Hatchet II Interview

Adam Green is doing something that a lot of people didn’t think could be done. He’s releasing Hatchet II unrated! I got a chance to sit down with Adam and a few of the cast members of the upcoming unrated horror behemoth to talk about his choice to release the flick unrated, as well as shooting in the swamp, alligators, snakes, and bugs.

You could have taken the easy road and done Hatchet 2 immediately after the first one, but instead you chose to do Spiral, and Frozen. What made you wait so long to make the sequel to Hatchet?

Adam Green: An independent film, especially if it’s your first independent film is really like an abusive relationship, where it’s like a love hate thing. I’ve loved Victor Crowley since I was eight years old when I came up with it and then later worked so hard to get the movie made against all odds and get it put out in the theaters, but by the time it came out I was so beaten up over it and just done with it.

When they were like lets do the sequel, now the sequel was always planned, I knew what was gonna happen, I knew what it was, but I needed to do other things first so that so that I could come back to this and really be refreshed and excited. Getting to do something like Spiral and to produce a movie as unique as Grace and then do Frozen It was really really during the shooting of Frozen where the itch really came back. We were standing on the mountain one night when Will my DP and Brian my production designer they were looking at me and were like; “When are we going back to the swamp?” It had been five years for us, and I’d go to bed at night and kept thinking about the kills and the characters, and what I wanted to do. I’d be driving and listening to music ideas for the opening titles.

It’s like an addiction a little bit. For anybody that has been addicted to anything before whether it’s coffee, cigarettes, heroine, it hurts after a while when you can’t have it anymore. You always think, I can stop after a certain point, and that was my big thing when they were pushing me to do it right away. I was like, look I can stop if I want to, but I guess I can’t. Although I’m glad we waited because everybody came back for this. Everybody was so excited to be there. That the first day when Craig yelled pictures up on Hatchet II the cheering that came out of that sound-stage was awesome. We were the underdogs with the first one. Nobody wanted to give us credit despite the great reviews and the awards. There were so many people that were like, it’s never gonna happen, it’s never gonna happen and now it’s like a world wide thing. It’s amazing.

Danielle, you were up for the role in the first Hatchet, but didn’t get it. When you wrapped on this one were you like (making gesture with bird finger) haha Adam?

Danielle Harris: (to Adam:) Yeah, Adam. Ha ha ha. (laughing) How you like me now? Listen, obviously if I was right for it I would have gotten it, and I wasn’t at the time. I hadn’t really worked in a long time when I came in to read.

Adam Green: I knew, I mean I was a fan so I knew who she was the second she walked in. I had already cast Tony, and Kane, Robert, and Josh Leonard. So I was like if this whole thing is horror people then nobody is gonna take it seriously. It wouldn’t be special anymore, and so that was why I wanted someone completely unknown and fresh. When that person ended up letting me down it was like instinct to go to Danielle. It wasn’t even Danielle’s horror cred that made me want to work with her. It was a romantic comedy that has started and stopped so many times. She came in to read parts in that and just was so funny, and this time around I wasn’t seeing Danielle Harris, it was like, this comedian is great. Then she went one step further and said, “I’d like to read for all of the girls in this movie, so I’ve prepared all of them.”

Danielle Harris: I’ve never done that in my entire career. I’ve never had the balls to be like, I like this movie so much that I’m not going to give you the opportunity to say your really good, but I just don’t think your right for that character. So I figured if I read all of them then maybe one of them will be right for me, and I could have played, kinda any of them, but I wasn’t sure what he had in his mind so I was like fuck it. I’ll have multiple personality disorder right now and and sit in here and change it. I haven’t really done much comedy. It’s like people see me as Jamie in the horror world, and that’s cool, but I can do other things. I just need to be given the opportunity. The script was that good. Then I kept harassing him because I just really wanna do something that I haven’t done before.

I needed to make that transition from kid actor to adulthood, and I think that I’ve finally, now over the last year been doing things to where people don’t see that little girl anymore. All the fanboys that helped me as Jamie are the ones helping me to break out more.

Kayne, I’m from Louisiana and I know how hot it is. How difficult was it to wear that suit in Louisiana.

Kane Hodder: I’ve done a few films in New Orleans, but I didn’t have any of the Victor stuff on in Louisiana. Everything was on a sound stage or out at Disney Ranch, but all in Los Angeles. All of the stuff shot in New Orleans was without Victor in it.

Danielle Harris: They did try to find some water for one of my scenes in Louisiana, but they couldn’t find it. They couldn’t guarantee that there wouldn’t be gators.

Adam Green: I did this MTV pilot that never aired that was actually called You Are So Dead, but for some reason people are calling it Cheerleader Camp, but the camp that we shot at had this fenced in lake. I was like, can’t there be alligators that walk around the fence at night and go in there? They swear that in 30 years of owning this camp that there has never been an alligator in there, there’s never been a problem, but the location didn’t work right. That was the first location we had looked at. Everywhere else told us that at that time of year the gators were all hibernating, but I thought that you just need that one to wake up.

Kane Hodder: One of the movies I did in New Orleans was called Avenging Force and I did a fight scene in the swamp. Which took twelve hours to shoot, and in order to be able to fight in the swamp we had to have a perimeter of people around the area we were using to check for creatures. Not necessarily the gators because from my experience if you hit the water and make a lot of noise they leave, but the snakes come and investigate. They had to turn away a couple of snakes.

Adam Green: A snake went after Tamara on Hatchet 1 and we had to smack it with the oar. She was in the water and I was like, “What is that?” Everyone was it’s nothing, but I was like no it’s a snake.

Danielle Harris: I’m scared of bugs.

Adam Green: Yeah, she’s scared of bugs.

Danielle Harris: There were some in the parking lot last night. We were in the parking lot last night and there are these huge bugs that look like dirt on the floor, but when you walk by them they jump on you. They are like giant cockroaches. I don’t know what the hell they are called. They were attacking me last night and I was hauling ass and screaming like a bitch. The guys are like, why do you freak out this much. I’m still a girl you know.

One thing I love about what your doing with Hatchet II is that your releasing it unrated. There are two things that could happen. Fans are either going to rush to see it or they won’t, but either way this could be the movie that changes the way horror films are made. I know that’s a bold statement, but if the movie is successful we’ll hopefully get more unrated horror. Is that weight heavy on your shoulders?

Adam Green: I wouldn’t say the weight is heavy because I did my part. I’ve done something that no one has been able to do in a quarter of a century, and that’s this sort of role I’ve taken on within the genre and I don’t quite know how it happened. I don’t want to be President or whatever they were calling me, like the Jesus Christ of horror. I want my normal regular life. I like doing this and it’s fun, but I don’t like the controversy. It’s one of those things that if you look at classic movies were the person that’s minding their own business and doing their own thing and trouble comes knocking and at some point you have to stand up for yourself. That’s really all I’m doing.

I wish you and Hatchet II all the best.

Adam, Danielle, Kane: Thanks!

Do yourself and the horror genre a favor and go see Hatchet II in the theater this weekend. If you have the time and money, see it twice and support uncut horror!