Fantastic Fest 2010 Review: ‘HATCHET II’

In 2006, I remember horror conventions and my West Coast and East Coast horror friends talking about a new ultra violent slasher film called Hatchet. At that point of time, the director, Adam Green, had only directed a low budget comedy 6 years prior called Coffee & Donuts. So, I was a little surprised to hear this film being talked about as a MUST SEE for horror fans. Now, Green has a few notches in his bloody belt and after some initial concern that he would not be returning to the film that birthed his career in blood, he in fact returns to the director’s chair to deliver the sequel to his 2006 film Hatchet.

Hatchet II picks up right where its predecessor left off. Marybeth (who is now played better by Danielle Harris) escapes the swamp inhabited by Victor Crowley (played by Kane Hodder) to try to find help in town to finally kill Crowley and seek revenge on her father’s death. She joins forces with Reverend Zombie (reprised by Tony Todd) and they both gather hunters and/or people who would like a nice cash reward to destroy the boogeyman of the swamp, Victor Crowley.

If you have seen Hatchet, you either love or hate it. I was always somewhere inbetween. I love the audaciousness of it. The gore and the kills were not only inventive but so crazy that not a lot of films do that anymore. It is a party movie, in my opinion. It’s a film you want to see with a crowd. However, I felt that comedic aspects of the original film were awful. It felt like a cheesy sitcom. The jokes fell flat and I really didn’t care about many of the characters as I was more anxious in seeing them die than actually live. When I looked more and more at it, it seemed like a great FX reel for someone to show as long as you fast forwarded the boring (story) parts.

I’m happy to say that if you loved Hatchet, Green does no wrong. The kills are still inventive, even if a few seem sort of dull because the first one was so off the wall. The red stuff flies like a broken fire hydrant on a hot summer day and Harris looks as beautiful as ever. On the surface, which is probably how you looked at the first one and didn’t give a shit about the characters, it is everything you want. For those that didn’t like Hatchet, especially for the reasons I mentioned about dealing with the comeic aspects, you will be surprised. Either Green listened to the naysayers – even though in our interview, he didn’t seem to care what those people thought – or he knew that there was some improvements to be made in that department. His funny “token black guy” this time around is a guy named Vernon who is played Colton Dunn – whose comedic background hails from Boom Chicago. The dude is hilarious. He alone fixes everything that was wrong with the original. His comedic timing, remarks and retorts are spot on and feel organic. Also, you will see some familiar faces aside from Harris and Tony Todd like Tom Holland (Director of Fright Night), AJ Bowen and glorified cameos featuring stuntman Rick McCallum, former Leatherface R.A. Mihailoff, and special effects man (who worked on the original Hatchet) John Carl Buechler.

Storywise, there isn’t much here that adds to the Victor Crowley yarn with the exception on his past and history. There is a scene with Hodder that explains how Victor was born and the troubled past leading up to that birth.

All in all, Hatchet II is more of an bombastic upgrade of the original film that brings the blood in by the gallons. Green has really grown as a director in adapting the elements that make up one of the bloodiest slasher films in the past 10 years.

Check out my interview with Adam Green, Danielle Harris and Kane Hodder from Fantastic Fest 2010.

Hatchet II will be available on December 1, 2010 on VOD for Time Warner and Comcast customers.