Exclusive Interview With Director Adam Green On Hatchet III

We Got This Covered: So I have to ask, what has your favorite kill been in the Hatchet series? It can include Hatchet III was well…

Adam Green: That’s hard. Mrs. Permatteo in the first one will always be that signature “holy shit” kill, but the kills in Hatchet II are so fucking good. They were so hard to do, and were so much more complicated than the ones in Hatchet III. Like the two guys on the chainsaw? There were wires everywhere, and it took two different people to hold up the chainsaw because it weighs about 125 pounds. Then you’ve got the two actors on wires, timing all that, cutting the bodies in half – I mean there were six different people just controlling the body halves to split. How that was built with the piping, tubing, and blood sprays was insane, but it became really awesome because we pulled it off.

Tony Todd’s kill in the second film was one of those things where without using CG, we were really struggling. Like, how do you imply that some dude just got ripped out of his skin? Of course we were able to figure it out though. It’s just showing things for a certain amount of time and making his face cave in. If you’ve ever seen the behind the scenes on Hatchet II, we show the whole thing, and you can see how fake and stupid it looks. You only see two seconds of it though, mixed with the sound, and it totally looks perfect. That was really awesome and something I’d never seen before.

Of course the curb stomp with R.A. [Mihailoff] was really fun, and the infamous sex scene was really, really fun as well. I think Hatchet II has the best kills out of the three, because each one is this huge event, where the movie comes to a stop and you see this big spectacle of a kill. Hatchet III has some great, great kills in it as well, but it’s coming more fast and furious because there’s so many more people. We didn’t want to just repeat the same movie again, so we upped the stakes by having a formidable foe. We had guys with assault rifles, machine guns, and even a rocket launcher – we really amped the size and fun up. We wanted to give Victor a challenge this time.

We Got This Covered: Alright Adam, I have to ask – have we really seen the last of Victor Crowley?

Adam Green: I have no idea, really. Phone calls have already come in about a fourth one, because worldwide everybody wants this thing to continue. I’m not opposed, but I don’t know what that story is right now – which is normal. With every other slasher franchise, they didn’t know what the other one was going to be. These three movies were very methodically planned out, and I’m just happy I got to do this story. I don’t think there will be more with these characters necessarily, but as far as Victor Crowley goes, of course there can be another Crowley movie. As long as we keep the integrity, it’s what the fans want, and the movies don’t start to suck. I’ve been very happy that the quality has continually gone up between movies, and I’d like to see that continue if there’s another one.

I will probably be a lot less involved from here on out because I feel like I’ve done my part. Hatchet III was really hard because as much as I wasn’t sitting in the director’s seat, I was responsible for everything. To be doing that, writing Killer Pizza, and writing Season 2 of Holliston all at the same time nearly killed me. If there is a fourth I’ll probably just creatively consult a little bit, and that would be it. You really never know.

The best part of all of it has been Dark Sky though, because thankfully these movies have such a fanbase worldwide that they’re willing to make movies for the Hatchet fans. They never said “Well how do we bring in a new audience” or “Hey, gore isn’t everybody’s thing” or “Do we really have to balance gore and humor?” They never did that. They said “What’s the movie you want to make and what do the fans want” and that’s the movies they let me make – and that rarely happens. They’ve just been phenomenal.

We Got This Covered: So while reading the production notes after my Hatchet III screening, I noticed the ending was slightly different. I won’t give anything away, but can you just touch upon what caused you to change up how the film ends?

Adam Green: I never let anyone see the actual ending of anything, so for most of the crew the last five pages were omitted. There was a draft that did circulate with an entirely different ending, but only the people on set for the last five pages knew how the movie was going to end. By now some of the actors have seen the film, but most of them won’t be seeing it until the official premiere, so most of the cast still doesn’t know how it’s going to end.

You have to do that now to protect yourself because of the Internet. When Rob Zombie’s first draft of Halloween got leaked and Ain’t It Cool News reviewed it, that was the most appalling, disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. First of all, I don’t care who you are and how smart you think you are, you cannot review a script and think you know how the movie is going to turn out – especially a first draft. It’s going to change so many times. Honestly, it was heartbreaking to watch that happen, but ever since then I’ve been super careful. Every actor’s script is watermarked huge with their name on it so you put the fear of God in them not to share or email it.

It’s also something special with the cast and the crew, they don’t want it getting out. You’ve seen the film now, there’s a bunch of surprises for fans, and nobody betrayed us on the crew. Nobody tweeted about it, nobody told anybody. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not because it’s the next Star Wars movie or something, it’s Hatchet, but you do it for the fans. The surprises are there for them. You want them to enjoy it. Sometimes, you just have to protect them from themselves, because these sites post every spoiler, still, and clip they can, and it ruins the movie. By the times fans see the movie, they’ve already seen so much it’s passe at that point. As you may have noticed, we were really careful about what we’ve show. You only have one shot to see a film for the first time, and we want that first time to matter.