The Hills Have Eyes 2

The 2006 remake of "The Hills Have Eyes" was a decent slasher-in-the-desert flick; forgettable but entertaining nevertheless. So here we have the 2007 sequel.

A group of National Guard trainees go to a mysterious camp in the New Mexican desert to resupply and train, but they find it abandoned. They soon discover that the barren "hills" are infested with a bunch of hideous mutant cannibals. Can they get out alive?

I was actually impressed with the serious and sometimes moving vibe this film has. It may be a gory slasher flick, but the filmmakers make it respectable. The cussing-every-other-word tends to bring the respectability down, but I was in the Marines and this was how enlisted guys talked in the field, generally speaking. By "moving" I refer to the love & loyalty that members of the team reveal for each other over the course of the story and the accompanying score.

Some complain about the stupid mistakes the soldiers make but, remember, they're trainees, and National Guardsmen at that, not career soldiers. Besides, mistakes are always made in the heat of life-or-death combat.

I heard someone else complain about Jessica Stroup being too good-looking to be a soldier, but I've seen some hot enlisted babes. One girl I knew from high school enlisted in the army and she sent me a pic of her at an Army party in Europe wearing a bunny costume and she was as hot as any Hollywood starlet you'd care to name (she's now a cougar Colonel, lol).

The problem with this movie is the thin plot. My description above is the entire story. The whole film's an intense survival situation.

Those who like gory slasher or survival flicks should like this, especially if you prefer military-oriented stories. I'm only giving it a fairly low rating because it's not a film I'm anxious to see again. There's just not enough depth, epic-ness or hot women for my tastes (although Jessica Stroup has a really cute face), but that's just me.

The film was shot in Morroco (of all places) and runs a short-but-sweet 89 minutes.

The DVD I saw is the unrated version.

GRADE: C+ (or B for gory slasher fans)

Even though it was generally well-received by genre fans, I found the remake of classic "The Hills Have Eyes" to be a typical modern remake. The casting was questionable and the overused shaky-cam was nausea-inducing. French director Alejandra Aja bypassed the original's subtle commentary on the American family post-Vietnam for some half-assed shock scenes that he claimed better fit the contemporary American situation. Huh? I also found the storyline to be much too close to it's predecessor.

Well, the sequel is a surprising improvement (and significantly better than the original's sequel from '85, too.) The storyline is different, the shaky-cam is only used a couple times (and less...shaky), and the filmmakers were wise enough to ditch the half-baked social commentary for a straight-up horror gorefest. And it's a lot of nasty fun! There's lots of very sick ideas here that most horror fans can probably appreciate. The acting is average, the characters are pretty much indistinguishable, and it's rather formulaic, but if you can get past all of that, then this one is good times.

A team of trainees of the National Guard brings supply to the New Mexico Desert for a group of soldiers and scientists that are installing a monitoring system in Sector 16. They do not find anybody in the camp, and they receive a blurred distress signal from the hills. Their sergeant gathers a rescue team, and they are attacked and trapped by deformed cannibals, having to fight to survive.

The 1977 "The Hills Have Eyes" is a classic of horror and the 2006 version is an unnecessary, but good remake. This sequel is shameful, using a predictable collection of clichés and violence to explore the success of the original movies. The rookies soldiers have the most imbecile and unreasonable attitudes along the story, probably because they have been trained by the ridiculous sergeant, facilitating the retarded evil creatures to destroy one by one. This disappointing film was a great deception for me. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "O Retorno dos Malditos" ("The Return of the Damned")

The first "The Hills Have Eyes" creeped me out so of course I had to see the second. This time the good guys have guns (in my best southern accent).

A military unit was sent out to the New Mexico desert to bring aid and supplies. Of course, when they get to the seemingly abandoned outpost they run into the rejects of The Toxic Avengers.

I was thinking, "OK now. Now we got some bad mofos with guns, it's about to be on. These circus side show freaks are about to get dealt with military style!" Oh yeah, I was hyped.

Of course there wouldn't be much of a movie then if that happened. After all, these missing links did survive nuclear testing, so what're a few dudes with guns? Prepare for some serious casualties in horrific fashion and more mutant on human violence.

I had actually liked the remake of Wes Craven's Hills Have Eyes, which was shown here last year. Directed by Alxandre Aja, it was top notch violence and gore which actually sent a chill, because the victims were an innocent family out for a holiday, and to see them getting systematically deeper into trouble, somehow makes it rather horrific to sit through.

While its predecessor was shown here with cuts, The Hills Have Eyes II is shown here in its full gory glory. However you wonder, just where did all the blood and gore had gone. Written by father and son team Wes and Jonathan Craven, the follow up movie (also a remake of the sequel to the original) seemed to be lacking in flavour and spirit. Sure the mutants are back, but there's very little space given to set them up, or enough time for you to identify and distinguish one from the other.

Did director Martin Weisz opt to play it safe? There's tension built, but nothing too riveting. The narrative is simple and straightforward, without much thought into trying to capture the X-factor why the original had worked somehow. Attempting to shock just for shock's sake, the movie opens with the birth of a child, in the most un-Discovery Channel manner, before introducing us to the victims, I mean, characters, and a short scene to link the events from its predecessor.

Again the military's dirty hands are in this one. Gone are the family, and in comes a small squad of National Guard trainees. It's soldiers versus A-bomb mutants, so the numbers come in handy to build up the body count. But in fact, none of them died in any creative manner. It's the usual hack jobs, and more uninterestingly, through the use of their carbines. Boring, and I guess too many movies outdoing one another in the creative death department, has taken its toil on this one, where simpleness and sure death like falling from great heights without the camera flinching, go unappreciated. Truth is, you know that it's a camera trick, and boy, are there a number of recognizable indoor shots for this outdoor movie, that makes it look cheap.

By the time it takes for these rookie soldiers to complete their training to the dark side and become cold killers (fighting for their own survival), you'll be more than in a hurry to head for the exit. To enjoy this movie, the usual leave your brains at the door cliché applies. Just make sure someone doesn't take a real machete and help you put it there.