Hatchet II

When I was doing the film club for final girl last time we were going over Frozen. While doing so a lot of the reviewers went over his earlier movie "Hatchet." The response was fairly mixed. About half felt it was a fast, fun, and entertaining slice of "old fashioned" slasher movies. The others felt it was cheap, dumb, and cliched. I enjoyed the movie myself but it was certainly dumb and cliched in parts but that was a large part what slasher films were. Well now there's a sequel and in the first five minutes someone is being strangled by his own large intestines. If you can't get behind that, then don't even bother to rent this.

The plot is right after the first film. The Final Girl goes back to Reverand Zombie (Played with oiled smoothness by Tony Todd) for answers to last night's massacre. The Rev gives the back story to the vengeful murdering ghost in the swamp. Then they decide to take matters in their own hand. Before you can say "Don't go back!" they have formed a posse of equal parts bad asses and jerk offs and head off into the swamp. Added to the happy group is the Final Girl's Uncle, and the cowardly brother of the pilot of last night's ill fated tour boat.

What happens next is a lot of people die. And they don't die easy. Belt sanders are used. Big Chainsaws are employed as testicle cleavers. Even unarmed Victor Crowley is handy enough to rip out jaws and squash heads with abandon. Was there an ulterior plan to the Rev's posse? Will the Final Girl luck out twice? You'll have to watch and find out.

Like nearly every sequel it's not as good as the first. But it does try to have a character or two you can root for. It moves along fast. And it does certainly engage the viewer's interest.