revenge such as Victor, who in his verse is regarded as the strongest curse due to his undying vengeance.
What about the fight potential? I love it here too. Victor is portrayed as a lot tougher and stronger than Naoko while Naoko is portrayed as much more agile and fast, combine this with their endurance and immortality thanks to their respective curses and their wide array of weapons they can use on the other and you can see how it can gorey fast. Naoko in particular has a ton of knives, hidden blades in her feet and firearms like rifles and shotguns. She’s insanely skilled in killing, even taking out the whole Yakuza on her own and fields of laser shooting robots. She gets even crazier in terms of power, as she can project the spirit of the Pumpkin Night to act as a stand type figure that rips apart everyone around her. She also is able to make you see spirits of the dead, which opens up the door to her showing Victor the spirit of her father near the end of the fight.
I’ve spent a long time talking about this one, so I’ll wrap it up here. Despite both not being particularly deep characters, I think this matchup portrays them perfectly. I’d love to cover Naoko in a character analysis like this one day, the translation issue is the only thing keeping me and I might just decide to ignore it. But overall, I really like this matchup and think it has a ton going for it. Hopefully, it gets a little more traction because of this blog.
Iceking: uhh yeah what he said. Horror vs Manga/anime is very cool and I think we should have more of it. Shout out Cassie Hack & Vlad vs Momo and Okarun from Dandadan.
Closing Words
A little early, but hey, it still counts.
And that just about sums up our analysis on good ol’ hatchetface here, we may not have released it directly on Halloween, but I’d bet they’ll be much bigger blogs then this releasing directly on Halloween, so take this as an appetizer that shifted your attention to a lesser known slasher series. This and the previous analysis on Herbert West have been our blogs for the month. We were trying to get another one out this month but I unfortunately got sick while working on the Herbert blog, and that delayed it by a week, so that’ll have to wait till another month when I’m feeling motivated.
As always, thank you so much for reading, I hope you have a wonderful day and Happy Halloween!
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