October 3, 2010

For die-hard horror fans, one of the biggest draws of HATCHET II is the heavy-hitting roaster of familiar genre faces all appearing on-screen together. You’ve got Danielle Harris, Tony Todd, Kane Hodder. But when audience members walk out of the sequel this weekend, they’re bound to be talking about some of the other eccentric and humorous characters that try to face off against Victor Crowley (with predominantly bad results). After all, for a horror flick that boasts about 17 kills, a few of those new faces are bound to stick out.

Enter the “B-Squad” of HATCHET II as this group of actors has affectionately dubbed themselves. I’d already been good friends with AJ Bowen (Layton) for several years now and have had the pleasure of becoming good friends with Ed Ackerman (Cleatus), David Foy (Chad) and Alexis Peters (Avery) through my relationship with him. What strikes me is the genuinely good rapport that this group has developed from their experience working together on HATCHET II, which is where they all first met.

Having gotten to know them all individually over the course of the last year, I knew that each of them had intriguing stories on how they became a part of the Ariescope family and the HATCHET universe. So I invited the group to meet me at a local pub to discuss candidly the making-of HATCHET II over lunch and drinks. Below are the humorous results of that roundtable conversation.

They may jokingly refer to themselves as the “B-Squad”, but I like to think of them as “The New Blood” of HATCHET II. -Robg.

Robg.: So the first thing I wanted to delve into since each of you have a different story for this is how you each became a part of the “HATCHET” world, so to speak. Adam Green and the Ariescope crew are usually accustomed to working with the same people so for each of you, coming into the camp is slightly different. Ed, starting with you, you had worked on FROZEN. How’d you get the gig for HATCHET 2?

Ed Ackerman: I think all of our stories are somewhat similar, minus Alexis’ because she’s a princess. But yeah, I worked with Adam Green on FROZEN, I had auditioned for FROZEN in January of last year. I didn’t know him before that. What I brought into it was this guy that worked on this ski lift and just didn’t give a shit. And I didn’t overdo it in the audition. I came from an honest place, a guy that’s doing a job and didn’t care about it much and was just doing it to get by. And working with those guys on the ski mountains in Utah for 2 weeks was awesome. I built a friendship with all of them. Adam called me last November 2009 and I thought he was going to show me parts of FROZEN! I didn’t know what the meeting was about when he called me in. So I went in and he told me the whole story of HATCHET 1. I’d heard about the movie, I knew that he was known for doing HATCHET and FROZEN was more a suspense/thriller kind of thing and he pitched me the idea of HATCHET 2 and said “I wrote you a part in here as this backwoods redneck named Cleatus.” I was like, “I love it.” And I signed on and was so grateful to get that opportunity.

Robg.: Now, AJ – the interesting thing about when Adam Green called you in to do HATCHET 2, since we are already friends, you had told me a day or two before that phone call you were ready to give up acting…

AJ Bowen: I was considering it.

David Foy: Really?!

Robg.: So you were thinking about giving it up, so where were you at in your mindset when Green called you into the Ariescope offices?

AJ Bowen: I had literally made the decision about 48 hours before to go back to culinary school and be a cook. I got a call from (Joe) Lynch asking if it’d be cool for Adam to give me a call. I said, “Yeah, man. Adam and I are friends. Sure.” I really was getting ready to call everyone and let them know I was done acting and Adam called me in and asked me to come into Ariescope. At the time, I was like ORCA-fat, and I had just gotten rid of my beard, so when Adam asked me to come into his office, I was like, “No man, I gotta fly out of town. I’ll be back in 3 days!” Thinking my beard would grow back and I’d suddenly look thinner by then. So anyways, he told me that they were getting ready to do HATCHET 2 and he had the opportunity to do it the way he wanted, and he had a character that he was writing with me in mind and if I’d like to do it. So I was like, “Fuck yeah.” I went down to the office a few days later, 3 days into my facial hair growth and we just talked. We didn’t even talk about HATCHET or HATCHET II really; we talked about similar interests, things that we don’t like when we’re working on a set. The commitment level of actors, that sort of thing. When we got done, I didn’t know that I was actually interviewing for the gig. He asked if I wanted to do it, I said yeah and we shook hands and we walked out into the office and Will (Barratt) and Sarah (Elbert) and everyone was there and Adam said, “Everyone, this is Layton.” I was like, “Layton? You couldn’t come up with a better name?” (Laughs) So when Adam explained my main scene, he was like, “So it’s really cool. You play this hunter and you get to have a sex scene and then you get your head chopped off.” So I thought, yep it’s a HATCHET movie alright…

David Foy: I wish I had a sex scene!

Ed Ackerman: You did have one, with me.

Alexis Peters: That’ll be on the DVD.

Robg.: Well then, I suppose I should ask Alexis since she was your “partner” in that scene.

AJ Bowen: We became fast friends. When you’re doing that for 14 hours, you have to be.

Alexis Peters: Oh yeah, we became BFF.

Robg. You were the one person that had to audition for this because you came on board kind of late in the game, right?

Alexis Peters: Is that true? Am I the only one that had to audition?

AJ Bowen: Yes, you’re the only one that actually earned the role.

Robg.: Which is a great compliment to you!

Alexis Peters: Well, I walked into Ariescope and I’m an Aries, so I had this weird feeling, like I’m going to get this…

AJ Bowen: An Aries! Happy belated birthday! It’s April 15th, isn’t it?

Alexis Peters: April 15th? That was a long time ago! I’ve seen you since then. I’m answering a question here!

AJ Bowen: Oh, oh sorry.

Alexis Peters: Basically, I got called in last minute and I was scheduled to go home for Christmas vacation the next day. I was going to tell my manager that I didn’t want to do it because I was about to pack and head home. But I read the sides and I really loved it. It was not a typical horror movie. I’ve gone out on a lot of horror auditions and they’re not often very good. But for this, I went in and I think I was the first one they saw on the list. And I got it. I don’t have an hour long story like these guys. (Laughs)

AJ Bowen: The difference is we were friends with Green. Alexis is actually a good actor.

Alexis Peters: I felt good about that audition actually!

Robg.: For Foy, you knew Adam Green from the days where you both were playing in bands, right? And you also popped up in a lot of his short films too!

David Foy: That’s right. Basically what happened, I was in a band called CALENDAR GIRL and Adam was in a band called HADDONFIELD. And the lead singer of CALENDAR GIRL went to high school with Adam, so when I moved to LA Adam was pretty much the only person that I knew. And he was working at the Rainbow Room DJ-ing. So I see him going around filming all these people, and he was always into hair metal, so I just figured it was a hair metal documentary or something. Because it was at the Rainbow! He said, “Nah, I’m doing this BLAIR WITCH-esque thing where I’m trying to interview all these different people about this HATCHET movie. Do you want to be in the video?” So I said I could do a Southern accent because I’m from Tennessee. So he said, OK, well read this story and we’ll film it out in the parking lot. So we filmed it out in the parking lot and he calls me the next day to say “dude, the whole trailer is going to be you.” And I’m like “no!” He says, “Why not?” “Because if your movie doesn’t get made, I don’t want it to be because of me! I don’t need that kind of pressure.” There was this thing on the original website for HATCHET called “The Legend of Victor Crowley” and it was me dressed up as a hillbilly telling the story. I did that for him and he said, “I can’t pay you for this, but I will kill you in the sequel.” Before the first one was even filmed, we did this. We hiked up to Malibu Canyon with no permits or anything, just found this pond and acted like we were in a swamp and Rileah (Vanderbilt) did my make-up where they blacked my teeth out and I wore overalls. It was on the website for a long time but the website’s no longer there. True to his word, not only did he kill me in the sequel, he gave me a great part.

Ed Ackerman: “I can’t pay you, but I’ll kill you in the sequel.” (Laughs) That’s great.

(Group Laughs)

David Foy: That’s what he said! I thought sure, whatever. I had never done acting stuff before so I was very excited to do it. It was pretty great.

AJ Bowen: When we were at the table read, it was a weird, geeky moment for me to have Tony Todd and Tom Holland and Kane Hodder and Danielle show up. It was very strange and surreal. This was back in December 2009. I decided for the table read I wasn’t going to do my Southern accent. I just thought I’m just going to feel this out; no one else is doing any accents yet for the read, so it’s fine. But then Foy starts talking, and I’d already said a couple of lines before Foy starts talking…

Alexis Peters: No one was doing an accent at the table read?

AJ Bowen: No one was doing an accent. I didn’t want to be rude, plus I’m Southern so I knew I could do this. I didn’t want to show up to the read and be “asshole actor,” I figured I’d wait until I got to the set to be “asshole actor”. I didn’t know Foy, but the second he started talking he was already doing it in the accent and I thought, “Damn it, there’s another Southern dude here!”

(Group Laughs)

AJ Bowen: When he wasn’t dropping his accent at all, I knew that he was actually Southern, and it pissed me off because I’d already established I wasn’t going to do an accent and this motherfucker’s showing me up already! (Laughs)

David Foy: Well, I’d never been to a table read. So I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to do it in character or if you were supposed to just read your part or actually act like you’re doing it. I thought, well, this is pretty much how I’m going to do it so I’m just going to do it.

AJ Bowen: (To Alexis) I wish you’d been there.

Alexis Peter: I remember talking a lot with AJ, because I wanted to get together before we started filming and he was asking me all these questions that really threw me off. Like, “Sooo, when did you get cast? So, how do you know Adam?” And I was like, “I don’t know! I just auditioned!” I didn’t know that the part had already been cast and that I auditioned as a last minute replacement.

AJ Bowen: We actually met at The Fox & The Hound, that was the first time we met?

Robg.: That was when the entire cast got together to see AVATAR before shooting began, just to hang out and get to know each other?

AJ Bowen: Yeah.

Alexis Peters: AJ was so hairy and so big and I thought “this isn’t who I imagined as my love interest!”

AJ Bowen: Thank you.

Ed Ackerman: Is she talking about your face? Or something else?

Alexis Peters: (Laughs) Oh it all worked out. Oh come on. In my mind, that’s not who I was picturing as Layton.

AJ Bowen: Sorry.

(Group laughs)

AJ Bowen: You were probably picturing Shawn Ashmore.

Alexis Peters: Oh come on. AJ knows I think he’s cute.

Ed Ackerman: I didn’t know anyone at the table read. The only person I did know besides the crew, producers and Adam Green was Kane Hodder. So I sat next to Kane and I clung onto Jason Voorhees. I was like “I don’t know anyone! I’m going to sit next to you!”

David Foy: I didn’t know anybody and I was kind of late and new to this. I walked into this room and I had never done anything like this before. And Adam said, “Look man, these things always go bad. Table reads always suck. So don’t worry about it. It’s going to be awful.”

Ed Ackerman: But it was a really good table read!

David Foy: Yeah, it was great and everyone was laughing. And I thought wow, this is going to be fun. If that went well, then shooting was going to be a blast.

Robg.: I’ve heard you guys affectionately refer to yourselves as the HATCHET II “B-Squad”. How’d that come about?

AJ Bowen: When we got down to New Orleans – actually we could talk for 2 hours about how awesome it was to get on that plane with everybody. I remember saying out loud to R.A. (Mihailoff), “Do you know if this plane crashed how famous HATCHET II would be? How popular this movie would be?” Because we already shot most of it.

Ed Ackerman: R.A. was terrified!

AJ Bowen: Alexis was sitting beside me, R.A. was right in front of me. Alexis was just not that into flying, so I knew I could fuck with her a little bit, but R.A. was a completely different story. I could not joke with R.A. about flying. Do you remember this, guys? I tapped R.A. on the shoulder to say, “Hey, bro. Everything’s going to be alright.” And the second I do, he clutches my hand (group laughs), so the whole take-off up until the seat belt sign goes off, I’m leaning forward with his arm wrapped around mine in this weird position thinking OK. Eventually the seat belt light went off and he let me go. But that flight was amazing and when we got there, trying to wrangle everyone and get to the St. Lewis hotel in the quarter, right beside Bourbon Street; I’m never going to forget in my whole life all of us getting out of the vans, walking inside and being handed an envelope full of cash which was our per diem and our hotel keys, and it was like “go have fun!” The problem with “B-Squad” was that we found up quickly that night that we were shooting 5:40AM in the morning…

Ed Ackerman: We found out late that night that we had to meet in the lobby at 5:40AM. So to function, that was easily a 5AM wake up call.

AJ Bowen: So, there were 2 boats. There was a small one that we were on, and a big one that A-Squad was on. They had to get there at noon or whatever. We all still went out the night before, but we were pissed about it…

Ed Ackerman: We were so deflated the night before, because we were out and it was like 1AM already when they gave us our call time which was only a few hours away! (Laughs)

AJ Bowen: So we’re trying to down martinis…

Ed Ackerman: You could see as the news went down the bar, all our heads just dropped and we were like ‘aww’! So we slowly said goodbye to everyone with our heads down.

David Foy: “Time to make the donuts.”

AJ Bowen: It was so funny because there was this big boat, and then this little boat. And they’re like, “Yeah, you guys go out there on the little boat and do your thing.” And it was like, “We’re… we’re the B-Squad!” (Group laughs)

Ed Ackerman: But here’s what I love about Adam Green with that whole thing about me driving the boat. I read that in the script and thought yeah, I’ve driven a boat like this maybe once or twice. We get down on the swamp and Adam looks at me and goes, “Uh, hey man. Have you ever driven a boat?” And I go, “Yeah… once. Maybe twice.” And he just goes, “Alright! Let’s do it!” (Group laughs)

David Foy: Hey, we didn’t lose a cameraman! They almost did.

Ed Ackerman: No we didn’t. But I did hit a log.

David Foy: We were in 6 feet of water though, dude!

Ed Ackerman: I almost put Bowen over the side when I hit the log.

AJ Bowen: I’m a redneck! I’ve spent plenty of time driving boats, and the second that ours hit a log, I was like, “Why am I not driving this boat?” (Laughs)

Ed Ackerman: AJ gave me a look that said a number of things…

(Group laughs)

Ed Ackerman: The look that AJ Bowen gave me said “Fuck You.” (Laughs) That was one. Two was, “Did that just happen?” Three, he was like “good save.” And four, “how the hell did I not end up in the water.”

AJ Bowen: Alexis and I were at the front of the boat and we’re just trying to be comfortable, but when Ed hit the log, it scared the fuck out of us! I thought we were going to die. Every time we had to turn around or something, Ed would get so stressed because it was a shitty patch of water.

Ed Ackerman: It was littered with trees and logs and all sorts of stuff.

Alexis Peters: And it was freezing!

David Foy: Now we get to the good part about why the B-Squad was awesome.

Ed Ackerman: Oh yeah. We get called for lunch and everyone else was just showing up. And they said, “All you guys on the first boat, you’re done for the day.” And we were like, “Really?” They were like “Yeah, you can go back to your hotels.” We all sort of pulled out our phones and looked at the time, and it was noon.

David Foy: Well, better start drinking.

(Group laughs)

AJ Bowen: Alexis decided she was going to take a nap, so she showed up later when we were all shit-hammered.

Alexis Peters: Oh I remember that.

AJ Bowen: Yeah, we have pictures together from his bed. I don’t think I was drunk at all in New Orleans.

Alexis Peters/Ed Ackerman: What?!

AJ Bowen: I was drunk on fried chicken.

David Foy: We went to that Dungeon bar and I said “make me something strong” and the bartender did and it made me sick.

Alexis Peters: Oh God, that Dungeon bar! That was crazy.

Robg.: So you guys were paired up for this movie, AJ with Alexis and Ackerman with Foy. But you had all just met for the first time on this movie. For Ed and David, I remember on-set, you guys already seemed like old friends. So can you talk a bit about meeting for the first time while working on HATCHET II?

David Foy: He’s from Cleveland, I’m from Cincinnati. He was kind of like the big guy that I’m supposed to look up to and that I’m trying to be friends with, even though he leaves me to die like an ass. (Group laughs) As a character, I tried to develop this thing where he’s the guy that I’m trying to be like my big brother. Hopefully it works.

AJ Bowen: It doesn’t.

(Group laughs)

Ed Ackerman: Foy played that up too and I don’t know if it was because it was one of the first bigger things that he had done…

David Foy: It’s the only thing I’ve ever done!

Ed Ackerman: Right, so you were green. And you actually pulled me aside and asked me questions, – “How does this work? How does this go? How do we do this?” And so, that relationship was almost already ironically settled where he was asking me for advice on this, that and the other thing. That played into his character where he was looking up to Cleatus.

David Foy: Because he’s big and I assume you’re going to save me from this guy! (Laughs)

Ed Ackerman: At the same time, I had to put the brakes on this guy where I don’t think Cleatus…

David Foy: He didn’t really like him.

Ed Ackerman: Not so much! He was looking out for himself.

David Foy: I remember on our first day, we were in our dressing room and I’d never had a dressing room, so I was like (to AJ) “Can you take my picture in front of my dressing room?”

AJ Bowen: That’s how I met them.

David Foy: I was like “Dude, I’ve never done this kind of thing before. So if I fuck up or do something wrong, you let me know!”

(Group laughs)

David Foy: Ed helped me run lines and helped a lot.

Robg.: Was it New Orleans where AJ and Ed had the two connected rooms?

AJ Bowen: I was joking with Ed. After we got the envelopes of cash when we got to the hotel in New Orleans, I was like, “I don’t care about the room. I just want to dump some shit off so we can go get drunk.”

Ed Ackerman: Mister “I wasn’t drunk at all.” (Laughs)

AJ Bowen: Look… Our per diem wasn’t enough for me to get drunk.

Ed Ackerman: We get into St. Louis and AJ gets his key first and I think I stood outside to have a cigarette just to decompress from the half hour car ride from the airport. I’m just trying to soak it all in. So, AJ gets his key and he’s just sitting there, staring at me from the lobby with a sick grin on his face. We do this thing as friends where we try to creep each other out. So I get my key and he just looks at me and is like (deep voice) “What room are you in?” (Group laughs)

AJ Bowen: But I didn’t even tell you then. I got in the elevator with you and rode all the way and you’re like, “What floor are you on?” “I don’t know.” (Laughs)

Ed Ackerman: You know what? I almost think that AJ told the people at the front desk “please put my room next to Ed Ackerman.”

Robg.: Did you do that?

AJ Bowen: Yep.

Ed Ackerman: That’s gross!

AJ Bowen: I didn’t do that. It was dumb luck.

Ed Ackerman: So we get up there, and we’re trying not to break, still equally trying to creep each other out. And we walk to our doors, and in unison, we both keyed in the same time, opened up our doors, walk in, throw our bags on the bed and it was maybe 3 seconds. Both of us at the same time in each room opened the adjoining doors and we’re staring at each other and we’re like “we’re keeping these open” and essentially made it like a dorm room for the entire trip. Except of course when we would take showers or number 2. (Laughs)

AJ Bowen: That’s just not appropriate. There’s a lady here.

(Group laughs)

Ed Ackerman: We became BFF’s after that.

Robg.: Now Alexis, obviously you and AJ had to have an intimate scene together –

AJ Bowen: It was awesome.

Robg.: … and one that was over the top and a bit ridiculous. So you had just met AJ even though you guys worked together very briefly before shooting. So what was your working relationship like leading up to HATCHET II’s infamous scene?

Alexis Peters: Well, ok, we met I think the day before we started shooting?

AJ Bowen: Yeah, I called (producer) Cory Neal because I was freaked out. I was like, “Dude, we’re going to be doing some intimate stuff, so I think it’d be really good if we hung out a little bit before, so please give her my number.”

Alexis Peters: Yeah, and that scene was the first thing we shot together. That was our first scene. But we met and I had done some movies before this film, but I have to say, I was really impressed with AJ as an actor because, with horror scripts it’s easy to take them for granted and be like, “oh it’s a horror script, whatever.” But I found the role to be challenging. And one of the things that AJ did before we filmed, he made me a mix CD as his character to my character, a mix from Layton to Avery. And it was all love songs, whatever Layton would’ve given Avery and that oddly bonded me to him in this weird way.

Ed Ackerman: I’d just like to say that Layton also made a mix CD for Cleatus. (Group laughs)

AJ Bowen: That’s not true. That’s not true at all. In fact, that’s inappropriate.

Ed Ackerman: Sorry. (Laughs)

Alexis Peters: So he made me this CD and day one was our, well I’m not going to call it a love scene. I look forward to doing something that’s sexy and passionate one day. This was more funny. Our clothes were on, it was tasteful and it was funny. And AJ was a gentleman the entire time.

David Foy: You’re not naked in this?

Alexis Peters: No!

David Foy: Well, I’m not going to see it now! (Laughs)

AJ Bowen: I think the call time was 6am or something like that. And those sorts of scenes are always awkward, until they start. So we talked about it and it was like, “yeah, this is weird.”

Alexis Peters: As we were walking out, I said to AJ, “I don’t think I can do this!”

AJ Bowen: The second, literally the moment they called action and we started doing it –

Alexis Peters: It was a blast.

AJ Bowen: It ceased to be weird. And then 14 hours later, we were still doing it. We’d only known each other for like 3 days?

Alexis Peters: It was a work out! I couldn’t walk after 14 hours…

AJ Bowen: It reached a point where Adam was finding it funny and said, “OK, let’s start improvising.” A scene that was probably 10 seconds ended up being like 5 minutes long. I remember the first few times were funny and we were all having a good time and you could see they were all trying to not laugh while they were shooting us. By the time we got to the end of it, they would call cut and Alexis and I would sort of collapse on each other –

Alexis Peter: Forget any rules or whatever. We’d just lay there.

AJ Bowen: We were both just shaky because we couldn’t move after 14 hours of that scene. I was like, “I can’t fuck anymore!” (Group laughs)

Alexis Peters: What a great work out that was though!

AJ Bowen: It was! That was a party. But the whole time, Kane was crouched down behind us, by the way.

Ed Ackerman: Doing what?!

AJ Bowen: He was growling at us.

Alexis Peters: I liked that he did that.

AJ Bowen: I remember this saying, I think it was Paul Newman who said it. I said, “Alexis, I apologize if I get an erection, and I apologize if I don’t.”

(Group laughs)

AJ Bowen: Let me just say, we had a nice relationship and it wasn’t all about humping. We held down the continuous shot scene, by the way. That was all on us.

Robg.: Oh is there another long continuous shot with all the actors like in the first HATCHET?

AJ Bowen: Yeah and Adam was scared we were going to fuck that up. But we nailed it.

David Foy: On the first day of shooting, they explained to me they were going to do this 3 minute continuous dialogue scene, which would start with Danielle and Tony in the front, then AJ and Alexis and then me and Ed, and then Colton (Dunn) & Rick (McCallum) and then back to me. Originally they were going to do that all separate, but they decided to do it all in one take, like in the first HATCHET. That was the very first scene of the very first day of shooting. I’m the last guy! So I thought if I fuck up, everyone has to do this again. I don’t need this kind of pressure!

(Group laughs)

David Foy: I was like, oh come on! I just got here! This is my first gig and my first day. Really? (Laughs) I knew my lines, I studied hard, but I thought I was going to do something wrong.

Alexis Peters: It’s always hard when you have a few lines in the middle of a shot like that.

David Foy: Yeah! And mine are right at the end! Those guys nailed it. We did do it about 4 or 5 times, but that was basically because of blocking. It wasn’t because anyone messed up.

Ed Ackerman: We literally nailed it every single time.

David Foy: And Adam was like, “I can’t believe you guys got that.” I’m so glad that worked out. I was worried!

Robg.: Kane’s notorious for growling and getting into character on set. What was it like for you guys to come face to face with Victor Crowley?

Alexis Peters: Well, he never really tried to scare me or play a trick on me. I wanted him to! But this was such a big ensemble cast, it just didn’t work out.

Robg.: You lucked out then!

Alexis Peters: I lucked out. He didn’t scare me. But working with him, that growl that he does, it’s so real and believable. You’d think in a horror film, it’s easy to pretend you’re scared, but for this, I was really afraid.

AJ Bowen: He kinda put it to you in your scene too. He was fairly aggressive?

Alexis Peters: He was. But when I saw him without his make-up, I thought he was a very handsome man! I didn’t know what he looked like outside of that make-up. He was just so cool.

Ed Ackerman: Kane’s Kane. He does like to try to get us scared behind the scenes, but I think I heard him scaring someone –

AJ Bowen: He got Parry Shen pretty good.

Ed Ackerman: I heard that and it sent chills down my spine. But my guard was up. I wanted to be where Kane wasn’t at all times. But working with him on FROZEN, my favorite Kane Hodder story; we were sitting there in this little ski cabin that stored equipment which we used as a sitting room to escape the cold and Kane and I got to talking, and we started talking about tattoos. He asked if I had any, and I lifted up and showed him the tattoos on my upper arm. And I’m like, “how ‘bout you?” And with a sick, twisted grin on his face, he pulls his lower lip down and underneath behind his lip, it just says KILL. I thought wow that is hardcore!

AJ Bowen: He actually has to get that touched up all the time.

Ed Ackerman: Kane’s awesome and I like the guy immensely.

AJ Bowen: Kane doesn’t scare me. At all.

Robg.: Out of everyone here, you’re a huge FRIDAY THE 13TH fan…

AJ Bowen: I have such reverence for Kane, and he’s such a hardcore dude that as a younger man, my first instinct is to try to beat the shit out of him.

(Group laughs)

Ed Ackerman: Out of respect.

AJ Bowen: Where it’s like, he’s the silverback. I’m the young blood. I must destroy this man so I can achieve warrior status and receive the quickening. So anytime I see Kane or R.A. or Tony, I’m basically threatening to fuck them up.

Ed Ackerman: You do do that. And it’s scary. And inappropriate.

AJ Bowen: Just to show you my threat level, they always laugh. (Laughs)

Ed Ackerman: I have to say something about the professionalism of Kane Hodder. I recently had broken my ribs when we were shooting HATCHET II. Kane did know and he was real professional as the stunt coordinator in terms of “OK, let’s figure out together a way to do this where you’re not hurting yourself.” And that spoke volumes to me about how professional the guy is and the fact that he’s been doing this for such a long time. He’s a good guy overall.

AJ Bowen: Which is the opposite of Tony Todd. (Group laughs)

David Foy: I had heard stories on the first one how he hid in Mercedes bathroom in her trailer –

AJ Bowen: That’s inappropriate.

David Foy: So my first day on set, I knew he was going to mess with me because I’m new. Cody Snider told me “you can park in Kane’s spot because he’s not here today.” I was like “right on!” I told everyone I didn’t want to see him before he gets me. I didn’t want to see him in make-up, I just wanted to wait until he got me on screen. It worked out for the most part, but I did see him at one point down the hall while they were doing press and he was upset I saw him, because he was respecting what I wanted to do. It didn’t work out that way. But when he was going to kill me, he’d burp and blow it in my face and was farting on me –

AJ Bowen: Alexis was doing that to me in all our scenes.

Alexis Peters: Hey!

(Group laughs)

David Foy: That was the other thing. I kept thinking, “Holy shit, I’m getting killed by Kane Hodder. How great is this?”

AJ Bowen: It’s pretty awesome to have Kane kill you.

Robg.: You’ve all gone on to be good friends after making HATCHET II together, which seems like a great experience –

David Foy: Well, me, AJ and Ed hang out all the time.

AJ Bowen: Alexis doesn’t like to be friends with us.

Alexis Peters: Hey! I’ve hung out with you guys plenty!

Ed Ackerman: She goes to India for months at a time and only shows up randomly when I have a date.

(Group laughs)

Alexis Peters: That’s true! I ran into Ed while he was on a date recently.

AJ Bowen: The basic break down is the 3 of us get together and we get drunk. Alexis goes out of the country and opens orphanages.

(Group laughs)

Robg.: She’s doing something noble! But when she’s in town and taking a break from being noble, she hangs with us, right?

David Foy: Yep. We saw a band together that one time.

Ed Ackerman: Here’s one thing I have to say. Green had a way of putting together a cast and somehow we all become really good friends. I’ve never worked on a project like that before. Except for Adam Green movies.

Alexis Peters: Me either.

Ed Ackerman: I’ve become friends with all my castmates on FROZEN and HATCHET II. And that doesn’t happen often in this business. But that’s awesome.

AJ Bowen: Doing a movie, especially one where you go on location like we did for the second half of HATCHET II, it’s like summer camp. Because you’re in such an intimate situation with these people, you get close really fast. Typically you get really close really fast, you say you’re going to be friends forever, then the movie wraps and you never hear from them again. This one was very different than that. And again, I do think it has something to do with Adam’s ability to put people together. I’m never going to forget when we wrapped in the swamp. I’ve never been on something where when they called picture wrap, it was all quiet. It was cool, but not a happy time. I took a bunch of pictures, but not of people. I was taking a bunch of pictures of the swamp.

Ed Ackerman: It was weird too because we were coming back on the boats, through the swamp and it was sunset. The feeling was heavy.

AJ Bowen: For a movie that’s supposed to be light-hearted fun, it was heavy to know we were done. And I mean, it’s a HATCHET movie so it’s safe to say there’s no way any of us can come back for HATCHET III.

Ed Ackerman: All of us are doing different things now, but we’ve all remained friends through this whole process. We’ve all become good friends with you, Robg. AJ and I talk on a regular basis and watch football and drink lots. Dave Foy and I touch base on a regular basis, we drink lots and watch football. And Alexis crashes my dates around Hollywood. (Laughs)

Robg.: She’s also busy opening orphanages! Do you want to talk about that a little, Alexis?

Alexis Peters: I opened an orphanage called Alice In Wonderful for children in India. You can visit the site at http://volunteeringlove.org. You can donate on the site. And I’m going back this November to help build a school for children and an orphanage for handicapped kids. So if you want to donate or learn more about my non-profit organization, you can look it up on the website.

HATCHET II is now playing in AMC theaters UNRATED and UNCUT!