For die-hard horror fans, The Hills Have Eyes 2 is a knock-off remake/sequel that delivers a few queasy thrills. While it represents a minor improvement over the 1985 sequel to Wes Craven's 1977 original (you know, the one with the notorious "canine flashback"), it's yet another cookie-cutter exercise in death by stupidity, focusing its Aliens-in-the-desert plot on a scrappy, ill-tempered unit of National Guard soldiers who've been sent to investigate the first remake's hellish aftermath in the bomb-tested wastelands of Nevada. (Like its far-superior 2006 predecessor, this sequel was shot on location in Morocco.) Unfortunately these bickering recruits are an embarrassment to their inauthentic-looking uniforms, and their reckless inexperience (not to mention a tired, uninspired screenplay by Craven and his son Jonathan) makes them easy targets for the ravenous, irradiated mutants who dwell within a treacherous network of tunnels and caves. As the generically good-looking cast is reduced to a few terrorized survivors (which somehow doesn't stop costars Jessica Stroup and Daniella Alonso from looking like fashion models), music-video director Martin Weisz switches to auto-pilot in his dubious feature debut, serving up a basically plotless succession of grisly makeup FX by Howard Berger and his crack team of gore-mongers. The gross-out factor is sufficiently amusing (including one soldier pulled through a hole with one leg in the totally wrong direction), but even devoted horror connoisseurs will have to admit this is pretty lame stuff. --Jeff Shannon

Beyond The Hills Have Eyes 2

All Hills Have Eyes Movies

The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning

Wes Craven: The Art of Horror

Stills from The Hills Have Eyes

The Hills Have Eyes 2 (Unrated Edition)

• The Hills Have Eyes (Unrated Edition)
• Hostel - Part II (Unrated Widescreen Edition)
• Vacancy
• 28 Weeks Later (Widescreen Edition)
• 1408 (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
• Zodiac - The Director's Cut (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)
• Pathfinder (Unrated Edition)
• Disturbia (Widescreen Edition)
• Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer
• Wrong Turn 2 - Dead End (Unrated)

Rent first. I didn't like the 1st one at all. As this isn't as bad as the 1st one I didnt really care for this one either. Watch the 1st one if you havent already and you'll get a feel of what the 2nd ones all about. I only watched this because my husband liked the 1st one and wanted to see the 2nd. Still has the raping of women in it to get more of theyre twisted ppl.

For me, there is a clear parallel between the National Guard unit fighting a deadly, mysterious enemy in a desert environment, and the wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. As they set up yet another sequel at the end, I wonder what's left to do with those crazy cannibals up in Sector 16. Indeed, the training exercise in the beginning of the movie, in which the raw recruits trust an Afghan woman who is in actuality a suicide bomber, is reprised near the end, when the survivors are asked to trust a mysterious hilldweller who is attempting to lead them to safety. I am not saying the hillpeople-as-terrorists theme works, just that it appears to have been something in the mind of the filmmakers. Not worthy as a successor to the excellent 2006 remake, but not as bad as some of the reviewers seem to find it. I disagree with those who view this as a simple slashfest, detached from the political points about the military and the "American Family" that the first remake constructed so well. They do wind up simply going for the gore and thrills, which to me were fairly well-rendered in the abandoned caves below.

This movie is essentially a complete waste of your time. The mutations the mutants sported were "based" off of actual medical science, for example, and in this movie we have a mutant with camouflage skin and a long tongue. It really just gets ridiculous. This one is essentially just a showcase for the rape scene that horrified people in the first one, made even more blatant in this time around. I really liked the first movie because although it did stretch the boundaries of what's plausible, there was a decent film there.

And another with an extraordinary sense of smell, like a dog.

Through a series of silly mix-ups and extremely poor decision making on the part of our "heros" (shooting wildly and wasting ammo, splitting up in hostile territory, and other such blunders that no decently trained soldier would do), they manage to get picked off easily by the supernatural-seeming mutants.

You can spend a more fulfilling two hours staring at a wall for what I'm concerned.

The essential plot is a poorly hacked-together story of a bunch of rookie army kids are sent out in the desert and attacked by a band of mutants, supposedly the survivors of the mutant clan from the first movie.

At least this activity won't annoy, insult and bore you nearly as much.

That scene may have been disturbing in #1, but it was not the point of the movie as it is in the sequel.

However, after viewing this one, I wish to say to any Hills Have Eyes fans and like-minded horror fans out there that this movie is a complete waste of your time.

As a horror movie enthusiast, I can appreciate the value and entertainment of campy horror and even get a few giggles out of a really awful horror film.

Of course, the first movie was also actually /frightening/ and had a point.

Can someone please give us a real movie that has in it whats supposed to be in it. Torture, its not in there. Rape, not today dude it aint here. Ive seen more torture, rape and killing in Walt Disneys The Jungle Book. Once again we are suckered into watching something that bears no resemblance to what was supposed to be in the movie. Killing, I must have fell asleep when it was taking place.