Hatchet II

I'd say the first half of Hatchet 2 is a bit sillier and even campier than the first, but the films last half-hour really makes up for it.

THis is one seriously gory flick. It's gorier than the original, and funnier than the original. It might actually be better than the original, but it's an awfully tight race.

Adam Green still has me on the edge of my seat waiting for his next horror project. Guess I'll have to wait for the DVD release of Hatchet 3 next month - even though he didn't direct.

Hatchet 2 is a little better than the original on the acting/cast front as well. In the original we see a bunch of undeveloped boobs getting knocked-off left and right. Here, there's a little more substance to who's getting their heads ripped off.

This thing gets pretty intense down the stretch. Thumbs up.

I love Hatchet, I think it one of best slasher movies to come out in the last few years.

I really wanted to love this movie, the gore was good and some really good nasty gory deaths scenes, Victor did not look that scary this time around.

I Really hate it when sequels recast one of the main characters in movie, (It did not work in A Nigthmare on elm street 4 and it did not work in this movie for me) I liked the old Marybeth better as I have seen her in 8 Simple Rules and USA High and then they replace her with the girl in this movie.

New recast sucked all the fun out of this movie for me, it took me to long to get used to her playing Marybeth.

Gory sequel. no were near as good as the first movie.

I was dying to see this movie from the start of this years, I was saying I going to give this 10 out of 10 When come out but ended up giving it disappointing 5 out of 10 :(

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.

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.

I really enjoyed the first HATCHET film, which perfectly captured the spirit of a 1980s-era slasher film. It was replete with funny characters and dialogue, great prosthetic effects, and a wonderfully old-fashioned atmosphere and feel. So where did it all go wrong for this sequel? Well, it appears to have been written on the fly, with a storyline that copies EXACTLY the same plot as the first film: a group visit the bayous in the middle of the night, with the twist that they're now out to hunt down and destroy the supernatural killer Victor Crowley. Hell, they even bring back Parry Shen, whose character died in the first movie (by virtue of him playing the guy's twin brother).

Everything that sparkled about the first film has gone in HATCHET II, to be replaced by a boring script and a dearth of imagination. The gore effects are more extreme but at the same time sillier and with worse effects, and somehow Kane Hodder's killer just doesn't look as frightening. He looks goofy, like an alien from a 1980s movie, whereas in the first film he was kept in the shadows a lot and all the more frightening for it.

Finally, Danielle Harris is a poor replacement for the original actress. The one good thing this has going for it is a substantial part for Tony Todd, who merely cameoed in the first movie. Todd is great, but it's not enough to lift the film to greatness. My favourite thing about this? Emma Bell's cameo, which is a lovely reference for anyone who's seen and enjoyed the director's FROZEN.