|
From its stylized opening, Hatchet II begins with much better production values than its predecessor. Yet, the homage to 1980’s horror schlock remains. Adam Green’s Hatchet II picks up exactly where the original ended – except this time our lead female character from the last film, manages to survive Victor Crowley’s final submerged swamp attack. This film is her revenge. Continuing with the over-the-top gore and humor, Hatchet II isn’t perfect, but for horror aficionados, it ain’t half bad either.
With characters named Reverend Zombie (Candyman’s Tony Todd), Uncle Bob (Tom Holland, famed director and writer of Child’s Play), Marybeth (Danielle Harris, from the Halloween series who should have played this role from the beginning), Jack Cracker (director and horror make-up guru John Carl Buechler), and Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder from the Friday the 13th series), the tone of Green’s sequel has its tongue firmly in its cheek. There’s another haunted swamp tour in a better boat – more of a barge – as a new list of recruits go hunting for the crashed and abandoned boat from the first movie. In quick succession, they discover the ghost of the mutated Victor Crowley is very real and very bloody. Without realizing it, their mission – with the grand prize of $5000 for the first who captures the killer – is already fated for damnation. Even equipped with the presence of R.A. Mihailoff, who portrayed Leatherface in Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, the gang won’t survive.
Written and directed by Adam Green, Hatchet II doesn’t really test the limitations of the genre it’s paying homage to (again), but it does improve upon the really awful acting of the first. These people are dicks to each other and you’ll laugh at the redneck flavor of the swamp-soaked antics, but to expect anything that rivals the gore days of Hollywood Horror would be a bit … excessive. It’s a tried and true slasher film with lots of blood and even more boobs than the original. Still, the kills are hysterical – with some being drawn out so much that they become an inspired bit of humor.
Green and Co’s sick and twisted sensibilities are stamped all over this flick; the dialogue is horribly ripe with jocular schlockiness, piss-soaked paranoia, and high school level lust and the set-ups for the multiple kills are both hysterical and predictable. The gore level is high – and when Crowley gets his hatchet stuck in the breast bone of one female hunter – you know a heavy splatter’s a-gonna fall. Essentially, nothing gets untouched by Crowley’s apocalyptic kill count ratio.
The weakness comes with Hatchet II in that it simply isn’t funny enough. There are a few references to horror classics and even a great call out to Green’s own Frozen (a film you simply HAVE to see), but there’s not enough humor to keep the suspense at play as the sole reason to keep watching. It has to be a balancing act and maybe only director Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, Drag Me to Hell, Darkman) can master that act.
There’s a reason this violent fun-fest went unrated and stayed that way in theatres for a little under a week before it got yanked. In spite of Green’s great direction, there’s also a reason why the much promised Hatchet III & IV probably won’t happen with or without his involvement. As is there a reason that very few people saw either this film or its predecessor in theatres. Personally, I embrace what he's trying to do and I hope he continues mining this vein, but - while Hatchet II is better than the first - I was hoping for the humor to remain intact. Sadly, it's not as strong this time out. Hatchet II is gruesome, hysterically gnarly at times, always grisly, only for a certain type of audience, and, ultimately, just barely escapes from being a bit of a sudsy sequel overkill.
MPAA Rating: R for strong bloody horror violence, sexual content, nudity and language. (edited version)
