Critical End!

Yeah, I made up the “sexually” part up, but it got you reading this, so why stop now?

Many of you long time readers may recall me practically begging Adam Green to make several sequels to his throwback horror film Hatchet.  Then he went and made Hatchet II and I mostly complained.  It wasn’t flat-out terrible, but I think it’s now safe to say that it was overall disappointing. 

Then, in an obvious bid to keep me in his good graces, Green made what may end up being one of my favorite films of 2011, Chillerama.  His segment in Chillerama, entitled The Diary of Anne Frankenstein, is one of the funniest spoofs I’ve seen in a very long time, and well worth the price of the DVD.  Not only that, but on the bonus features Green hints at what we were all thinking: Hatchet II was a disappointment. 

Which brings us to this weekend.  Green posted the following picture on his Facebook page late Friday night:

Oh, Adam, you tease, you.  Now all you have to do is get the original Marybeth back and then just tell me where to insert my money.  If you need me I’ll be over there.

In happier times.

If you look back through the site, you’ll see how excited I was about Hatchet II.  That excitement reached it’s height when AMC pulled the film from all of it’s theaters a few days into it’s theatrical run.  What was so bad-ass about this movie that it couldn’t even be shown in theaters?  They had me.  I bought the DVD the day it hit the shelves (something Irarely do without having seen the film first), and quickly settled in for the amazing holy grail of horror films that would be Hatchet II.

Final thoughts: Eh.

Not only did most of the sequel seem to throw out everything that made the first film so funny, scary, and original, but it also screamed of being shot on video and just overall cheap.  Not to mention that the re-casting of heroine Marybeth was much more distracting that it should have been.  So, yes, I was let down.  But was I ready for another sequel?  Hell, I was already on Fandango trying to pre-order my tickets.

And now Adam Green says it’s going to happen and I fully support him on this.  I always said that Hatchet would work best as a 80’s-ish horror franchise, and I know Green agrees.  Let’s just hope that he cleans up some of the mess he made with Hatchet II.

Director Adam Green with Hatchet's Victor Crowley.

Although I don’t have an AMC theater in my neighborhood, I was excited to hear that they had agreed to start showing “Unrated” movies.  This is really something that’s overdue in the film community, as most filmmakers will tell you that the MPAA is basically a big joke run by Hollywood bullies (Case in point: This Film is Not Yet Rated and Matt and Trey’s battle with the MPAA over the South Park movie).

And now it looks like they’ve struck again…maybe.  Mere days after opening last Friday, AMC pulled Adam Green’s Hatchet II, and nobody seems to know why.  AMC released a statement saying, “At AMC theaters, we review all films in all of our theatres every week and then make our business decisions based on their performance.”  Gee, that’s nice and all, but do they realize that they didn’t even let this movie play for a week?  Writer/Director/Awesome Guy Adam Green stepped in with the most logical explanation: The MPAA is out to get him.

“All signs would point to AMC being unhappy with how vocal I was about the MPAA and not wanting to deal with the controversy- which if the case, is their given right. Had the film grossed millions, maybe it would be a different story with them,” he said in an early statement.  If true, this makes me pretty mad.  I’m not going to sit here and type a long rant about how corrupt the MPAA, mainly because it’s all been said before by people who are far more articulate than myself, but I will say this: Fuck you, MPAA.

via CHUD