Filmmaker Adam Green got a lot of mileage out of the controversy surrounding the release of Hatchet II last year, which opened in theaters without an MPAA rating and closed in less than a week. Green was able to come off as a principled artist, and far more people read about the movie than saw it. That was probably a positive thing for Green, because once you get past its relentless gore (which precluded it from receiving an R rating), Hatchet II just isn't a very good movie, and Green's struggles to get it released are far more interesting than the movie itself. It's a shame, because Green is clearly a talented self-promoter, and the original Hatchet (released in 2007) was a fun throwback to the slasher movies of the 1980s, with enough self-aware humor to make up for its recycled plot.

Unfortunately, pretty much every character who made Hatchet amusing has been killed off, and even the movie's final girl, Marybeth, is now played by a new actress. Tamara Feldman is gone, replaced by horror standby Danielle Harris, and while Harris is an old pro at the screaming-and-running stuff, she struggles mightily with the Southern accent the part requires, and in general seems a little awkward with Green's tongue-in-cheek approach. Also back for more are a couple of other genre icons: Tony Todd expands on his glorified cameo in the first film as Rev. Zombie, a voodoo huckster running tours of the swampland outside New Orleans, and Kane Hodder returns as disfigured series villain Victor Crowley. The movie picks up right where the previous installment left off, with Marybeth as the sole survivor of an excursion into Crowley's domain deep in the bayou. After narrowly escaping the monster's clutches, she makes her way back to the city and enlists Rev. Zombie's help in going back to retrieve the bodies of her murdered father and brother.

It's a paper-thin excuse to get a bunch of new characters back out into the dark, dangerous swamp as quickly as possible, although Green wastes plenty of time setting up the expedition and introducing a parade of interchangeable victims for Crowley to plow through. Parry Shen also returns from the first film, playing the twin brother of his original character, but his comic relief is weaker and seems out of place in this grimmer, heavier version of the story. Green is big on reviving the conventions of the slasher genre, and here he engages in one of the most annoying tendencies of slasher sequels by piling on a bunch of unnecessary back story for his killer, as well as connecting Crowley's background to the heroine's in a rather contrived fashion. A big part of Hatchet's appeal was in its simplicity, and laying out a complicated mythology is exactly what this series doesn't need. It bogs down the story and hurts the pacing.

But what about the gore, the whole reason the movie got any attention in the first place? There certainly is a lot of it, although it almost feels obligatory at this point, as if Green is covering up the fact that he didn't have any decent ideas for a sequel. Crowley smashes skulls and uses the world's biggest chainsaw, but other than an amusingly interrupted sex scene, none of the kills are particularly creative. Will you cringe at the brutality? Sure, at first, but after that you'll probably get bored, and the movie doesn't offer any other distractions from the characters' slow, inevitable march toward death.