Marybeth escapes the clutches of the bayou-butcher Victor Crowley and returns to the swamp with an army of hunters and gunmen, determined to end Crowley's reign of horror once and for all.
Hatchet II is a 2010 American slasher film written and directed by Adam Green. It is the sequel to Green's film, Hatchet. Picking up right where the first film ended,
First, let me start off by saying that I liked the original Hatchet very much. It was a fun, if cheesy, return to the glory days of American slashers in the early 80s with surprising good special effects and a relative cast of unknowns acting their hearts out. The sequel *probably* could have been something awesome. But it is far from fucking awesome.
Seeking vengeance for her family's murders, Marybeth strikes up a deal with Zombie: He'll have his assistant Justin (Parry Shen; playing the brother of the character he played in the original) organize a posse of hunters if she gets her uncle to come along on the expedition. Marybeth comes through on her end of the deal by convincing her Uncle Bob to come, as does the Reverend, who's able to convince a handful of people to accompany them by promising 500 dollars just for coming and an additional 5000 for anyone who's able to "kill" Crowley. Kill a ghost? Yeah, I know. R.A. Mihailoff and AJ Bowen are among those along for the ride. The gang take their boats deep into the swamp where they're slaughtered in various ridiculous ways by the hulking, monstrous Crowley.
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| Victor Crowley Lives Again |
Director and creator Adam Green was really trying to shock with this one. I think he's missing the point of the gory, gruesome and creative kills in classic slashers like Halloween and Friday the 13th. They were subtle and disturbing and this just a gorefest. The kills are ridiculous and the constant and very cheesy bucket of blood splattering on whatever surface happens to be available is not effective and just poorly done. It was okay in the first one when it happened once but to see it happen a few times is too many. The kill in the first film where the guy is strangled with his own intestines was ridiculous, well time that by 50 in this one. Every kill is shocking certainly but it makes you lose focus on the film. The killing really doesn't start until well into the film but that's not so bad because they really do work at establishing the history of Crowley and the other characters. Overall, its an adequate slasher flick but definitely down in quality from the original film.
Horror icon Kane Hodder is one of the few people that reprises his role. He plays Victor Crowley, and does it with loads of makeup and energy. Hodder has most always been the highlight of every film he was in, and is probably the best person who ever sunk his feet in Jason Voorhees' shoes.
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| Hold on to all of your pieces. |
The acting in Hatchet 2 was okay. Not amazing, but not horrible. On the whole, despite (VERY) inventive kills and suspense, isn't good enough to be memorable. its not that it is bad it is just uninteresting.
Trvia:
The unrated version of the movie was shown in 60 theaters on its debut weekend across the United States & Canada. Most of the theaters were unaware of the extent of the violence and vile content in the film, and nearly all of the theaters had stopped playing the movie by Monday morning.
It was reported on the horror websites that a crew member quit on day 2 due to "moral reasons" with what was taking place within the scene
The crew is almost entirely the same crew who made Hatchet 1, one of Green's stipulations for whether or not he would return at the helm for Hatchet 2.
According to the horror website Bloody-Disgusting.com, Hatchet 2's final tally of fake blood used in the making of the film is 136 gallons. That's 81 gallons more and more than double the amount used in the making of Hatchet 1, which reportedly used 55 gallons of fake blood.
The first horror movie to be theatrically released unrated in mainstream cinemas across the United States since George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) over 32 years earlier. When the MPAA kept giving Hatchet II an NC-17 rating with each submission, the filmmakers decided to circumvent them and go straight to a major cinema chain and show them the film. When AMC theaters saw the uncut movie they loved it. Then, after hearing just how much of the violence would have to be cut out to get an R rating by the ratings board, AMC agreed to release Hatchet II in their theaters unrated. However, they later pulled the film from their theaters when it was released for only a few days.
Adam Green, Kane Hodder, R.A. Mihailoff and Rick McCallum are all members of the paranormal investigation group Hollywood Ghost Hunters.
To keep details under wraps, even the crew did not receive copies of the script and the majority of cast only received select pages. Fake scripts, fake endings, and fake story lines were circulated around the industry and no visitors or guests were allowed near the set.
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| Our fearless group of idiots go back into the swamp |
While most every store, rental and streaming carrier will carry Hatchet 2 in the director's theatrical unrated cut, Red Box insisted on the distributor creating an R-rated version that has most every death scene taken out of the film. Adam Green's comment to press was that he looks at it no differently than when a film has to be edited for television or airplane rentals and does not blame Dark Sky for censoring the film for Red Box. Hatchet 2 only had ratings problems in the United States of America, further supporting the filmmaker's claims that the ratings board here was being unfair.
Cameo: The character Parker O'Neil from Adam Green's movie Frozen is seen briefly on the TV in Reverend Zombie's voodoo shop speaking to news cameras about her lawsuit and settlement against the ski mountain from the film.
In each of the 3 Hatchet films someone says the line, "You've got to be fucking kidding me." In this film it's Tony Todd's character.
During one scene a guy mentions "Jason Vorhees" when they discuss "who is Victor Crowley". Jason Vorhees is an another killer and mysterious bogeyman with supernatural powers performed by Kane Hodder, who plays Victor Crowley and Victor Crowley's father in this movie.
During the meeting when Tony Todd is offering the bounty one character mentions Jason Vorhees. He then also mentions he comes from the town of Echo Falls and that town's urban legend is known as Lesley Vernon - a reference to the film 'Behind the Mask - The Rise of Lesley Vernon'.
To accommodate his promotional duties for the film Frozen (2010), Adam Green needed to split the shooting schedule into two parts.
In Canada, the film was scheduled to play in Toronto and Montreal theaters on October 1, 2010. However, because the film was not rated by the cities' provincial rating agencies, the theaters were threatened with fines if it still played and, thus, it was pulled from release. On Twitter, Adam Green referred to the occurrence as "sad".
The R-rated version of the film that Dark Sky Films created for Red Box rentals is missing close to 2 full minutes of gore/violence that the MPAA insisted they pull out. Director Adam Green is not happy about that version but has stated that he supports Dark Sky's decision and understands why they had to do it for that one outlet. Green has publicly stated that those who feel the film's stance on staying unrated for theaters was a "publicity stunt" should compare this R-rated version to understand just how severely the MPAA was trying to castrate the film and change the tone of it. All other retail outlets supported Green's claims when they agreed to carry the film Unrated in their stores. They felt there was nothing that offensive about the film in the first place and that it never should have been given an NC-17 like the MPAA tried to give it to keep it out of mainstream theaters.
"Hatchet II" marked the first of Adam Green's films where his name was credited above the title ("Adam Green's Hatchet II") and the film was written, directed, and executive produced by Green.
If you watch all three "Hatchet" movies in a row without opening and end credits, it would be one uninterupted storyline, revolving around a few days.
The final draft of the script is dated December 7, 2009. The cast gathered for a table reading on December 15, 2009.
Adam Green: Appears vomiting on the sidewalk at the end of the opening credits, reprising his role as one of Ben and Marcus' friends from the first film.
