DVD: Hatchet II (dirt: Adam Green, 2011)

"You mean, like a Jason Vorhees or something?"

After the slick efficiency of Frozen, Adam Green returns to the land of the low-budget slasher with an inevitable sequel.  Following on directly from the end of the first film, the character of Marybeth is here taken over by the wonderful Danielle Harris and genre giant Tony Todd gets an expanded central role, both actors doing their best with long scenes of very thin dialogue.  The structure remains the same: a strong opening gore gag (with a good flashback expansion of Victor Crowley's backstory), forty minutes of extremely slow set-up, then a final half-hour of outrageous (but well-handled) comedy gore that picks off the cast one by one (and sometimes in pairs!).  Although touted as old-school American horror, the Hatchet films have much less plot than many of the original 80s slashers.  Hatchet II is a watchable, better film than the original, but its weaknesses do not make it a strong example of the genre.