Comic-Con 2012 Exclusive Interview: Kane Hodder and Zach Galligan

Zach and Kane discuss the film’s intense pacing, their characters, and working with Adam Green.

You can read our interview with the sequel’s director B.J. McDonnell and producer/writer Adam Green right here.

Shock Till You Drop: Zach, tell us about your character Sherriff Fowler.

Zach Galligan: I’m going to have to talk around it a little bit in order to not give away any spoilers. Mr. Green is pretty tight lipped about spoilers.

Kane Hodder: Adam is a violent man.

Galligan: My character is a sheriff in New Orleans. He is originally from Houston, Texas and has the drawl to go with it. I think he is faced with a situation that he just can’t really get his brain around and at the same time he is dealing with his wife (Caroline Williams) who is sort of re-entering his life. He’s stuck with a professional crisis and a relationship crisis, two crises at the same time.

Shock: Kane, this is your third time playing Victor Crowley. How has the third time around differed from the first two?

Hodder: With my character it doesn’t vary a whole lot. There is just a tremendous amount of violence associated with anyone that comes within reach of Victor. That’s how I always term it. We did shoot it in the New Orleans area. I hadn’t done a single shot in New Orleans for the past two films, even though some of the stuff was done there. So, authenticity is certainly going to be much more effective because it’s a real swamp and we were shooting in miserable conditions. The sets that we found existing in that area were very cool looking. I would say the difference for Victor in this movie is that there is even more violence. I can’t really say how many kills or anything, but horror fans will not be disappointed with the amount of kills and the creative ways that Adam came up with to kill people.

Shock: So, you might say that the third film is even more over the top than the first two?

Hodder: I think it is. You’ve got to have the humor in there, because people love that about the Hatchet movies. But, overall, it’s a little darker and a little scarier. Victor’s makeup has changed a little bit. It will be the same Victor, but somehow, I think he looks way more evil this time.

Shock: Kane, does this film delve more in to Victor Crowley’s back story?

Hodder: It does. In fact, I’m glad you asked, because I think fans of the franchise are going to be very happy with things that are explained from Victor’s past. You see reasons for things, now and I think it ties it all together. To tie an interesting story together with extremely violent acts makes for a perfect movie for me. There are a lot of things you learn about Victor and other people from his past. It’s always great, working with Adam, because when he comes up with a new project, he comes up with something for me to do on film that I’ve never done before, and I’ve been doing this for 35 years. He comes up with stuff that I never thought I would do in a movie, because I’m always the bad guy. I’m always some type of bad guy that doesn’t have a love interest, but he has me in a sex scene in Hatchet II. He’s had me dancing in a movie; he had me do my first kissing scene. I went in to this business to be a stunt man. I never thought that I would play a character that anyone really knew. It’s great to work with Adam because he always challenges me.

Shock: Kane, you worked as the stunt coordinator again, then?

Hodder: I was a stunt coordinator again. I always am for Adam’s films. I had to bring in another guy to help me out with it because it was a specialized way of doing stunts. He and I did all of the stunt stuff together.

Galligan: Well, I think the main thing I did to prepare for the role was to fly down there. Basically, the way this script was, the character is kind of open ended. I decided that I wanted to do an old school, over the top, slightly scenery chewing southern sheriff. Imagine if Rod Steiger’s character in In the Heat of the Night looked like me. I kind of wanted to make him feel like one of those southern sheriffs from a small town but make him kind of an action guy, too. There’s a lot of exciting stuff. I think one of the things that’s going to be different in this Hatchet movie is the pacing. It basically starts with a bang and keeps going all the way to the end. I don’t think there will ever be a second where it slows down. There are maybe one or two quiet scenes where it slows down a little bit, but the rest of the time there is a lot of excitement and a lot of action and a lot of carnage happening all at once. It’s pretty cool.

Shock: Zach, what attracted you to the project?

Galligan: Well that’s very kind of you to ask, because it sort of presupposes that I’m sitting around with a pile of scripts deciding which film to do.

Hodder: Don’t dispel that!

Galligan: I will say that Adam’s involvement in the movie and a lot of the actors involved interested me, but particularly Adam’s career over the last seven or eight years interested me. I really wanted to be a part of that and experience working with him. It also gave me the opportunity to become part of a successful franchise.

Shock: Zach, had you seen the first two films prior to taking the role?

Galligan: I did my due diligence and watched some of the first one to get the feel of it and a big chunk of the second one to see how different it was or wasn’t. I wanted to see how consistent the franchise was. I made my decision from there.

Shock: Kane, Adam and B.J. said this was a particularly tumultuous shoot. What was the overall experience for you guys?

Hodder: It was fun. It always is. Anything that Adam does is fun. It’s always very lighthearted on the set. Not to the point of compromising what we are doing, but it’s always very enjoyable for me.