Friday, February 11, 2011

Hatchet / Hatchet II

Written & Directed by:  Adam Green
Starring:  Kane Hodder, Joel Moore, Danielle Harris, Tamara Feldman, Deon Richmond, Tony Todd


Back to reviewing true splatter films, I've decided to watch Hatchet I & II back to back, clocking in at a total of 173 minutes, which is still shorter than any of the homo-erotic Lord of the Rings crapfests (and don't even get me started on the EXTENDED cuts!).  While no modern movie classics, they are serviceable for what they are.

It's not a remake. It's not a sequel.
And it's not based on a Japanese one.


The first Hatchet movie takes place in New Orleans during Marti Gras.  Ben (Joel Moore, Grandma's Boy and Avatar) gets sick of all the beer, beads, and boobs (ahhh the killer B's) so he decides to go off and take a haunted swamp tour.  Feeling bad, Marcus (Deon Richmond, Token Black Guy) reluctantly decides to join him on the tour.  Eventually, the tour boat gets stuck on a rock and starts sinking, forcing the patrons to abandon ship.  Unfortunately for them, they get stranded right in local legend Victor Crowley's backyard.  Victor (Kane Hodder, aka Jason) is a deformed mutant-man who effortlessly dispatches each character one by one, and does so all the way into and through the sequel.

Plot wise, it is not horribly original, but the death scenes definitely are.  You'll see plenty of people brutally chopped in half, as well as countless limbs being ripped off with ease.  The over-the-top violence and campy dialogue makes this film an enjoyable way to spend an evening.  It doesn't take itself serious, which is the best thing about Hatchet, but that's what also keeps it from truly being great. 


Total Score:  6/10
Buckets:  4.5/5


Moving on to the sequel, Hatchet II finally made its way onto home video after AMC and the MPAA date-raped Adam Green's hope of making any money on it.  I was hoping for more, but it was a typical horror sequel.  (SPOILER ALERT!!!) This movie takes place literally the second after the first one ended.  It follows Marybeth, the main female character from the first film, although actress Tamara Feldman has been replaced by the insanely annoying and inferior Danielle Harris (H2).  She goes back into town and collects a group of redneck hunters lead by Reverend Zombie (Tony Todd, Candyman) to go track down and kill Victor Crowly, and to bring the bodies of her brother and father back home.  Turns out things don't go as smoothly as planned (shocker).

It is a sequel, and it follows those rules.
As a sequel, I expected what most sequels offer: a bigger budget, more characters, higher body count, more blood, and most importantly, not being as good as the original.  You can check every one of those off the list because Adam Green sticks to that recipe here, but its not all bad.  Hatchet II has the highest on-screen body count of any slasher film in history, coming in at a whopping 17.  Knowing this, it didn't surprise me that 136 gallons of fake blood was used during filming (compared to 'only' 55 gallons in the original).  Adam Green consulted his death scene playbook often in this film and no page was left unturned.  Victor Crowley uses killing techniques from ripping a severed torso out of its skin all the way to giving a guy a lesson on how NOT to motorboat something.  If death scenes are all that matter to you, then you can pencil this into your queue immediately.

If acting is what interests you in horror movies, then move along, nothing to see here.  Danielle Harris is distractingly horrible in this.  Everything from her constant crying to her nonstop Ace Ventura-esque cocked eyebrow just made me wish she would hurry up and suffer her fate from Rob Zombie's H2.  Unfortunately, we have to deal with her to the bitter end, which is probably the best scene in the movie.

Total Score:  4.5/10
Buckets:  5/5


In conclusion, the Hatchet series has its ups and downs.  At times it is very enjoyable and funny, while at other times its quite cringe-worthy (and not because someone got their jaw ripped out).  Adam Green clearly had fun making these, and could probably make endless sequels to them.  Hopefully he doesn't and uses his talents on more original material, like Frozen (which had a nice little reference in the film).  Since both films are very short, I'd recommend seeing them.  If you had to pick only one to watch, then I'd easily say the first one.  Its better in pretty much every way, unless all you want to see is the worlds biggest chainsaw.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Frozen

Written & Directed by:  Adam Green
Starring:  Shawn Ashmore, Emma Bell, and Kevin Zegers


While Snowpocalypse was in full swing last week, I decided to have another viewing of Adam Green's Frozen.  Seemed fitting, watching a movie about 3 people freezing their asses off while I sat in my warm bed and watched the blizzard out my window.

Don't Look Down!
 Frozen is commonly compared to another stranded film, Open Water, except it is much better.  One of the things I liked most about it is that it has something new to offer, a ski horror film.  Having been skiing since I was a little kid, it immediately caught my attention since the idea of it has always been in the back of my head.  It is about 2 best friends, Dan and Lynch, who take their annual 'guys weekend' to go skiing.  Dan (Kevin Zegers, Dawn of the Dead) decides to take his girlfriend on the trip, Parker (Emma Bell), much to the chagrin of Lynch (Shawn Ashmore, X-Men Trilogy).  Since they spend all day babysitting awful Parker, they decide to make one last run while the mountain was closing.  After some confusion, a new lift operator comes in and shuts down the ski lift while the gang is still on it, hanging high off the ground.  Knowing the mountain is closed for the next 5 days, they must decide how to get down or freeze to death.

Once they get stuck on the lift, ideas start going through your head immediately about how they should get down.  One could argue they didn't always make the right choices, but I usually give people in life-or-death situations the benefit of the doubt.  This movie does a good job at putting you in their position, freezing alone up in a mountain with limited options to survive.  Another thing I liked about this movie is that they filmed on location.  It made it seem so much more real that they were actually on a ski lift while it was constantly snowing and hailing.  Kudos to Adam Green for this, since I don't think it would have had the same effect in a green room with CGI snow.

Speaking of Adam Green, the man has a good sized cult following after making Hatchet I & II.  While I didn't enjoy the first movie as much as others did, I have slightly higher hopes for the sequel (which is currently in my queue).  Hatchet II had a controversial release last year, the MPAA refused to lower it to an R-rating, so he had to release it to theaters as an Unrated cut.  After only 3 days, AMC Theaters decided to pull it from all their screens without even telling Mr. Green.  Needless to say, he was upset and is not in good terms with the MPAA or AMC.  Good thing you can always count on AMC to show trash like The Roommate (opening at 5% on Rotten Tomatoes)!

The acting was good for a horror movie as well.  Kevin Zegers plays a decent pretty boy in Dan, while Shawn Ashmore nails the pot-head who longs for a girlfriend.  Emma Bell is probably the weakest of the bunch, but still not as bad as most female leads in horror movies.  In fact, she is going to star in Final Destination 5 (should have stopped at 2). 

I would recommend this movie to horror fans, or anyone who has ever been skiing/snowboarding and wondered what would happen if they got stuck on the lift.  There is a little amount of blood and gore, but not much.  What do you expect out of a movie that has only 3 people in it?  Overall, the production value was great and the acting was good.  While taking place in only 1 spot for the majority of the movie, it does a good job at not boring you to death.  It is one of those movies where you can easily put yourself into their shoes and think about what you would do if you were in that situation.  The reviewer for Blu-Ray.com calls it 'one of the scariest movies ever made,' which is going a bit far, but it is definitely worth checking out, especially on a miserable winter day.  Is it summer yet?


Total Score:  6/10
Buckets: 1.5/5