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:

Daniella Alonso, Jacob Vargas, Michael Bailey Smith

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Cécile Breccia	...	Pregnant Woman
Michael Bailey Smith	...	Papa Hades
Archie Kao	...	Han
Jay Acovone	...	Wilson
Jeff Kober	...	Redding
Philip Pavel	...	Foster
David Reynolds	...	Hansel
Tyrell Kemlo	...	Stabber
Lee Thompson Young	...	Delmar
Daniella Alonso	...	Missy
Eric Edelstein	...	Spitter
Jessica Stroup	...	Amber
Joseph Beddelem	...	Insurgent
Jacob Vargas	...	Crank
Ben Crowley	...	Stump

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 | napolon bonaparte character | murder of a nude woman | nude pregnant woman | nudity | 

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Taglines:

Help isn't coming.

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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 [UK]

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 USA:

$9,686,362, 23 March 2007, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$20,804,166

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$37,466,538

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

The mine shafts were created by the same team who are responsible for the caves in Brit horror The Descent (2005).

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Goofs

Current U.S. Army guidelines mandate that men's hair be not longer than 1/4 in. on the back and sides on the head, and not longer than 2 in. on top. PFC David "Napolean" Napoli's hair is obviously longer than this.

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Quotes

[repeated line]
Hades: Die!

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Alternate Versions

The unrated version is almost one minute longer than the theatrical version with mainly extended scenes of graphic violence and gore added.

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Connections

Referenced in El Reviewer Random: Halloween Special 2012 (2012)

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Soundtracks

Own Little World (Remorse Code Remix)
Written by Klayton
Performed by Klayton
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.