UHM - Review - The Hills Have Eyes II

With the surprise success of the remake of the original film, Fox wanted to "fast track" a sequel, releasing it a year after the first. Sadly, the talented Alexandre Aja would decline the offer to return as director. This led Wes Craven to eye Michael J. Bassett (Wilderness), whom was unable to take on the job due to scheduling conflicts. The fairly unknown Martin Weisz eventually landed directing duties. Wes Craven wrote the script with his son Jonathan, which might explain the horrible storyline, but originally the idea of a military-trained group of rookies seemed like an interesting match-up for these mutants, but that opinion soon faded within the first 15-minutes. Supposedly Craven had the idea to bring back Emilie de Ravin's character "Brenda," only this time she's military-trained. She would essentially lead a group of National Guard in the area where she once fought the mutants (since she knows the area). Wow, what a horrible premise.

Anyway, in this movie we're introduced to an unrealistic group of trainees from the National Guard that are sent to a desert test facility to deliver equipment to a group of scientist. Immediately upon entering the camp, the trainees notice that it's deserted, with small clues left behind indicating that the scientist and military personnel may have encountered trouble before their disappearance. After receiving what seemed to be a distress call on their walkies, a large portion of the group head to the mountains in search of this mysterious person seeking aid. Naturally they encounter the remaining group of family members that were hinted at in the climax of the previous film. This time we see "Papa Hades" the elder whose seed birthed these abominations.

I didn't know what to expect from this movie, aside from the fact that it was going to try to top the first in terms of gore, which was apparent from the pics that Fox revealed early on. Sadly, that's about the only thing this movie has to offer -- blood and guts. The story goes downhill fast, especially with its group of unlikable characters, leading us to not care whether they make it out alive or not. At least the first movie offered a little dialogue between characters to give us an idea on what kind of people we're dealing with. In this movie there's only one person that we get a little background info on, and that's only thanks to a brief video clip on her cell phone (which I'm sure she's not supposed to even have) that she watches constantly.

The mutants in the first movie weren't all big and burly like they are in this one. With the first we've got monstrosities, some of which didn't really serve much purpose than to freak the hell out of us viewers. With this sequel, pretty much all the mutants are freakin' line-backers, but at least there was one mutant referred to as "Chameleon " that I found most interesting, since the thick scars and bumps on his skin would seemingly camouflage himself within the rocks. Aside from that, the rest of these freaks are pretty boring and offer no creativity. Not only are they bigger, but these guys are apparently smarter. They purposely sabotage the trainees; taunting, and playing mind-games with them. We also get to go inside their "homes" which consist of numerous cave dwellings throughout the mountain region.

Setting their sights to top the first movie gore-wise was going to be a stretch, but I believe they accomplished their goal. This movie was nothing but the red stuff -- right from the first 5-minutes the flick gives us a bloody birth of a fresh new mutant. Speaking of which, there was a hilarious article posted a while back that that involved a mix-up in a New York theater, where parents and their children were present at the showing of what they thought was The Last Mimzy, but were instead treated to a nice bloody birthing of a mutant! They should have at least watched part one first...

OVERALL

This sequel was essentially a failure compared to the first; not only with critics, but box-office numbers as well. Although it eventually made its money back with overseas sales, the movie is just horribly written and offers nothing more than blood and guts. Don't bother with this mess.

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BST09 :

Posted 13 days ago

this movie was good but not as good as the first remake the original sequal it sucked ballz big time when will three come out what happened to the carter family it left that question unanswered

Detective Hoffman :

Posted 132 days ago

nothing compared to the remake. none of the characters came back. Alexander Aja was not asked to helm this sequel. Jessica Stroup was the only one i liked. why did they decided film a lot of scenes inside a cave? to avoid sunburn? i thought that the chameleon mutant was kinda cool. the mutant father was good at raping women. impregnating was his goal. had this long tounge that would come out and lick.

beks :

Posted 207 days ago

i thought the movie was rle quite good. it was very shocking n exciting. yes there is lots of blood n guts 2 it but what did u expect after seeing the first.

Devils_Reject :

Posted 271 days ago

A decent film the mutants are cool and theres some good kills and gore, the story was good it would be loads better if they had Alexandre Aja directing again. 6.5/10

Rai :

Posted 327 days ago

i just watched this, and what can i say, there is good gore in it, but the characters are so cliché that they seem to have come out of a comic book, to tell the truth i just hoped they all suffered a horrible death. It's a good movie to watch while drinking beer, you will laugh a lot.

Werewolf Hunter :

Posted 349 days ago

Good gore, decent action, little else. I recently rented the unrated DVD. There is NOTHING NEW in the movie! It's false advertising! Every scene you see in the movie was EXACTLY how you saw it in theaters! Someone should get sued...

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