Danielle Harris gets a Hatchet facial
(2010) Horror (Dark Sky) Danielle Harris, Tony Todd, Kane Hodder, A.J. Bowen, Tom Holland, R.A. Mihailoff, Alexis Peters, Parry Shen, Kathryn Fiore, Ed Ackerman, David Foy, Colton Dunn, Rick McCallum, John Carl Buechler, Erika Hamilton. Directed by Adam Green
One of the things I liked about slasher films from the 70s and 80s is that they had everything in them an adolescent boy could ask for – sex, chainsaws, pretty girls, disfigured killers and no plot whatsoever. Just a string of murders that were hopefully somewhat imaginative.
The first Hatchet was a tribute to those films and in its own way was fairly clever and inventive. It didn’t possess a particularly original premise but for those who hadn’t seen many of the films of the slasher variety this was all new and wonderful. It had a pretty decent cast as well.
The sequel picks up at the precise moment the last film left off. Marybeth (Harris, but who was portrayed by Tamara Feldman in the first movie) has escaped from the clutches of Victor Crowley (Hodder), the deformed serial killer on the bayou who massacred Marybeth’s entire family.
She makes her way to the cabin of Jack Cracker (Buechler) who at first takes the hysterical girl in, but once he finds out her last name he sends her packing, telling her to see Brother Voodoo….er, Reverend Zombie (Todd) if she wants help. Victor Crowley arrives just after Marybeth departs and sends ol’ Jack Cracker to join the Choir Invisible in a rather inventive and nasty way.
After Marybeth makes it back to civilization, she confronts Reverend Zombie who tells her that Victor Crowley’s father Thomas (also Hodder) had an affair with Lena (Hamilton), the nurse of Thomas’ wife who was dying of cancer. She finds out about the affair and on her deathbed curses the child. The child is born deformed and Lena dies in childbirth.
Young Victor is the object of fear and ridicule and eventually a trio of schoolkids, including Marybeth’s father and her Uncle Bob (Holland) set a fire in which Victor is killed. A disconsolate Thomas becomes a recluse, confronting the parents of the teens who deny their involvement. He dies some years later, bitter and alone.
Marybeth isn’t content to let things lay the way they are, so she determines to have Zombie take her back into the swamp with a heavily armed escort to retrieve the remains of her family. What Marybeth doesn’t know is that Zombie has an agenda of his own, and her well-being isn’t necessarily a part of the plan.
Whereas the first movie was nonstop action and horror, this one had frequent lulls and breaks in the action which derailed the mood entirely. Green, who directed both the first film and the sequel, was also making Frozen at the time and I get the sense that his full attention wasn’t on this film.
Looking up at the cast of this film, there are a surprising number of familiar names, from Buechler (who directed a number of low-budget horror films in the 80s) to Hodder (a former Jason Voorhees) to Todd (the Candyman himself) and Holland (who directed the original Fright Night). Most of them aren’t known for their acting, although Todd has had a number of fine performances over the years. He’s really the best performer here.
There is nearly twice as much blood here than in the first movie (literally; they measured it) and a lot of icky, gruesome demises. There isn’t much sex (although there is a couple who get busy during the course of the movie under circumstances that could charitably be called “poor decisions”) which the movie could have used more of. Also, Harris was somewhat uninspiring as the lead, which isn’t entirely her fault; the character doesn’t have a whole lot of sense or strength. Most of the time she seems to be looking to others to protect her or guide her. I prefer my scream queens to do more than just scream.
That’s not to say this is a terrible film – it’s not. Despite the lapses in pacing, the movie works well when it does work. Some of the murders are nice and excessive (the first one of Jack Cracker is particularly gruesome, a real Grand Guignol masterpiece) but Victor Crowley, other than the John Merrick look-alike make-up doesn’t really distinguish himself from other supernaturally-based serial killers here. We’ve seen this kind of thing before; and quite frankly, I think it could use a little more spice to liven it up now.
WHY RENT THIS: If you like the slasher film genre of the 70s and 80s, this is for you. Plenty of ghoulish deaths and lots of blood and gore for the aficionados.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Not enough sex. Lots of down time between murders. The plot meanders a little bit.
FAMILY VALUES: Well obviously there’s a whole lot of violence and gore; there’s also some nudity and sexuality, as well as a fair amount of cursing.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: When the MPAA insisted on giving the movie an NC-17 rating, the filmmakers and distributor decided to release it unrated. Executives at AMC Theaters managed to view a screening copy and loved the film, deciding to allow the movie to be shown as is in their theaters. However, they pulled it from their theaters after just a few days without any explanation.
NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $52,604 on an unreported production budget; I can’t imagine that it did anything but lose money.
FINAL RATING: 5/10
TOMORROW: Puss in Boots
Cinema365 