Horror Movie Review: The Mad Hatter (2021)

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?

Imagine that. A film based on the titular character from Alice in Wonderland, but redesigned as a horror character ala Winnie the Pooh. Except that’s not what The Mad Hatter is about, sadly, even though some subtle references suggest otherwise.

From director Cate Devaney, who co-wrote the story with R.V. Romero and Armando Gutierrez, comes The Mad Hatter, a supernatural story about a deviant hat maker who died in a fire and a group of students who are spending the weekend in his stately mansion. It’s a tale as old as time, with cliches at every single turn.

Professor Hart (Armando Gutierrez) studies the paranormal, specifically how it affects people and their surroundings. He is taking four of his students to the mansion of Fredrick Williams, a rich hatmaker who lived in the 19th century and was infamous for his scandalous parties. Alas, one night during one of these parties, his daughter started a fire and everyone inside died, including the hat maker. Now, the mansion is said to be haunted and Professor Hart figures this would be a great place to test some theories out with his four students, Henry (Samuel Caleb Walker), Chelsey (Isadora Cruz), Val (Rachel Brunner) and Ian (Nick Miller).

Guess what? Ghosts and things. A creepy mansion. An unusual caretaker (Michael Berryman) and character twists that are as predictable as they are boring, and they’re really boring. It’s not the fault of the cast who are all fine, they’re simply playing caricatures of stupid young adults in a supernatural horror film. Not only have we seen them a thousand times before, we’ve seen them in better films and with more defined aspects.

It’s not just the characters that are cliché-ridden trash though, so is the story. A wholly unremarkable experience that sets such a low bar at the start, and then still manages to trip over it several times as it plays out. Come the end of the film, most will have mentally checked out, especially as The Mad Hatter’s scares are laughable and the low budget means the ghostly action is awkward, rather than scary. It’s not a pretty film at the best of times, but at the worst, it’s am ugly mess.

In the end, you’ll likely have more fun trying to work out the answer to the actual Mad Hatter’s infamous riddle ‘Why is a raven like a writing-desk?’ then watching this film.