Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on March 23, 2007, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
When the remake of The Hills Have Eyes opened about a year ago, it stood as not only one of the few modern retoolings of a ’70s favorite to match up to the original, but one that equaled and even outdid its predecessor in certain ways. The announcement of the inevitable sequel seemed to promise the same; after all, the previous Hills Have Eyes 2 is best-known as the film that gave us cinema’s first canine flashback. Yet despite the continued presence of Hills creator Wes Craven behind the scenes (he not only co-produced but also scripted with his son Jonathan this time), the new Hills Have Eyes II is boilerplate stuff, lacking the adventurousness, memorable characters and just plain scariness of its predecessor.
One of the many elements that made Hills (in both 1977 and 2006) memorable was the mirror-imaging of its protagonists and villains: Both were families struggling to survive, with the former having to become as savage as the latter to preserve themselves. That subtext is lost by making Hills II’s put-upon characters a group of National Guard trainees delivering supplies to a military/scientific outpost in the Southwestern region that the mutant brood calls home. Yet despite the obvious modern parallels inherent in a scenario where hapless soldiers are victimized by attackers who pop out of rocky holes in a desert landscape, the political undertones that Alexandre Aja and co-scripter Grégory Levasseur brought to their Hills go missing as well. There’s metaphor, but no message, and the result plays like one more imitation of Aliens (an admitted favorite of Hills II director Martin Weisz) as the disfigured baddies stalk and kill the heavily armed but hapless grunts.
The cast of unknowns in Hills II fares poorly against memories of the strong and seasoned ensemble in the ’06 movie, but it’s hard to blame them when they’ve been given such paper-thin roles to play; “Don’t mind Crank; he’s just a cranky motherf**ker” is about as deep as the characterization gets. Indeed, the profanity flows like wine as this bunch becomes stranded among the rocks and sand, quickly finding that, despite being armed with machine guns, they’re no match for the primitive tool-wielding human monsters who are stalking them (“Aw, man, they’re picking us off one by one!” goes a typical line). That’s no surprise, considering that we’re introduced to them as they botch a combat exercise, and it’s equally predictable that the pacifist among their number, nicknamed Napoleon (Michael McMillian), is the guy who will best rise to the occasion when the chips are down.
Just as disappointing is the fact that the mutants aren’t very interesting either. The villains in Aja’s movie had twisted personalities to go with their disfigured faces, but here they’re just a bunch of interchangeable uglies lurking around and pouncing on their prey. And despite the military emphasis in Hills II’s story, there’s little of the strategizing on either side that kept things interesting in the previous movie. The bad guys’ only goal is to kidnap human women to serve as breeding stock, as established in a prologue in which a captive of the creatures gives bloody birth (to a baby that is never seen again). Thus, we’re “treated” to a grotesque scene in which Guardswoman Missy (Daniella Alonso) is brutally raped by lead monster Hades (Michael Bailey Smith, who was Pluto in the last Hills). The only other female in the cast is Jessica Stroup as Amber, but she doesn’t fare much better; one would think a woman would have to be a pretty good fighter to be part of the Guard, but Amber frequently proves as useless as a bubbleheaded cheerleader in an old slasher flick, looking on and screaming in the heat of mayhem while the guys take the initiative to fight back.
There are a couple (though only a couple) of inventively gory moments that’ll goose a reaction out of all but the most hardened horror fan, and Hills Have Eyes II does become a tad more atmospheric in the last half hour when the survivors venture out of the sun and into the mineshafts where the monsters dwell. The action remains by-the-numbers whether above or below ground, though; it’s sad to have to say, but the biggest thrill audiences are likely to get when seeing the movie will come from the attached trailer for 28 Weeks Later, which promises a kinetic charge that Hills II is sorely lacking.
