Fairly witless and lame (details)
Added 11/12/2009
First, let's clear up some confusion:
1. The original The Hills Have Eyes, produced in 1977, is a terrific old slasher film. It was written and directed by Wes Craven, (in his heyday), and starred Susan Lanier.
2. A sequel film is entitled The Hills Have Eyes, Part 2, and was produced and written by Wes Craven in 1985. It starred Tamara Stafford.
3. The third, The Hills Have Eyes (Unrated Edition), was produced in 2006 by Wes Craven, directed by Alexandre Aja, and starred Aaron Stanford.
4. The fourth film, (the one I'm reviewing here), The Hills Have Eyes 2 (Unrated Edition), was produced in 2007, directed by Martin Weisz, and written by Wes Craven and Jonathan Craven. It stars Michael McMillian.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! (that is, if this movie can BE spoiled.)
THE STORY: On a former A-bomb testing ground in the desert, a U.S. military research team gets wiped out by mutated genetic retards. A team of rookie soldiers is dispatched to investigate the disappearance of the research team and of course, they lose their communications, their transportation, and they begin to fall prey to the very same pseudo-monsters. The idea (from the retards' viewpoint) is to kill all the males and to maintain the female captives for breeding.
The universal caveat with these nuclear films which always gives me a chuckle is that the radiation inevitably seems to produce very shrewd (but not very intelligent) violent creatures with great athletic ability, and these atomic hybrids always come in mega-size. But I do not despise the writers for this because these movies would be pretty boring if the victims had to face an army of moaning weaklings who were lying on their death-beds -- it's just an observation.
Whether a film is produced either on a shoestring or a mega-budget, it still holds the prospect of being well-made -- this one is not well-made. There are scads of continuity problems with the film, but two glitches that wiped me out were really stupid ones:
1. All the soldiers have the American flag shoulder patches sewn on backwards... the blue field is in the upper right-hand corner.
2. Reference is repeatedly made to the rookie soldiers being in the "U.S. National Guard." There is no such thing as this -- National Guard elements come from the various states (e.g., "Texas National Guard") and so this sounded really dumb. The writers should have simply used regular U.S. soldiers in the script.
Those sound like small issues but when they pile up at the rate which they did in this film, it takes away from whatever positive components that the movie might otherwise feature.
And there were the anticipated hackneyed scenes as well: the arm-chopped-off squirting blood scene; the ammo-running-low dilemma; tons of violent rape; the body-parts storage room (Tobe Hooper generated the best of these in his 1974 cult classic: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2-Disc Ultimate Edition)), and; the monster that you think is dead but he really isn't. In other words, there was little original thinking behind this film.
The script is unusually bad. The level of profanity, which can be used to punctuate a film, simply became tiresome here. A typical example of bad writing occurs when a macerated victim crawls out of the tank of an active porta-john and a soldier refers to him as "S***-man the Barbarian." It wasn't all that humorous a moment. In fact there are redundant references to feces in this film which added little or nothing to either its scariness or its watchability.
This film amounts to a sort of depraved version of Southern Comfort which is a little different genre and a far superior film. I gave the various freaks my own characterizations so I could keep them all straight:
-- Billy Carter (as he presently looks)
-- A really dirty Al Franken
-- Lizard-tongue cauliflower man
-- Leather-face reject
-- Michael Chertoff look-alike
-- Pseudo-Elephant Man (who was actually friendly in this film)
-- A Young Senator Robert Byrd who was in urgent need of dental and barber work
-- Mr. Cheeto-head
There were a couple more but they played minor roles and didn't last long during the conflict. The thing was, since they constituted a commune, one would have expected these freaks to work together a little more -- they were mostly very selfish loners, (especially with captured beautiful and shapely young gals.)
This film is unrated, shot in color, has an aspect ration of 2.35:1, and runs for 89 minutes.
In summary, the producers and director made a slasher film which exuded the same tired gimmicks. I realize that these low-budget slasher films are supposed to be tongue-in-cheek but that doesn't mean that they have to be crummy. I gave it two stars instead of one because the camera work and scenery were both very good and, of course, there are films which are much worse and I must reserve the one-star rating for those.
Not recommended.
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Better then the first
Added 10/12/2009
First let me say i really enjoyed the 1st hills have movie(remake)so i was eagerly waiting this one and it didnt let me down.This movie took everything i loved about the first and improved on it,which is rare for a sequal.The very begining of the movie gives you a taste of what to expect and i for one couldnt wait.The action was good and almost non stop,it had a few funny one-liners that i enjoyed the "mutants" were more relentless this time around,blood/gore by the bucket loads.This movie was good from start to finish.Horror fans MUST see this movie hands down one the best in the modern remakes.People who gave this movie a bad reveiw must not be horror/gore fans but if you are then you are in for a real treat.I hope they make a third movie.And this one was written by wes craven.
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Mutated life-forms in the desert
Added 9/12/2009
There are not that many gritty horror movies made. This one was fun to watch, I could feel the intensity and was able to relate to the depicted situation.
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umm.. not my cup of tea
Added 9/8/2009
scary and kind of disgusting, bought it for my hubby hope he likes it cause I am never watching it again.
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You better salute Colonel Sloth!
Added 8/18/2009
After a group of soldiers and some researchers are brutally murdered at the same inbred New Mexico desert playground as the first movie, a group of National Guard weekend warriors arrive for some desert training and a re-supply stop. Annnnnd, the stage is set. This makes me happy. When the fat private with a lisp - nicknamed "Spitter" - realizes they have poor radio reception and says, "It'th the hillth, Tharge," I know I'm going to enjoy the movie.
Before this goes further, know the following: This is not a movie for fans of good cinema, with great acting, intelligent directing, or incredibly complex scripts. This movie immediately enters the make-fun-of-the-bad-horror-movie territory, and stays until gory end. The fact that most of the villains look like Sloth from the Goonies is only icing on the cake.
Anyway, the soldiers are woefully unprepared and sufficiently ignorant to make it a fun ride. To chronicle this group of sad sack's screw ups would be hopeless. Needless to say, it's SNAFU and they're about to get FUBAR. One private attempts CPR on fellow breathing soldier. Looks like the medic needs training. All the soldiers have live ammo for this training mission. The armorer definitely needs training. One female was issued the Hooters version of the BDU undershirt. Clearly the Central Issue Facility made a mistake. Add that to the long hair, the women with gobs of makeup, and buck privates leaving their weapons lying around, and the whole squad needs refresher training. It's safe to say the military aspects of this film are completely ridiculous and unrealistic.
The kills and gore are particularly brutal, with blood galore the special effects aren't frugal. To the aid station help arrives; quick decapitations, say your goodbyes. M16 bullets fly, a Mexican guy fries, and the inbred die. Disembowelments, buckets of blood; a suicide and a retarded stud. Rusty blades into appendages and eyes, and a despicably horrible bedroom surprise.
Great sequel made for the lover of pure shock horror, I can't wait for the inevitable sequel.
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Shockingly better than expected
Added 10/24/2009
To all you reviewers who didn't like this movie because it was "shocking and disturbing": BOO!
You're the reason why we have all this predictable, the good character always lives, the antagonist has an alterior motive besides plain evil, we must kill off one person of the group at a time, the protagonist has to uncover the "mystery", horror movie garbage that floods theaters every year. Don't you ever get tired of that crap? Don't you understand? You were disturbed because it was THAT good! Horror movies are SUPPOSED to be disturbing remember? The stuff you've been watching lately are gory action flicks.
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A feast for horror/gore fans
Added 10/12/2009
This movie is not as bad as people make it out to be.Horror fans and people who enjoy seeing LOTS of blood/gore in horror will enjoy this movie ALOT.the plot was interesting,acting wasnt bad at all and the effects on the "mutant" were very good.There was one scene almost in the begining involving a girl and a "mutant" in a trailer raping her that some people will have a hard time watching but i think it adds to the horrific nature of the hills and the desparete struggle for the people to survive.Horror/gore fans give this one a try you will NOT be disapointed,i have myself seen this movie several times and always find it a good watch on a dark,stormy night.
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Revolting
Added 5/30/2009
I'm not gonna bash people for liking this movie. because i wanted to like it, its definately my kind of movie. but i nearly threw up with the trailer scene and the rape. i thought wes craven was pretty good at filmaking but to put this into a movie is disgusting. Most of the girls i know were haunted by that scene days afterwards. i certainly dont speak for all women, but i have never felt so degrated by watching that scene. i will never watch another wes craven movie again. i wonder if people would feel differently if a man was raped? maybe i'm being overly dramatic, but are we that desensitized to women being raped that watching a disgusting mutant commit the rape is entertainment? it makes me sick
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