Hatchet II (2010)

Why so much hype?

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Imo the first hatchet was terrible, relied too heavily on kills, bad characters apart from reverend zombie, marcus and that asian tour guide dude ( can't remember his name, sorry ). But this movie proved me wrong, it had a better story, better acting, a better direction, and better characters. My one major problem with this movie is victors design, he looks kind of stupid ( not that the first was any better ). Vernon, you will be missed

This film is the sequel to the 2006 movie, Hatchet; no surprise there. Kane Hodder and Tony Todd reprise their roles, but Danielle Harris replaces Tamara Feldman as Marybeth.Marybeth was in Honey Island Swamp, and barely escapes the wrath of Victor Crowley. Her father and brother were not so lucky. She's saved by a swamp scavenger, who proceeds to kick her out after he finds that she is from the Dunston family. The scavenger tells her to have the Reverend Zombie explain everything.She gets a long explanation from Zombie, who was a friend of her father's. Her father and two friends did the prank that resulted in Victor Crowley's death. They decide to mount a party of local hunters to clear the area and recover the bodies of the brother and father. Zombie offers 500 just for going on the expedition. Also, the expedition might lead to opening the Swamp for legal gator hunting, and legal swamp tours by Zombie's company.Once the group is deep in the swamp at night, they try to figure out a plan. Sigh. To increase incentives, to whomever brings back the head of Victor Crowley, Zombie offers 5000 USD. Zombie has a 'secret' plan that he thinks will quell the curse.Then the elimination derby begins. This one is of the gorefest, slasher type.Will anyone survive this? Will the Reverend's plan work?------Scores------Cinematography: 6/10 Not too bad, but never really fine.Sound: 9/10 One of the better parts of the film.Acting: 4/10 The usual for low budget elimination derbies. Danielle Harris was not in her best form. Tony Todd was good. Most of the others were not. I do wish they had hired an accent coach.Screenplay: 4/10 Simple plot, but it does have a beginning, a middle, and an end.SFX: 4/10 Lots of splatter, lots of fake internal organs. Not much of it was very convincing.

As a life-long Jason Voorhees fan, I'm sad to say, his all-but Twin N the Swamps, Victor Crowley would win any battle between the two. Though, it may take an extra couple of million in the budget as Kane Hodder plays both of them.Poor Adam Green. Why aren't people seeing his vision? Frozen thawed before it was barely seen and that was pretty good. The original Hatchet was a great homage to the Friday the 13th series (amongst others.) And now Hatchet II was booted out of theatres as fast as the Garbage Pail Kids were.They say it's because the movie was too gross. Granted, some scenes were just over the top, and I think that's just part of the continued homage. I've seen worse, by the way. Saw III and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, for two examples, were far worse. Hell, aside from one scene in the beginning, basically NOTHING happens, in regards to gore, for another 49 or so minutes. The movie's only 89 minutes long!To add: despite the lack of action/gore/horror in the first two acts, director (also writer) Green kept things interesting enough to push forward, thanks to horror veteran Tony Todd, who always gives a scene-stealing performance. Not to mention the comedy during the time, such as the reference of Jason Voorhees (and LESLIE VERNON – do your homework on that one for those unfamiliar) to Victor Crowley.Unfortunately, it also contains one of the WORST reasons for the heroine to go back into harm's way – usually the woods, in this case, the swamp with the most ruthless killer still on the loose. SPOILER! – Marybeth (originally played by Tamara Feldman, now by, I'm guessing wannabe scream-queen, Halloween veteran Danielle Harris) completely survived the attacks to near death more than a few times and lived to run to nearby New Orleans and tell about it.Her first objective? Oh, to go back into the unstoppable/unkillable monster's domain and reclaim her brother and father's corpses in order to bury them. Seriously? Really? Granted, she'd love to extract revenge, but I would put my Vegas odds on the person/creature 4x her body weight. It's just as well; Harris aided in killing another franchise with yet another part two even with the same roman numerals in Rob Zombie's Halloween II.OK, getting past that, we enter the realm of hillbilly revenge where the Reverend Zombie (Tony Todd, and yeah, I like that, Adam) rounds up bearded men (and the obvious blonde chick) with rounds of their own to head into the swamp with Lil Miss Marybeth to get Zombie's boat (lost in part one.) Does Zombie have ulterior motives? Obviously, but that's really not the point of the movie, is it?And full circle: the main problem with the film is the enormous amount of set-up to get to the slaughter we're all expecting (and the reason theatres banned this.) If you're into that sort of thing, once the hillbillies hit the fan, you probably won't be disappointed. And it's severely over the top – including some, what, 6 foot chainsaw?At least the pay off at the end was worth it, not to mention the whole experience is under an hour and a half. It's harmless – but, again, only if you're into the gore and splattered blood genre.

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.