Hatchet 2: The Care Bears Movie

Hatchet 2

I’m sure that there’s a core group of people out there who saw the original but don’t think this movie lives up to the comparison. I’m not one of those people. And I’m sure that none of them will read this. Let’s face it, we aren’t exactly talking about Zapped Again! here.

After a short period of sliding-in some inexcusably auspicious nudity, this movie starts off with a man being strangled with his own intestines.  And then his head pops off.  I mean, I don’t have the statistics right in front of me, but I think the instances of that happening – ever – are pretty damn low.  Which makes it AWESOME. 

Sadly, the movie settled into a lull at around the 10 minute mark.  That’s when I put on:

The Care Bears Movie (available here for your viewing pleasure)

First of all, you may be wondering about the shift in films.  Well, as you’ve probably gathered by now, I’m a child of the 80’s.  So I’m intrigued by the nuances of that culture because I lived it, but especially now that I notice how weird some of it is.  Mostly, I just thought it was a strange juxtaposition of two-great-tastes-that-might-go-great-together.

Kind of a, "Hey, you got your schlocky-horror-movie-that's-doing-it's-best-to-imitate-the-slasher-films-of-the-80's in my disgustingly-saccharine-cartoon-created-more-to-sell-toys-than-to-entertain" kind of thing.

So anyway, the film begins with a bunch of children in a group home.  (By the way, why did so many 80's-early 90's movies and tv shows take place with kids who either didn’t have parents at all or were in the care of someone outside of their parents (Punky Brewster, Diff'rent Strokes, Annie, Muppet Babies)? Strange.)

That set-up is particularly funny because the film stars a group of plush bears who are responsible for getting people to feel things. Emotional things. It's like some child psychologist was day-dreaming up a way that they wouldn’t have to actually do their job. That’s my theory, anyway. 

The plot revolves around two kids whose parents left them for a life as meth addicts.  The kids are accidently transported to Care-a-lot (yep,an allusion to Arthurian Legend – helluva way to give your toon-i-mercial some street cred). Oh, and it also has a talking book villain that tries to trick a third kid into making friends through black magic. There’s a neat little scene where he reads something from the book and then figures whatever happens afterwards to be caused by his reading. Ah, the strangeness of causality in a child’s mind.

The book talks about how the black magic kid doesn't need to be nice in order to make friends. Instead, he just needs a little bit of magic (I don't get it either). There seems to be more than a few subtle messages there that one might also attribute to the people who said kids shouldn’t read the Harry Potter books because they promoted witchcraft.

So I go back to:

Hatchet 2

Why do all horror films end up explaining the origins of their monster? Can’t we just leave things in the dark for once? Is it really necessary to give a lengthy backstory to a part of the film that simply exists to kill things in the most gruesome and entertaining way possible? Do we really need pathos for that?

After spending another 15 minutes reliving the origin story of a monster I’d never seen before and still don't care about, we find out that the girl who just moments-earlier escaped said monster, wants to go back into the swamp to hunt him down. Makes perfect sense to me. So, she gets together with Reverend Zombie (played by the Candyman) to assemble a team of people to be horribly dismembered, er, hunt the monster down with her.

There’s a definite tongue-in-cheek cliché going on here.  Somewhere along the way, horror films got the idea that plain, old sex & gore didn’t really work anymore. That’s when they got all meta- on us and went with the whole cheese-on-purpose, thing. It could be funny, if the movies that were doing it now weren’t so damn tame with it. Yes, it’s amusing when a guy who’s being recruited to hunt the monster wants more free cookies at the meeting. It’s not as funny as when Ash straps a chainsaw to his hand-stump, though.

By nightfall in the swamp, there’s a group of people with guns hunting for their feelings.  The Care Bears troll through the vegetation, wielding rifles while we wait for the least developed characters (i.e. all of them) to be disemboweled or impaled on a sharp object. Finally, after an hour or so, their feelings show up and bash a Care Bear’s face into a bloody mess with the business end of a hatchet (see, it's clever because the movie's called "Hatchet 2").  Another Care Bear and his buddy Bear soon get chainsawed in half from the crotch upward. 

Okay, things are getting a little confused. So, I switched over to:

The Care Bears Movie

Now that the black magic kid and his minions are hunting down the Care Bears and the little orphan kids, a wonderful song about having friends to help you out plays over a montage of chase scenes. Truly motivational. Especially since the friends that are helping them are the imaginary Care Bears.  So, if I'm putting this together correctly, the true battle is between black magic kid's lack of caring and some imaginary friends?

Luckily, they win by performing the “Care Bear Stare” on the black magic kid. They basically just look at the kid and care while they do it. So ultimately, caring solved their problems.  Just like in the real world.

But not before one of the Care Bears gets chopped in half and then yanked out of his skin by his exposed stump of a spine. 

Alright, maybe it all got a little muddy at the end there…