It's official... thanks to her particularly grating performance in Adam Green's slasher sequel Hatchet II, Danielle Harris is now in joint No.1 position on my list of irritating horror movie actresses, sharing the not-so-coveted top spot with that other awful 'scream queen du jour', Scout Taylor-Compton (you can imagine how much I must hate Rob Zombie's Halloween movies, in which both girls appear!!!).
Sadly, it's not just Harris's incessant whining and unconvincing attempts to look scared that frustrate me about this highly anticipated sequel to tongue-in-cheek slasher Hatchet: it's the fact that director Adam Green has taken the easy route with his follow up to what was easily one of the most enjoyable scary movies of the last decade.
It was the ultra-gory kills that were a major factor in making the first film such a hit, and Hatchet II sees Green focusing on raising the body count and splatter quotient to the detriment of almost everything else. Thus, we get a 'name' actress to draw in the punters, an unnecessary retelling of Victor Crowley's origins to pad out the running time, a weak plot that simply serves to get a raft of uninspired characters to the killing grounds, and lousy dialogue that feels as though it was either improvised or written when drunk (the people are talking, but they're not saying anything worth listening to). To make matters worse, Green didn't even film on location, opting instead for a sound-stage that gives everything a rather cheap feel.
'But what about the all-important death scenes?', I hear you ask. Well, thankfully they're as outrageous as one might expect, so much so that even Danielle Harris in full-on whine mode couldn't stop me from enjoying them. Even if the effects aren't as well executed as in the first film, the range of kills and excess of blood and body parts should satisfy all but the most pernickety of gorehounds: there's a strangulation by intestines (resulting in the victim's head popping off!), face mashing with both hatchet and outboard motor, a head bisected by a table, decapitation during sex, a belt sander to the skull, and in one very bizarre scene, a double death by what must be cinema's longest chainsaw.
If Danielle Harris had been on the receiving end such a mighty power-tool (preferably within the first five minutes of the film), I might have been a little more forgiving about the lacklustre script; since she was allowed to survive to the bitter end, I can only bring myself to give Hatchet II a relatively disappointing 6 out of 10 (all points awarded for the splatter alone).
Sadly, it's not just Harris's incessant whining and unconvincing attempts to look scared that frustrate me about this highly anticipated sequel to tongue-in-cheek slasher Hatchet: it's the fact that director Adam Green has taken the easy route with his follow up to what was easily one of the most enjoyable scary movies of the last decade.
It was the ultra-gory kills that were a major factor in making the first film such a hit, and Hatchet II sees Green focusing on raising the body count and splatter quotient to the detriment of almost everything else. Thus, we get a 'name' actress to draw in the punters, an unnecessary retelling of Victor Crowley's origins to pad out the running time, a weak plot that simply serves to get a raft of uninspired characters to the killing grounds, and lousy dialogue that feels as though it was either improvised or written when drunk (the people are talking, but they're not saying anything worth listening to). To make matters worse, Green didn't even film on location, opting instead for a sound-stage that gives everything a rather cheap feel.
'But what about the all-important death scenes?', I hear you ask. Well, thankfully they're as outrageous as one might expect, so much so that even Danielle Harris in full-on whine mode couldn't stop me from enjoying them. Even if the effects aren't as well executed as in the first film, the range of kills and excess of blood and body parts should satisfy all but the most pernickety of gorehounds: there's a strangulation by intestines (resulting in the victim's head popping off!), face mashing with both hatchet and outboard motor, a head bisected by a table, decapitation during sex, a belt sander to the skull, and in one very bizarre scene, a double death by what must be cinema's longest chainsaw.
If Danielle Harris had been on the receiving end such a mighty power-tool (preferably within the first five minutes of the film), I might have been a little more forgiving about the lacklustre script; since she was allowed to survive to the bitter end, I can only bring myself to give Hatchet II a relatively disappointing 6 out of 10 (all points awarded for the splatter alone).