Variety has exclusively announced a number of acclaimed horror film alumni as the latest talent to join the ensemble cast of BJ McDonnell's Hatchet 3, the third entry in MPI/Dark Sky Films and ArieScope's popular slasher franchise created by Adam Green.
Derek Mears, best-known to genre fans as Jason Voorhees in 2009's Friday the 13th reboot, joins previously announced returning cast members Kane Hodder (as Victor Crowley) and Danielle Harris (as Marybeth Dunston). Mears, fresh from his critically-acclaimed role in Steven C. Miller's The Aggression Scale, will play SWAT Team Leader Tyler Hawes, a brooding, pompous constable sent into contain the carnage strewn throughout Crowley's Honey Island Swamp.
Joining him on the New Orleans-set film is Caroline Williams, star of Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and Rob Zombie's Halloween 2. A familiar face in avant-garde cinema for the past 25 years, Ms. Williams portrays Amanda Walker, a fast-talking journalist who fancies herself an expert on the legend of supernatural stalker Victor Crowley.
With them in the bayou this time around are genre stalwarts Sean Whalen (The People Under the Stairs), Diane Goldner (Pulse 2 and 3, the Feast franchise), and The FP writer/director/star Jason Trost.
“Part of the joy in writing these films is being able to write roles with specific actors in mind,”
says writer/producer Green.
“So many great performers from the genre have asked to be included over the years.”
Hatchet 3, which opens on the ultraviolent final shot of Hatchet 2, continues the tale of the now-iconic slasher villain Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder). As a search and recovery team heads into the haunted swamp to pick up the pieces and carnage left behind from the first two films, Marybeth (Danielle Harris) hunts down the true secret to ending the voodoo curse that has left the ghost of Victor Crowley haunting and terrorizing Honey Island Swamp for decades.
The sequel, which films outside of New Orleans, Louisiana from late May to mid- June, 2012, is a co-production of MPI/Dark Sky Films and Green's Los Angeles-based ArieScope Pictures. The film marks cinematographer McDonnell's directorial debut after having handled A and B camera operations on such features as Rob Zombie's Halloween remake, Timur Bekmambetov's upcoming Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and Adam Green's first two Hatchet films.
“I'm overjoyed to be working with this cast,”
states McDonnell.
“I've been on projects with all of them, and I'm so glad to have them be a part of my directorial debut, and as the latest members of the ever-growing Hatchet family.”
Hatchet 2 Trailer:
