Movie Review: The Hills Have Eyes II
We’ve entered that weird modern-day stage in cinema when we have remakes and sequels to remakes, but the original had a sequel too, so do you call it a remake of the sequel or does this “stand on its own” as a sequel to the remake? I wonder what Woody Allen has to say about all this.
Last year’s The Hills Have Eyes was directed by bloodthirsty Alexandre Aja of High Tension fame. Anyone who knows how I approach horror films realizes that I’m not a big fan of bloodletting, not because it grosses me out but because I don’t think it’s scary. And I think if the intention of horror is to gross me out, it fails on that respect, and it especially fails on the scary factor. It’s no surprise that The Hills Have Eyes II ramps up distasteful scenes that the MPAA should be disbanded for allowing an R-rating.
In this latest story of nuclear rednecks, the military sends some trainees into the desert looking for a scientific team who hasn’t responded. The individual military people start getting killed by psycho mutants, and not one ninja turtle among them. Our basic heroes are PFC “Napoleon” Napoli (Michael McMillian) and the hottest soldier ever, PFC Amber Johnson (Jessica Stroup). There’s also a hothead (Jacob Vargas), a young mother (Daniella Alonso, who gets raped and tortured and still looks like a million bucks), and a bunch of other fodder. Go figure what happens.
Especially when compared to last year’s horror breakthrough The Descent, The Hills Have Eyes II is just plain bad any way you look at it. I give it props for occasionally trying to do something scary, but usually the attempt fails and there’s no momentum established. But you didn’t need me to tell you all this, did you? The only surprise would have been if I told you this was good at all.
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Comment from Brandon
Time: March 23, 2007, 10:37 pm
You know how I feel about horror movies, and I thought it blew chunks. That line about the incredible shit-man (or something like that) was the one and only highlight!