A search and recovery team heads into the haunted swamp to pick up the pieces.
Another four year wait for the next instalment in the series but we finally get a conclusion.
I can’t begin to explain to you how excited I was when this film was announced, ever since “Hatchet II” was released I’d been craving the next instalment. My only problem was that Adam Green wouldn’t be returning to direct but he hand-picked camera-operator BJ McDonnell but he still wrote the film and served as executive producer.
Once again we pick up where the last film left and continue the crazy story of Victor Crowley, also once again it’s filled with blood, blood and more blood, oh and some comedy as-well as a few treats for “Hatchet” and Horror fans (I won’t ruin it for those who are still to see it).
By now you know what you’re in for and this release did exactly what it set out to do, if not more so. By now we’re usually saying “Another release, seriously?!” but the way Green left fans waiting for more and not bowing to pressure was genius but he definitely knew what fans wanted.
If this was truly the end of the series then it’s a damn great ending and a trilogy that will always have a cult like following, ‘Hatchet Army’ anyone? Proud member right here.
“Hatchet 3” is a fantastic ending to a great trilogy and well worth the watch for “Hatchet” fans.
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
Series creator and executive producer Adam Green (who not only wrote all three Hatchet films but directed the first two of them as well) hand-picked his loyal camera-operator BJ McDonnell to take his place in the director’s chair on this film. A firm believer in giving someone who deserves it a chance and a fan of helping jump start someone else’s career (as seen with Green’s discovery of newcomer Paul Solet and Grace (2009)) Green personally asked his fans to give BJ a fair chance in a blog posting on the first day of principal photography. Citing the fact that BJ had been with the series since day one and reminding fans that Green himself was still responsible for the movie and coming up with most everything that would happen in it, the fan response to McDonnell was very warm on the various horror and social networking sites.
After just one week of shooting this film, actor Kane Hodder declared it “the hardest job he’s ever done”. Performing rigorous action and stunts in sweltering Louisiana summer heat and humidity while wearing 50 pounds of silicone and make-up on his body, Kane Hodder truly suffered for his craft in making this movie.
Series creator Adam Green prides the Hatchet films on their “no CGI rule”. All make-up effects are done the “old school” way with prosthetics, make-up, latex, and silicone in order to give the films their throw back feeling and tone. CGI and digital enhancement is only used for such things as wire removal or fixing any camera issues that occurred while filming, but never to create the films’ outrageous special effects. This movie was no exception to this rule and Green continually challenged the make-up effects crew by writing crazy death scenes and sequences that most any other modern production would have brought in computer generated visual effects teams to accomplish.
Actress Rileah Vanderbilt (who plays SWAT team member “Dougherty”) appeared in the first two Hatchet films as “Young Victor Crowley” and also served as the key make-up artist on both Hatchet (2006) and Hatchet II (2010). This movie marks her first character in the series using her own face.
The scripts given to cast and crew for production were each diligently water-marked with the crew member or performer’s name and all distributed scripts were missing the film’s last 5 pages. Only Adam Green and BJ McDonnell knew what the ending would be while in production.
According to the cast and crew’s various tweets and social networking comments, the production for this film was a brutal one. Several crew members spent time in the emergency room suffering from poisonous bug bites or DEET poisoning (a chemical found in bug spray). Severe thunder storms, lightning, rain, heat, and humidity made the swamp location even tougher to shoot in. Production trucks and equipment were stuck under several feet of mud at times. At one point Adam Green tweeted “I have 48 chigger bites from my waist down.”
Both Kane Hodder and Derek Mears played Jason Voorhees in different Friday the 13th films. Hodder played Jason in Jason X (2001), and Mears in the Friday the 13th (2009) reboot.
The combined total weight of all of the make-up appliances used to change actor Kane Hodder into “Victor Crowley” for this film was an outrageous 50 pounds. It was crucial to series creator and executive producer Adam Green, if they were to make another Hatchet film, “Victor Crowley” look better than ever while still using only prosthetic make-up and never any CGI enhancement. The foam latex appliances from the first two films were thrown out as Robert Pendergraft’s make-up FX crew went to work creating new silicone appliances.
Many of the characters in this movie are named after crew members from the original Hatchet (2006) film. SWAT team member “Mikaela Dougherty” is named after Adam Green’s friend and Trick ‘r Treat (2007) director Michael Dougherty.
This is the first of the Hatchet films to be filmed almost entirely in New Orleans, LA. The first two Hatchet films were mostly shot in Los Angeles.
During a June 5th interview on ABC’s “Good Morning New Orleans”, Adam Green referred to this film as “the action packed conclusion”. When asked what he meant by that and prompted by the news anchor as to whether or not there would indeed be any more Hatchet films after this one, Green dodged the question by saying “evil never dies and as long as there is still integrity in the films and the fans still want more, I guess you never know.” Sources close to Green and the movie production have used terminology in their various tweets and facebook postings alluding to the fact that Green wants to end the series with this third part and will likely not personally be back for a fourth round.
Actor Cody Blue Snider (who plays “Deputy Schneiderman”) started out as Adam Green’s personal assistant during the making of Frozen (2010) and then worked as a production assistant on Hatchet II (2010) before Green wrote the role in this film specifically for him to perform.
Principal photography for this film was shot on location in New Orleans, Louisiana from May 30, 2012 through June 17, 2012. Additional photography was completed the next month in Los Angeles.
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