All right, gang: the Cap'n is back from a wedding and ready to talk some horror. Being that I'm a little slow on the uptake (or that the Cap'n posted ahead of time last week in case the trip from Santa Fe ran long), both stories come from the first weekend of October. At any rate, I'm hoping one will prove to be discussion-worthy and the other will prompt somebody to get back to me with a reaction.
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It's no secret that I was no fan of Adam Green's Hatchet. Many people swear by its "Old School American Horror" tag line, and honestly I don't understand why (aside from some good gore effects, there's nothing remotely interesting about Hatchet, and certainly nothing "old school" if you want to split hairs), but it doesn't mean the Cap'n was any less surprised at the sudden removal of Hatchet II from theatres last weekend.
If you hadn't been following the Hatchet II saga, the film was released in theatres unrated, which is a major coup considering that the MPAA dictates just about everything that can and can't open theatrically. AMC theatres felt strongly about Hatchet II and made a deal with Anchor Bay to release it without a rating, and there was much rejoicing online. Honestly, while I had no plans to see Hatchet II, it was cool to hear about a movie opening without excessive editing or prolonged fighting*. In an age when "unrated" cuts are available in every medium except theatrically, it sounded like a nice precedent.
And then AMC pulled Hatchet II from domestic distribution, and then Canadian theatres, some of which had never screened the film. When I went back out into the ether of the internet to follow up on the "why," it appears the mystery still remains. An early press release from AMC suggested that low box office performance had something to do with the pull, although Green suggested on his Twitter page that his sources indicated otherwise. Either way, he's not able to discuss what happened, so speculation runs rampant.
Whatever happened, Hatchet II will eventually (probably sooner than later) arrive on DVD and Blu-Ray and make a killing - no pun intended - from both fans who wanted to see it and from people who heard about the controversy and want to see what all the fuss is about. So Hatchet II is going to be okay in the long run, and I'm sure that Hatchet III won't be ruled out forever. On the other hand, this doesn't bode well for major chains bucking the MPAA stranglehold and releasing films anyway, so we're stuck with watered down PG-13 horror films, the new "acceptable" rating for the genre, since R rated films cut down on first weekend business (which is now the barometer of all films and therefore the only thing worth marketing towards).
In short, if studios feel that no demand exists for "unrated," or even strongly rated content, they will continue to water down films in order to get the largest slice of the pie possible. Distributors will continue to kowtow to the MPAA as long as they dictate what is and isn't "permissible" for audiences, and films like Hatchet II will be less likely to ever play on the "big screen" before inevitable home release.
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My second point is more of a query, directed at anyone reading this who watched Let Me In: I am not convinced that I want to see the film, as reviews seem to be evenly split between "a worthy remake" and "basically the same film" as Let the Right One In. The problem I find is that both use the same criteria as their supporting evidence (minor changes to the plot, tonal shifts, and similarities in major set pieces), so I'm at a loss as to whether it's worth checking out or not.
I do very much enjoy Let the Right One In (as you may have noticed, since it cracked my "Top Ten Horror Movies" list), and remain dubious about Let Me In on principle. That being said, I'm not opposed to checking it out if enough people think it's worth the trip. Good horror is often hard to come by, but I'm on the fence about horror I know I've already seen - just not in English. If some of the casual readers out there wouldn't mind filling the Cap'n in, it would be much appreciated.
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Join me tomorrow for another trip to the Vaults, followed by more horrible horrors in Wednesday's Video Daily Double. Then, depending on the week ahead, I'll either have a new review up for you Thursday or a new edition of Five Movies devoted to newer horror films worth checking out.
* For the record, the MPAA gave Hatchet II an NC-17, which means that most theatre chains won't play the film and papers generally refuse to advertise it, thusly killing any chance of release outside of home video.
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