IT’S THE BOOZE TALKIN’: Why making Hatchet 3 is a bad idea

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

After being over-saturated with torture porn along the likes of the SAW franchise, the state of horror movies seemed to have lost its balls for the sake of making money at the box office around Halloween. But the fact that Jigsaw kept killing people by using interesting traps wasn’t the issue—no, it was the fact that a new horror franchise took off… and it wasn’t a slasher flick involving Freddy, Jason, or Michael. For fans of old school American horror, we seemed to be in a funk… until Adam Green surprised us all with his dip into the ‘80s slasher genre and gave us a new movie maniac to root for in HATCHET. But after just one sequel the “franchise” lost its steam (quality wise), making the recent announcement of a HATCHET 3 not only ridiculous, but just plain stupid.

Victor Crowley is the best kind of mass murderer: he’s ugly, he’s mentally unstable, he’s full of rage, he’s hell-bent on revenge, and he knows how to kill people in fun (and brutally graphic) ways. HATCHET re-opened our eyes as to how a slasher movie should look and feel, reminding us of the glory days of the 1980s and everything those movies stood for. As a fan of the genre, Green knew what he was doing and he did it exceptionally well. So well, in fact, that he should have known how to put together a sequel that took the story to the next level. But being blinded by his own hype or money or the sheer joy of having an idea of his greenlit for the second time, what he made was a boring, been-there done-that horror flick with a re-threaded storyline, lame characters, a few cool kills but an otherwise uninterestingly high body count. HATCHET II wasn’t nearly as epic, awesome, or satisfying as it should have been, and in some ways, felt like a big F-U to HATCHET’s original fanbase.

Having utterly failed at the box office when released in its unrated form, the flick has done surprisingly well on home video (DVD, Blu-ray, VOD), thus making it a sound investment for Dark Sky Films to give the go-ahead for a HATCHET 3. Serioulsly? There can’t possibly be more to Victor Crowley than what we’ve already seen (considering we saw the same thing repeated in first two movies), and unless there’s some major changes to the whole Crowley universe, there can’t possibly be anything new to offer the “franchise”. Green claims they had a HATCHET 3 storyline in the works while making HATCHET II, my gut says it’s bunch of horseshit. If that’s the case, then they should have worked harder on making HATCHET II not suck so much balls.

The reason so many FRIDAY THE 13THs, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STs, and HALLOWEENs were made was because they all made a shitload of money. And while most of the sequels never lived up to the originals, at least they (sort of) varied from movie to movie. It gave different directors a chance to leave their mark on the series, it gave the writers a chance to explore the maniacs in question, and it gave people a reason to go to the theater, to have fun watching their favorite killer slice and dice peeps on the big screen. But HATCHET 3 will be handled by the same director and same cast and crew, Victor Crowley will keep doing the same old stuff, it will never see the inside of a movie theater and only be seen by the few fans it has left after the borefest known as HATCHET II.

Maybe it’s the booze talkin’, but there’s no good reason for a HATCHET 3 to be made. First was good, second blew ass, this “franchise” needs to stop and call it even. A third one? Really? Director Adam Green showed he’s a talented mother*cker after the crowd-pleasing FROZEN and I’d like to see him tackle more truly-terrifying projects like that… not more of the same featuring the already played-out Victor Crowley. So please please Please for the love of all that is holy in the name of horror fans everywhere, PLEASE don’t make a third HATCHET movie… just bury the “franchise” at two and leave it at that.