I was one of the few people in Calgary who saw the original Hatchet in the theater. I found out about it when I saw a trailer on the internet and when it came to Calgary the only theater it was playing at happened to be the one closest to my home. I saw it on a week night and there were only a couple other people in the theater with me. When it started there were no commercials or trailers, the movie just started. This was a first for me. I love horror movies but usually don't expect much from them. I was amazed at how good the gore was. For an independent horror the first casualty of a small budget is the gore, but the gore in this movie was great. Victor Crowley didn't look so real, but the cast did a great job. A movie like this requires a certain amount of bad acting but not too much, and these actors were good enough to deliver. I was surprised by how much I was laughing too. When I saw Hatchet 2 was coming I couldn't wait. Now I've written a lot about the first movie because it set the bar. The sequel had the same writer and director and I would have expected a bigger budget, or at least an equal one. Old School American Horror is all about the campy gore so cutting the budget on the gore was a huge mistake. I was so disappointed, this was like watching a "made for YouTube" horror done by kids in high school. I couldn't figure out where the budget had gone but it appears to have gone to the Victor Crowley outfit because that's the only improvement. It certainly didn't go to the cast because the acting took a huge dive. Adam Green can write some funny stuff but these actors couldn't pull it off to save their lives. The budget for the first film was 1.5 million, the second film got 2.5 million, so why the downgrade? The plot was dumber but in a campy horror that can easily be compensated for with humor and gore. Subtract those elements and everything gets really boring. Adam Green is a real talent. Just check out some of his other films and you'll see he has a bright future but I sure hope he learns from his mistakes with this movie and never repeats them. Spielberg made 1941. I hope this is Adam's equivalent.
Review of Hatchet II
