GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH [1990]

After several years of begging, director Joe Dante finally returned to the world of Gremlins with an even more chaotic sequel, The New Batch.
This time around we follow Billy & Kate into the Big Apple where they're reunited with the annoyingly cute Gizmo and chaos ensues as a new batch of gremlins are born into a Trump-like tower of the future.
After the black comedy and genuinely frightening violence of the first film was heavily criticized by many for being too dark for a "kid's movie", Dante & co. opted for a more cartoonish sense of humor and very minimal actual on-screen deaths.  Many will consider it a terrible turn to take and many will enjoy how much it doesn't take itself seriously at all.  It embraces the silliness of the whole concept with no apologies and that's why I feel it's a worthy tongue-in-cheek sequel to the original.

3½ Looney Tunes out of 5

HATCHET III [2013]

Adam Green hands over the script to the third (and final?) instalment of his Hatchet series to BJ McDonnell to give a go at directing this bad, yet somewhat entertaining franchise.
McDonnell doesn't really bring anything new to the look of the series, in fact it looks and feels exactly the same, only now the Bayou Butcher appears to be bigger, angrier and sounds sort of like a lion.  There's some hilarious moments in the film that requires knowledge of the first two and some great b-movie death scenes but after all is said and done that's about it.  It's fun but easily forgettable.

2½ fine...I give up...it's a hatchet out of 5