Victor Crowley

If you are a big time horror fan then you’ve probably heard of Adam Green and his rise to fright-fame with his first movie, Hatchet. What you might not have heard about is his tribulations with the release of the sequel!

In 2006, Hatchet was released on DVD, never finding a spotlight in theaters despite the rave reviews it received from various horror enthusiasts. Upon my first viewing I gave the movie a sour 2 ships (You can find my original review of the movie HERE) but as time has gone on, and my memory of the bad jokes has grown hazy, I could possibly be persuaded to give it two and a half stars – if for no other reason then the tremendous beheading. Even though this movie was embraced by the slasher fans out there, it still wasn’t a good film, but it was profitable, which means it’s good enough to warrant a sequel.

All Slasher fans MUST see this beheading

This time around the director, Adam Green, decided that he wasn’t going to follow the standards set by the MPAA – he was going to make his movie HIS way, no matter what anyone told him.  They ended up refusing to let the MPAA rate the movie, leaving it with a dreaded NOT RATED rating, which normally means no theater in their right mind will touch it.  But times they are a changing, and AMC Theaters decided to take the gamble.  They released Hatchet 2 this past weekend despite it being non-rated.  It was a brave move on their part, but did it pay off?

Nope.

Box Office Mojo reported that Hatchet 2 made a paltry $52,604 on the 68 screens that it was put on.  That’s far from a good number, but it isn’t horrifyingly bad either.  However, you add in the controversy of it being a NOT RATED film and the low box office simply sealed the deal for AMC.  Running this film wasn’t worth the controversy.

A lot of folks are decrying AMC’s decision to pull the film, but I think they need to back off.  Let’s face facts here; the first film wasn’t all that great, which leads me to expect the same of the second.  AMC took a major gamble by releasing the movie in the first place, which shows they were willing to put their nuts on the chopping block in the interest of showing the people what they want to see.  The problem is that people DIDN’T want to see it!  If the movie had opened to great success then you can bet your sweet ass it would still be in theaters, but it didn’t – and so it’s gone.  My hope is that theaters can find a better NOT RATED movie to place their bets on, and I’m also hoping theater goers will support it.

All that being said – I look forward to seeing Hatchet 2 on DVD when it is released.  I’ll let you know what I think of it when I see it.