Review - The Hills Have Eyes II

Gory, gory, gory . . .

. . . did I mention this movie was gory?

So in this remake of The Hills Have Eyes II which doesn’t seem to have much to do with the original THHE Part II (from what I’ve read anyway, I haven’t actually seen the original sequel), a group of Army trainees find themselves called to a secret military base in the desert to drop off some equipment. It is easy to see from their previous military training mission that these are not, for the most part, the cream of the crop recruits.

Nonetheless, they go off to the hills (which have the eyes) and subsequently find themselves in the middle of a search and rescue mission as the camp they arrive at seems to be all but deserted. When PFC Amber (Jessica Stroup) and PFC Napoleon (Michael McMillan) are left at base camp as the rest try to locate the source of some flashing light in the hills, they make the ultimate blunder in leaving their weapons unattended. But the shit really hits the port-o-potty when Napoleon (in direct conflict with his superior’s orders) decides to relieve himself and comes face to face with (and you’re gonna love this one) “Shitman the Barbarian”.

Then of course, their vehicle has been set on fire, their weapons are gone and in her haste to catch up with the rest of the group, Amber finds herself face to face with one of the mutants. Lucky for her PFC Mickey (Reshad Strik) just so happens to have been sent back down due to an injured ankle. Things go from bad to worse as the privates find themselves being systematically picked off one by one and it is obvious that the women are being harvested for baby making machines (well, to be honest what makes that most obvious is the opening sequence in conjunction with the mad tirade of Col. Lincoln Redding (Jeff Kober) later in the film who seems almost as indestructible as the mutants themselves).

Quite honestly, I found myself with my sweater over my eyes through a good portion of this film. And believe me, I am one for gore - I usually quite enjoy it but it seemed a tad bit overused to me in this one folks. Not to say that the kill scenes weren’t enjoyable, but I just found myself thinking “okay - that’s enough now” half way through some of them. For example: the scene where Papa Hades (Michael Bailey Smith) with his brain falling out of his head, starts to strangle Amber and Amber starts to finger his brain - it went on too long. That may be a bad example though because I am generally freaked out by the whole “brain out of the head” scenario (Hannibal - when Ray Liotta is being fed his own brain; The Howling when lycanthrope Eddie tells the heroin that he wants to give her a piece of his mind . . . ).

At any rate, I would definitely recommend watching The Hills Have Eyes II, the only disclaimer from me would be to expect gore for the sake of gore in this one and not too much explanation or plot.

Directed by
Martin Weisz

Writing credits
(WGA)
Wes Craven (written by) &
Jonathan Craven (written by)

Wes Craven (characters)

Cast (in credits order)
Cécile Breccia ... Pregnant Woman
Michael Bailey Smith ... Papa Hades
Archie Kao ... Dr. Han
Jay Acovone ... Dr. Wilson
Jeff Kober ... Col. Lincoln Redding
Philip Pavel ... Dr. Paul Foster
David Reynolds ... Hansel
Tyrell Kemlo ... Stabber
Lee Thompson Young ... PFC Delmar Reed
Daniella Alonso ... PFC 'Missy' Martinez
Eric Edelstein ... Cpl.'Spitter' Cole
Jessica Stroup ... PFC Amber Johnson
Joseph Beddelem ... Insurgent
Jason Oettle ... Letch
Jacob Vargas ... PFC 'Crank' Medina
Ben Crowley ... PFC 'Stump' Locke
Michael McMillian ... PFC David 'Napoleon' Napoli
Reshad Strik ... PFC Mickey Elrod
Fatiha Quatili ... Afghan Woman
Flex Alexander ... Sgt. Jeffrey 'Sarge' Millstone
Jeremy Goei ... Clyde
Derek Mears ... Chameleon
Gáspár Szabó ... Sniffer

rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ashley O'Connor ... Gretel (uncredited)