Hatchet II

With 80's slashers, their effect on me is actually relaxing. We have a bunch of characters who the filmmaker generally deems worthless (except a few, who make it to the end) so that we don't have to actually invest anything until their inconsequential deaths, clear, simple-minded notions of good and evil, and contrived mechanisms that explain them away (the evil presence is usually described by some kind of simplified trauma). None of this happens in real life, so none of this actually has potential to breach the divide and actually unsettle. It's a movie fantasy, one oddly espousing deeply conservative values (prudence is generally rewarded) that fly in the face of the crowd that avidly sees them.

Like the first Hatchet, this is a knowingly cartoonish version of this. The deaths are delightfully absurd. At some point the baddie in this, Vincent Crowley, shows up with a chainsaw six feet long. The film knows what part it plays in the tradition and has fun with it.

What is actually problematic about these films is that, for all the parody, they still posit themselves as straight slasher films. It doesn't work, the hackneyed plot above all where a band of mercenaries is hastily assembled to venture into the bayou. Or what they aim to do once there.

The Japanese as usual are more savvy about this kind of thing. In films like The Machine Girl, they put together all kinds of cultural stamps they have produced and obsessed over the years (video games, anime, martial arts, extreme violence, erotica) and obliterate one against the other.

Here, I assume the filmmaker doesn't have a grasp of how the pastiche can be made to work. Probably because he doesn't understand or care to anything other than this kind of film. The splatter works, what's around it not so much.

After a very brief, derivative and clumsy justification for heading back to the swamp involving a young woman named Mary-Beth (Danielle Harris) looking for her family with a kooky sightseeing operator named Reverend Zombie (Tony Todd) back into Crowley's territory we go, along with fresh meat in the form of hired muscle being paid $500 per head, with a bonus to the guy who takes down Crowley.

Only as we see quite frequently in the latter half of the film, Crowley is not an easybeat, at near 7 foot, with a mangled face, huge guns and the ability to take a shotgun blast to the chest without wincing, it would have taken a lot more than five hundred clams to get me in the same state – let alone the same dark and gloomy swamp.

Victor is unstoppable, he is everywhere and can seemingly get anywhere instantaneously. He also has a bunch of toys that he utilises to disembowel, eviscerate, decapitate, violate and penetrate victims that number into the double digits.

No problem there of course this is a psycho killer flick. The problem is the lack of creativity used: victims inch about nervously, do the "did you hear that?" and stand awaiting their violent demise. There are no traps, no clever sleight of hand or tricks, Victor shows up in plain view – shows them his weapon du jour and uses it on them.

If it's a hatchet he hatchets them, a chainsaw? Saw 'em in half. A sander? Hello abrasions. The victims don't even fight back 90% of the time, they stand still and take their medicine like guys in a bad kung fu movie.

What makes that even worse is that I guarantee Mr Adam Green spent more time on the kills than he did coming up with the threadbare backstory and lousy plot, so you just expect more. Let's face it, after the first Nightmare on Elm St each sequel for a decade was exactly the same, you only watched them for the kill scenes and to see what ridiculous quips Freddy would come up with.

Victor doesn't talk, and his kill scenes suck. Even a few gratuitous boobies don't make the rest worth a glance.

It started off quite different to the first; after spending some time explaining things about the killer however, things returned to campy slasher territory.

This time, Tony Todd takes hunters into the woods so the cast consists of older people mostly.

Perhaps because of watching many films commissioned by sci-fi channel I was familiar with films that featured gun-toting guys without much personality and I was surprised when the hunters had varying oddball personalities. Obviously bloody deaths occur. Basically its a film where descriptions can't substitute for watching it. It's highly entertaining though.

There wasn't much difference between this sequel and the first movie. Pretty much the exact same thing happens. This time the girl, Mary Beth, whom survived the first night is back to return to the swamp with Rev Zombie's help for a really stupid reason: to bring back the bodies of her family. So Zombie gathers a crew and they go to the swamp that night. Zombie has a plan to put an end to Crowley's ghost.

Do plans ever work with freaky killers-No! So you get more blood and gore and skulls bashed in, plus some faces cut off.

FINAL VERDICT: If you never have your fill of slasher films, check it out.

Hatchet II finds itself starting literally where the previous one left off. However, very noticeable changes are all too apparent in nearly every aspect of the movie, besides the outrageous gore. Marybeth has been recast and while I like Danielle Harris, I have to agree with others on saying it took basically the whole movie to figure out the character. When a character get's recast, the actor is likely not going to play them the same way and Harris' performance was different than Feldman's. Marybeth also seemed different from the previous movie since she was a strong female character, but is now more of a crybaby who needs men to save her. The change in Crowley's makeup is also clearly different and it was not as good. Now before you go all crazy and get upset at me, take a look at my Hatchet review, I enjoyed that movie a great deal. The first movie was humorous, did not take itself too serious and had characters that while stereotypical for a horror movie, you cared about most of them. Unfortunately, this sequel does not hold up to the original and it's a real shame considering I wanted to like this one just as much. Now, I don't hate it at all, but I just don't feel that it was a good movie, let alone a sequel. I am disappointed with Adam Green because he did such a good job with Hatchet and Frozen, yet this movie feels rushed and cheaply done. There is not as much humor in this one, unless you want to count the gore that is pretty ridiculous. I think where the first movie was something made just for the people who love those corny 80's slashers; this sequel is more for people who enjoy non-stop vicious gore. Don't get me wrong, it's not all the gore that makes this movie a bad second installment. It's the fact that they seemed to think up a dozen disgusting murders and build a movie around it. You pretty much hate or don't know most of the characters in this movie, so when their time comes, it doesn't matter. There is even a montage of flashbacks that shows several other people who were victims of Victor Crowley and they all suffer grotesque deaths.

The whole set up of the sequel is also a bit far-fetched. Marybeth's entire world has just been flipped upside down and she was nearly ripped to pieces by a deranged ghost-creature, yet she is willing to risk her life to go back to find him. I also find it strange that so many locals who know about the cursed swamps would actually go there all in the hopes that a well-known con-artist will pay them each $5,000. Green should have just kept Marybeth in the swamp and had a group of campers or tourists stumble onto her. I'm on the fence with the fact that they added an origin story to Victor Crowley and gave a reason for why Marybeth is connected to him. Most horror movies that try to go back and give an origin story for the villain usually end up being pretty bad, just look at Halloween 6. I wouldn't say it was a total fail because it was slightly interesting and for some reason it reminded me a little of Pumpkinhead. Some cameos you will undoubtedly notice are Mercedes McNab, Joleigh Fioravanti and Joel Murray (though it's only his voice). For anyone who saw Adam Green's other movie, Frozen, you might notice an Easter egg involving Emma Bell. If you haven't seen Frozen yet then I suggest you do that, great thriller. Shawn Ashmore and Joe Lynch also have some small cameos, so keep an eye out or you might miss them.

I guess Hatchet II could have been worse, though it's definitely not memorable like original. Some of the murders definitely stand out, but it's not an amazing sequel like many people are saying. I consider myself a big horror fan and it was only okay for me, but that is my opinion and others will have their own as well.