Last summer, Alan Jones and I conducted a commentary of HATCHET before a live audience of horror fans in London as part of the 2007 Fright Fest. The commentary was supposed to be included in the UK dvd release but for reasons completely unbeknownst to me (that’s right, I dropped "unbeknownst", I’m wicked smart) the commentary track never made it to the dvd.
Unfortunately, it was only AFTER the dvd came out in stores that I heard about this. Just like all of you, I was under the impression that the commentary would indeed be on the dvd. I know a lot of people bought both regions of the dvd release (the American and the UK) simply because they wanted that Fright Fest commentary...and rightfully so, they were pissed off that they merely paid for the same exact dvd twice. According to the technical department, there was some issue with "sync". Now I’m a team player and all- but I’m gonna have to call bullshit on that excuse. (Sorry, Universal’s tech department.) I honestly feel like it was a cost issue for them- but that’s just my opinion. While I may not manufacture dvds for a living and I certainly don’t know it all...I do know that sync is a fixable issue with a full-on feature film and a dvd commentary can’t be that much different. But enough with that...
The point is, my friends at The Works have been working on finding a way to provide the commentary FREE OF CHARGE for everyone who was looking for it. And just today they finished uploading the entire commentary (un-cut) in 10 minute segments on Youtube. Very soon they will also be providing an MP3 of the audio for free download (most likely from iTunes). This way you can burn it to a disc and simply play it along as you watch the movie. Sure none of this is ideal...but I gotta give HUGE kudos to The Works and Ailsa Scott (one of the greatest people I had the honor of working with in my worldwide Hatchet campaign) for doing right by the fans and not just shrugging their shoulders and saying ’oh well’.
So...for those of you who have about 90 minutes to kill and just can’t get enough HATCHET...below are Youtube clips of the entire commentary recorded in London on Friday August 24th, 2007. A high quality MP3 will be available for free download soon, and I will update this blog with a link for it just as soon as I get it.
To the UK platoon of the Hatchet Army, thank you for your patience. And for everyone who is religiously writing to me asking the same question... all I can say is that reports are coming in of a deformed man screaming for his daddy in the bayou. Sounds like something is still alive down in New Orleans...
Scream bloody gore-
Adam