The Hills Have Eyes II (2007)

A group of National Guard trainees find themselves battling against a vicious group of mutants on their last day of training in the desert.

Director:

Martin Weisz

Writers:

Wes Craven, Jonathan Craven,

Stars:

Michael McMillian, Jacob Vargas, Daniella Alonso

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Michael McMillian	...	Napoleon
Jessica Stroup	...	Amber
Jacob Vargas	...	Crank
Flex Alexander	...	Sarge
Lee Thompson Young	...	Delmar
Daniella Alonso	...	Missy
Eric Edelstein	...	Spitter
Reshad Strik	...	Mickey
Ben Crowley	...	Stump
Michael Bailey Smith	...	Papa Hades
Derek Mears	...	Chameleon
David Reynolds	...	Hansel
Jeff Kober	...	Redding
Jay Acovone	...	Wilson
Philip Pavel	...	Foster

Storyline

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.

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Plot Keywords:

desert | fight | hill | mutant | stupid victim | 

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Taglines:

Last year, the lucky ones died first. On March 23rd, the lucky ones die fast.

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Genres:

Horror | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for prolonged sequences of strong gruesome horror violence and gore, a rape and language

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [France] Official site [United Kingdom]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

23 March 2007 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Hills Have Eyes 2

Filming Locations:

Morocco

Box Office

Budget:

$15,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£775,160 (UK) (30 March 2007)

Gross:

$20,801,344 (USA) (1 June 2007)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Fox Atomic, Craven-Maddalena Films, Dune Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

89 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Originally Wes Craven had the idea of Brenda, from the first film, enlisting in the National Guard to overcome her fears, only to be sent back to the same desert with the mutants. She was to be the only one who knew where the mutants hideout was located. This idea was cut since the actress was involved with Lost at the time.

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Goofs

Every U.S. soldier is trained, often through repeated "corrective action", never to let his or her weapon out of his or her sight. The characters do this frequently, even before they encounter the mutants.

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Quotes

Sarge: Are you fucking kidding me? You are in mountain assault training. There are no port-a-potties in Kandahar. You will take your dumps behind the cactus with the scorpions. Do you understand me?
Napoleon: What do I use for T.P., sir?
Sarge: Use your fucking hand.

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Connections

Featured in Shameful Sequels: The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2012)

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Soundtracks

"Own Little World (Remorse Code Remix)"
Written by Klayton
Performed by Celldweller
Courtesy of Fix It Music
By Arrangement with Position Music

User Reviews

Dull and Derivative

Last year's remake of 'The Hills Have Eyes' was one of the better attempts to update the vaguely exploitational horror flicks of the 1970s for a new audience. Alexandre Aja allowed for an admirable degree of character development and when the violence started it was mean and savage and all carried out in a landscape of impeccable photography and production design. I was one of the few people who actually thought that it was better than the original and looked forward to a second visit to the particularly dark and cruel world of the savage desert mutants.

'The Hills have Eyes 2', released just a year after the original, seems a rushed and ill-conceived attempt to cash in on the franchise with little thought to quality. Jonathan Craven's screenplay could have been written in a weekend, and given the speed with which this movie made it into cinemas, probably was. It falls back on every hackneyed genre cliché in the book while offering absolutely nothing new to the desert mutant mythology. I always let out a groan of disappointment when a sequel replaces civilian characters with the military. Soldiers are always so lazily written and never fail to thoroughly bore with crude caricatures of strutting macho bullshit. In my mind, 'Aliens' was the only movie to successfully make such a transition, due to James Cameron's talent, not simply for directing the best action sequences around, but never forgetting that an audience has to care about the people being butchered. He was also ably assisted by some genuinely talented actors. With 'The Hills have Eyes 2', it's clear that video director Martin Weisz is no James Cameron, and the cast of television bit-parters haven't the talent or even the inclination to turn their cardboard cutout characters into anything approaching living, breathing human beings.

Needless to say, every character is a broad and generic cliché. They act in dumb and illogical ways, making dumb and illogical decisions that lead them to predictably dumb and illogical deaths. The latter half of the movie becomes just another tedious chased-through-dark-corridors scenario. 'The Descent' (on which Sam McCurdy, coincidentally, also worked as cinematography) proved that even this most derivative of sequences can still be carried out with genuine originality and suspense, but we see no such innovation here.

'The Hills Have Eyes 2' is just a very lazy movie, devoid of any suspense, tension, or surprise, with not a single individual involved remotely interested in producing anything of quality. It's a tame and tired excuse for a sequel and deserves to spend the rest of its life in a Blockbuster's bargain bin.