The swamp-dwelling, hatchet-wielding mongoloid Victor Crowley is about to get another crack at piles of ignorant Mardi Gras partiers in Hatchet 2, the “long-awaited” sequel to Adam Green’s 2007 slasher. I quote “long-awaited” because while I liked Hatchet a lot , I don’t necessarily believe enough people were begging for a sequel to warrant calling it “long-awaited.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Rotten over at Shock Till You Drop is excited about it, and Green has already started pre-prod on the project. Hatchet was a straight-to-DVD horror flick with a few factors differentiating it from the enormous crowd of crap surrounding it on the shelves at Blockbuster. First, the dialogue is hilarious every time it tries to be. Joel Moore (Grandmas Boy, Avatar) steps up his comedy game in the lead and is surrounded by strong support who spend most of the time either being snarky or getting picked off one by one. The other differentiating factor, and the more important one, is that ALL of the gore effects were done practically rather than in a computer in post production, and Green plans to keep that tradition alive. Robert Pendergraft will return in Make-Up Coordinator capacity.

The perpetrator of the film's many gruesome kills will also be back to reprise his role as the murderer and he’s a face all horror veterans will recognize; Kane Hodder, the hulking mass of a human who played Jason in Friday the 13th parts seven through ten. You’ll also see Candyman himself Tony Todd pop up, though whether or not he’ll be more than a cameo has yet to be announced.

Hatchet 2 will be a really fun and totally brutal film, and the director is already claiming will have twice the body count of the first. With a targeted release of 2010, expect to be hearing more news from this camp in the near future.