Earlier this year, Starz Entertainment (aka Anchor Bay) put out their first theatrical feature film, the film festival favourite Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. It was a fairly limited run, but this September they will be putting a lot more weight behind another independent horror flick, Adam Green’s Hatchet. I hadn’t heard of it before this week, but there seems to be a lot of positive buzz building around this flick. It was just announced a few days ago that the MPAA officially gave it an R-rating, after a couple months of resubmissions to avoid the dreaded NC-17. I guess we can assume it’s pretty gory. One thing’s for sure: the folks at Anchor Bay don’t share Eli Roth’s opinion that R-rated horror is on its way out.

Although the movie does star Robert Englund and Kane Hodder, there wasn’t much about it that made me think it was anything more than another mediocre low budget horror movie. After watching the teaser trailer though, it’s clear that a lot of horror fans think quite highly of it, since the majority of the trailer is full of hyperbolic quotes from various horror websites. I am a bit confused though, because although the trailer says “Old School American Horror”, it seems to be partially billed as a horror/comedy. Is this the only way to market 80’s-style slasher flicks now? To compare them to Shaun of the Dead? How lame. Still, you’ve gotta love the poster tagline: “It’s Not A Remake. It’s Not A Sequel. And It’s Not Based On A Japanese One.” I wasn’t all that impressed with Behind The Mask, but I do think this sounds interesting if it is, in fact, a return to the old school. Maybe Anchor Bay will turn out to be the saviour of R-rated horror that we’ve all been waiting for. Check out the movie’s official site for more info and a have a look at the teaser trailer. Hatchet hits theatres on September 7th.