If Danielle Harris wasn't enough we've now got more sweet HATCHET 2 casting info. STYD scored exclusive news revealing that AJ Bowen (House of the Devil) and Tom Holland (director of Fright Night) are now attached to the HATCHET 2 cast. The hype for this film is really starting to stack up and with production beginning early January HATCHET 2 is finally becoming a reality! Read more . . .

Follow up:

Adam Green said, "This whole thing all started from the heart, so as a rule everyone involved with the Hatchet movies is strictly family and friends. With AJ, obviously I loved him in The Signal and The House Of The Devil, and he really is a phenomenal actor. But when I met him through mutual friends outside of all the movie stuff and discovered what a normal great guy he is, I talked to him about the possibility of joining the Hatchet family and becoming part of the franchise. So I wrote the character of Layton with him in mind. We're all thrilled to welcome him on board."

AJ Bowen's HATCHET 2 character is a hunter named Layton who Green tells us, "is part of a group that Reverend Zombie (Tony Todd) hires to go into the swamp to kill Victor Crowley."

According to Shock Bowen said, "I was really surprised and excited when Adam called me in to talk about Hatchet 2. To be offered the opportunity to join the family and the universe of this story is incredibly humbling. I'm a fan of just about every single person that's working on this film in a big way and I literally can not wait to work with them. Growing up a huge Friday The 13th fan, I'm looking forward to meeting Kane Hodder's Victor Crowley in the swamp."

Playing Marybeth's Uncle Bob (the brother of Robert Englund's character from the first film) and coming out of a 25 year retirement is Tom Holland. HATCHET 2 director Adam Green says, "Fright Night is a big influence on me and from conversations I've had with Tom about that movie, he clearly gets how to make humor work with horror."

Holland continues, "Well, Adam is a friend. We had met at a Masters of Horror dinner and I looked at his work and was impressed, especially with Spiral. I could tell by listening to him, in the middle of all the gore and mayhem, he was an actor's director. I started out as an actor, a fact I don't talk about much, but did with Adam, but I never expected him to cast me in anything! I was really surprised, and of course, pleased. I think it will be a lot of fun to work with him."

Concerning the vibe of HATCHET 2 Adam Green goes on to say, "this one will not have as much humor as the first Hatchet. We were trying to get you to relate with all the characters in Part One and the quickest way to do that with anything is through comedy. But if you look at the first Hatchet film, it gradually gets darker and darker as it goes along so that by the end of it, it’s not quite as funny anymore. This one will pick up where the last one left off and will continue in that dark direction. Obviously the tone of the Hatchet world is all about good old fashioned slasher fun and the sense of humor that the first Hatchet film had was one of the things that endeared this huge fan base to it, so there will still be some laughs. But overall, things are gonna get a lot more intense across the board."

Green continues, "While Hatchet 2 will have less laughs, the gore will continue to push the boundaries and it'll be even more in your face and over the top then in the first film. Making the first Hatchet film was a passion project and a dream come true, and the fact that the genre fans embraced it and championed it into the success that it became is just mind blowing. I mean this was a little indie film made by friends that had no studio support, no high priced marketing campaign, no TV commercials, no billboards... it literally had nothing behind it except for the fans rallying together. It was the fan's support and word of mouth from our year and a half festival run that got Hatchet into theaters against all odds and then turned it into an epic win. So now five years later from the day we started shooting the first film, we’re so glad to get the band back together and pick up where we left off. The first day of shooting is just 25 days away and when Craig my A.D. yells 'Pictures up on Hatchet 2' that first day, it's going to be a very emotional moment for all of us who are a part of this."

Thanks to Shock for scoring all this great info! Great actors, less comedy and more Victor Crowley! What more could we ask for? Maybe having Danielle Harris playing the lead roll . . . oh wait!!! Schwing! (yeah, you heard me. I said Schwing LOL)

Source: Shock till you Drop