6.2 | / 10 |
Users | 3.5 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.1 |
Marybeth escapes the clutches of the deformed, swamp-dwelling iconic killer Victor Crowley. After learning the truth about her family's connection to the hatchet-wielding madman, Marybeth returns to the Louisiana swamps along with an army of hunters to recover the bodies of her family and exact the bloodiest revenge against the bayou butcher.
Starring: Danielle Harris, Tony Todd, Kane Hodder, Parry Shen, R.A. MihailoffHorror | 100% |
Thriller | 39% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
When the first Hatchet film debuted in 2006, the horror community at large was quick to laud writer/director Adam Green, not as a macabre visionary—twisting the genre into new grotesque forms—but rather, as an adept at appropriating the grimy tone and splatterrific practical effects wizardry of “old school American horror.” And by “old school,” I don’t mean the Universal monster movies of the 1930s. The Hatchet films are all about aping—and occasionally poking fun at—the conventions of the slasher, the teen-slaying subgenre that was born out of Black Christmas and Halloween and supposedly died by the time Wes Craven satirized its predictability in Scream. Of course, in the horror world, nothing stays dead for long. For whatever reason, the genre is entirely caught up in the idea of “homage.” With remakes, rehashes, and reboots standing often in the place of originality, old forms are revisited with exponentially diminishing returns. It’s a vicious cycle. Green did successfully try something different with his Hatchet follow-up, Frozen—a clever, suspenseful thriller about three friends trapped on a ski lift—but this leaves Hatchet II feeling like an unfortunate step backwards.
Victor Crowley
Hatchet II lurches onto Blu-ray with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that's murky and dim, although this is all part of the low-budget horror aesthetic. As with most productions of this sort, Hatchet II was shot on video—the RED camera, specifically—and sports a dark, grimy palette that keeps bright color to a minimum. Even the ever-present, perpetually spurting blood seems more crimson than Crayola. Most of the film takes place at night, and you'll notice that the image sometimes struggles to maintain a balance between black levels and shadow detail. While delineation is good, as a result, blacks are typically a soupy, noise-speckled gray. Clarity, then, isn't always as crisp as it could be during the darker scenes, but whenever there's better lighting, the picture shows more than adequate sharpness, with fine detail visible where you usually look for it—facial texture, clothing, etc. The image displays some characteristics that are common to lower-budget shot-on-video features, most notably overexposed highlights and excess noisiness, although I also spotted a some major encode/authoring problems, including a few aliasing hiccups and strange glitch around the 1:13:00 mark that appears briefly in the top right corner of the picture.
What's a horror movie without a kickass audio track, right? Thankfully, Hatchet II delivers in that department, with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that offers clarity, immersion, and plenty of burly, viscera-ripping sound effects. The mix plops you right down in the middle of a Louisiana bayou; water laps over the camera, wind blows through the trees, birds caw, and insects buzz. And this is all before you add in the grisly stuff— arterial blood spurting in the rear speakers, ghostly screams, chainsaw growls, and more. There's nothing that jumps out and screams, "Listen to how awesome this scene sounds!" but the track keeps you in the moment and on your toes. The music has plenty of presence as well, filling the soundfield and occasionally activating the LFE channel with gut-quaking bass. Dialogue, as inane as it is, remains clear and balanced throughout. A 2.0 PCM mix- down is also included on the disc, and English SDH and Spanish subtitles are available in easy-to-read white lettering.
There was a minor internet outcry last October when the "uncut and unrated" Hatchet II was pulled from 68 screens across the country just three days after its release. Much fanboy ire was directed at AMC Theaters and the MPAA, but few took into account the possibility that, well, the film just might not be very good. And it's not. Sure, gorehounds will get off on the over-the-top practical effects—which, admittedly, are extremely well done —but the kills are packaged in the kind of generic, been-done-to-death story that has turned the horror genre as a whole into a shambling corpse, endlessly treading the same old ground. Nevertheless, the film will likely find a following on home video, where it's best represented by this Blu-ray release, which features a decent high definition presentation and some solid supplements.
2013
Unrated Director's Cut
2006
Hatchet IV
2017
Collector's Edition
1978
1987
2016
2017
1984
Collector's Edition
1988
2019
Unrated Director's Cut
2009
2012
Collector's Edition
2003
2010
2009
2015
2012
1981
Limited Edition
1980
Collector's Edition
1981