Movies
SD Comic-Con ’10: Getting Blood with the ‘Hatchet II’ Panel
Last night be brought you the major news of an October UNRATED release of Adam Green’s Hatchet II, now we’ve got a full report from the panel that featured Green, and stars R.A. Mihailoff, Parry Shen, A.J. Bowen, Danielle Harris, Tom Holland, Kane Hodder, Rileah Vanderbilt, co-producer and second unit assistant director Jason Richard Miller, and creature and make-up effects supervisor Robert Pendergraft. After opening with a look at the red-band trailer, San Diego Comic-Con attendees were blasted with a ton of footage and a death montage (there are 17 deaths!) that has people freaking out!Here’s a breakdown of what was shown:
“The footage opened with Marybeth (Harris) in Rev. Zombie’s (Tony Todd) Voodoo Shop way distraught and also inquisitive about the origin of one Victor Crowley, of which Zombie was happy to share the extremely torrid tale. In the interest of preserving some of the flick’s twists and turns, we’re just going to give you the gist of it.
While his wife, Shyann (Kathryn Fiore), lay dying in front of him due to a lingering stomach cancer, Thomas Crowley (Hodder sans make-up) ends up having an affair with his spouse’s Creole nurse, Lena (Erika Hamilton). Her sickness had lasted a really long time, and when she finally passed, Thomas and Lena embraced and kissed in front of her thought to be lifeless body. But the old girl, outraged by what was taking place in front of her, showed that she still had some fire left in her by placing her hand over Lena’s belly and cursing the duo’s then unborn son, who would grow up to be Victor.
We know from the original Hatchet how Victor met his fate, but we learn here that he is, in fact, a ghost who is forced to relive his own death and return to the exact state he was killed in each night. This reveal gives both the character of Victor Crowley and the vibe of the series a whole new supernatural spin while answering some of the lingering questions left behind by the first flick.
As part of the flashback we saw a death reel that included a host of super violent kills: a quick hatchet slice, a head being cut completely in half, an angry spear through the neck, someone’s face totally sliced off, and one of the most insane jaw-ripping scenes we’ve seen in quite some time. Robert Pendergraft, you are a very talented and sick man. Bravo.
Following a lively Q&A with the crowd, Green showed off two more kills: two people being sliced via chainsaw vertically in half from the balls up and one hell of a curb-stomp.
In a sea of mouth-breathers, overweight folks in spandex, and all manner of geeky shenanigans, one thing is for certain: The Hatchet fans who did manage to make it into the room left really fuckin’ satisfied.
Green promised a much more fulfilling ending to this entry into the franchise and said that the last eleven minutes of this movie will blow you away.”
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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