We told you that fave Jason actor Kane Hodder took part in another slasher movie, writer/director Matt Flynn’s HACK!, last year, and during a recent chat he told Fangoria about the experience. “It was a fun film to work on,” Hodder tells Fango. “I open the movie, actually; my character is technically a victim. The first three minutes of the movie is me running away from something unseen, desperately trying to get away from it—falling down mountains, over rocks, hitting the ground, smashing into trees—trying to get away from something you never see. I finally feel like I’ve escaped what I’m running from, and then something horrible happens and I get killed—I don’t want to say specifically how, but you never really see what it is that gets me.”
Sounds like a bit of casting against type for the man better known for playing characters who send other people running. “I think so, yeah,” he says. “I mean, you know as well as I do that I don’t get cast as a good guy very often, or as a regular guy—although I did play a cop in MONSTER—but every once in a while I like to play someone who’s not a killer—even though I enjoy the killing more!”
It turns out we misspoke in that last item, though; Hodder wasn’t responsible for the other stunts in HACK! Not only that, but Flynn apparently wasn’t the director all the way through the shoot either. “There was a different stunt coordinator on the film; I just went in and played my character and that’s it,” Hodder reports. “And Matt didn’t finish the movie. I enjoyed working with him when I did, but I did my few days sporadically—not in a row—and when I came back for my last day of shooting, he wasn’t there, and it appeared to me that somebody else was directing. I don’t really know what happened; he seemed like a good guy, and I hope to work with him again. I do wish I had been involved in the film more and had a bigger part—it was more of a cameo thing—though I did get to do kind of an emotional scene just before I get killed.”
Meanwhile, the as-yet-unreleased film of his that Hodder is most enthusiastic about is Adam Green’s HATCHET, which features Hodder as the murderous Victor Crowley (pictured). “I saw an early version of that, and it was fantastic,” Hodder raves. “It was really good in that form, and now I hear it’s even better. As I’ve said before, that’s the best horror film I’ve ever been involved in. It’s so well-written, it’s so well-performed by the lead actors and it’s a pleasure to watch. If somebody doesn’t pick it up for distribution soon, I’d be shocked. All they have to do is watch it, and they’d realize it has great potential for wide domestic release. It’s such a good movie, and I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t believe it.” You can see HATCHET’s fully stocked official website here.
Next up, the actor/stuntman says, “I’m supposed to do a couple of haunted-prison movies, including one called FURNACE, with Bill Butler directing, playing an inmate. I’m looking forward to that one,” says Hodder of the film that will bring his career full circle; he had an early horror role in Renny Harlin’s 1988 chiller PRISON, on which Butler served as a makeup artist. Hodder also has a small demonic part in director Mike Hurst’s June DVD release ROOM 6.
Fango spoke with Hodder less than 24 hours before it was officially announced that New Line is proceeding with a new FRIDAY THE 13TH, and even without that knowledge, asked if the studio has approached him recently to return to the franchise (after he was notoriously replaced for FREDDY VS. JASON). “No, they haven’t,” he replies, “and honestly, I’d be surprised if they ever did. I’d still like to play the character—you know I love the whole experience—but I just don’t think they’ll ask me to do it again. You know how it goes; once they make a decision, it’s hard to go back on it, ‘cause then they feel like maybe they’re admitting they made the wrong decision in the first place, you know?” —Michael Gingold
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