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The Honey Island Swamp Massacre is the name given to the mass murder of 49 people in Honey Island Swamp, Louisiana by the ghost Victor Crowley over one week in February 2007. All but two of the victims were killed over three consecutive nights. This event is the main focus of the slasher movies Hatchet (2006), Hatchet II (2010), and Hatchet III (2013), and a major backstory element of their sequel Victor Crowley (2017) and any potential future movies in the Hatchet franchise.
History[]
Background[]
Victor Crowley was the deformed son of Thomas Crowley, and the two lived together in Honey Island Swamp away from the rest of society. Victor was cruelly taunted for his deformities by other children, and one Halloween night three teenagers - Sampson Dunston, his brother, and a third boy named Trent - set the Crowley house on fire in an effort to force Victor out so they could see him. Victor was instead trapped inside the house, and when Thomas tried to chop down the door with a hatchet to save him, he accidentally struck Victor in the face, instantly killing him. Thomas Crowley was unable to get justice for his son and died of grief ten years later.
This trauma caused Victor to return as a "repeater" ghost, cursed to wander the swamp in search for his father every night. In his eternal fear and rage, Victor savagely killed anyone he met in the swamp. Armed with superhuman strength, near-invulnerability, and nightly resurrection, Victor proved an enormous threat. From 1964 to 2007, Victor Crowley murdered scores of people, perhaps hundreds, in the swamp. By the late 1990's, the swamp was recognized as so dangerous that the public was banned from entering. The ghost of Victor Crowley became a famous urban legend, although few people took it seriously. The abandonment of Victor's swamp ironically made it an attractive target for alligator hunters and illicit tour operators, ultimately causing the 2007 massacre.
Events of the Massacre[]
Dunston Killings[]
The inciting event of the massacre was the killing of Sampson Dunston, one of Victor's original killers, and his son Ainsley. The two boated into Victor's territory while hunting alligators, where Victor attacked them and tore them both apart bare-handed. They were survived by Marybeth Dunston, Sampson's daughter, who set out to investigate their disappearance.
The First Night[]
Two days after the Dunstons vanished, an illegal tour boat carrying one guide and eight passengers set out for Honey Island Swamp on a haunted tour. Among the passengers was Marybeth. When the inexperienced guide ran the boat aground, sinking it, the group was left stranded. Victor relentlessly attacked the group, killing the guide and six passengers before Marybeth and another tourist, Ben, managed to escape. However, Victor caught up with them, ripping off Ben's arm before Marybeth got away. She fled to the home of Jack Cracker, who helped her until he realized who her father was. Not wanting to anger Victor by helping a relative of one of his killers, Jack forced her out, but a furious Victor killed him anyway not long after Marybeth left.
The Second Night[]
The next day, Marybeth returned with Reverend Zombie and a party of nine hunters. Marybeth and the hunters only meant to recover the Dunstons' remains, but Zombie purposely placed Trent and Marybeth's Uncle Bob - who he wrongly believed to be Sampson's brother and one of Victor's killers - in the hunting party in the belief that Victor killing them would break his curse and cause him to vanish. After the group split into pairs at Zombie's advice, Victor ambushed and killed three of these pairs before confronting the survivors at his house, where he killed Zombie's assistant Justin before killing Trent and Bob. Since Bob was not actually one of Victor's killers, killing him did not lift the curse, and Victor killed Zombie before attacking Marybeth. Marybeth ultimately managed to vertically cut him in half with his own giant chainsaw. Believing Victor Crowley dead, Marybeth walked back to civilization.
The Third Night[]
The next morning, Marybeth walked into Jefferson County Police Station and informed them of the massacre, estimating that 20 to 30 people had been killed. Since Marybeth was covered in other people's blood and carrying both a shotgun and Victor Crowley's scalp, she was taken into custody as a murder suspect. EMTs and Jefferson County deputies were sent to Honey Island Swamp to recover the victims' remains. Among the bodies recovered was the bisected corpse of Victor Crowley.
When the sun set on that third night, Victor Crowley's curse revived him, uninjured and whole. This set into motion the last, bloodiest phase of the massacre, in which Victor Crowley murdered 29 people, including 27 first responders from both Jefferson County and Louisiana State Police, in only a few hour. Upon his revival, Victor attacked and massacred nearly all the EMTs and deputies on scene. This slaughter was heard over the police radio, prompting two parallel responses. First, Jefferson County PD called in Louisiana State Police's SWAT team. Second, Deputy Winslow and Amanda Fowler sprung Marybeth from jail and set out to find Thomas Crowley's remains, hoping that Marybeth giving Victor his father would end his unlife where violence couldn't. The first response met with disaster - when the SWAT team and surviving deputies engaged Victor, he wiped them out and hunted down the survivors, finding and killing a gravely injured Ben along the way. By the time Amanda, Winslow, and Marybeth arrived with the ashes of Victor's father, only EMT Andrew Yong was still alive. Lured by the ashes, Victor killed Amanda and Winslow before attacking and critically injuring Marybeth. Marybeth then threw the ashes on Victor, finally putting him to rest and ending the massacre.
The Louisiana National Guard, called by Sheriff Fowler after the killing of the SWAT team, arrived on the scene shortly afterward, rescuing Andrew Yong. Marybeth also survived, though how she escaped is unknown.
Aftermath[]
Andrew Yong was the only publicly known survivor of the massacre. While Marybeth Dunston also survived, her involvement in the events was hidden from the public by unknown parties for similarly mysterious reasons, and she apparently went into hiding. Since Yong was apparently the only survivor and his stories of Victor Crowley were so unbelievable, he quickly fell under suspicion and was arrested for murder in March. In 2008, he was acquitted in a high-profile trial due to the absence of any evidence against him, but was still widely believed to be the killer. The Victor Crowley legend became far more famous as a result of the massacre, and by 2017 there were at least some people who thought that Crowley really might have been the perpetrator.
Since Victor Crowley was truly dead, Honey Island Swamp was no longer dangerous. Combined with the area's sudden worldwide fame, this led to a tourism boom in the area. The swamp became a museum, memorial site, and tourist trap with Victor Crowley merchandise. By 2011 or so, attention had faded, but tours operated until 2017.
Victor Crowley was accidentally resurrected in 2017 when a YouTube recording of the voodoo curse that originally created him was played in the swamp. The reborn Crowley would kill at least another seven people.
Casualties[]
49 people were killed in the Honey Island Swamp Massacre - the two Dunstons, seven on the first night, eleven on the second, and 29 on the third. Of those killed, 27 of them - more than half - were first responders from various agencies responding to earlier murders. All of the victims were killed with a hatchet, gas-powered tools (most notably a belt sander), a shovel, or Victor Crowley's bare hands. The total of 49 victims has been officially confirmed by statements from the film's creators and promotional material for Victor Crowley.
In-universe, this total is not known with precision for a number of reasons, such as the extreme mutilation of the corpses, the great size of the crime scene, predation on and environmental damage to victims' remains, and the discovery of remains belonging to people Victor Crowley killed years or decades earlier. Because of this, the death toll is simply placed as "above 40."
Trivia[]
- With a death toll of 49, the Honey Island Swamp massacre is one of the deadliest single killing sprees in slasher media.
- There is some contradiction about when exactly the massacre took place. A calendar in Hatchet III implies that it took place in the middle of February 2007, while missing persons posters in Victor Crowley imply that it took place from February 24-26 of that year.