FAQ

The Hills Have Eyes Part II is a sequel to (1977), which was based on a screenplay by American film-maker Wes Craven, who also wrote and directed this movie. A remake of the series in the form of two movies, La colline a des yeux (2006) and La colline a des yeux 2 (2007), was released in 2006 and 2007 respectively.

At the start of the movie, the prologue attempts to make it sound as though the story is based on fact, as it reads: The following is based on fact. In the mid-nineteen seventies, a family of tourists from Cleveland unwisely left the paved highway and drove off across the desert on an unmarked dirt road. Soon lost, they wandered onto a vast, deserted bomb range inhabited only by tarantulas, rattlesnakes and...a wild family of cannibals unknown to the civilized world. By nightfall the innocent vacation had become a brutal battle for survival which left few alive. And of those who did survive, none can forget that far out in the unmapped desert, beyond the towns and roads, the hills still have eyes. However, the "fact" on which it is based is the fact that it's what happened in Part 1.

Of the Carter family, Brenda (Susan Lanier), Bobby (Robert Houston), Doug (Martin Speer), Baby Katy (Brenda Marinoff), and Beast survived. Ethel (Virginia Vincent), Big Bob (Russ Grieve), Doug's wife Lynne (Dee Wallace), and Beauty didn't make it. Of the Hill clan, Beast killed Mercury (Peter Locke) and Pluto (Michael Berryman), Bobby and Brenda blew up, axed, and shot Jupiter (James Whitworth), and Ruby (Janus Blythe) and Doug killed Mars (Lance Gordon). Ruby survived, and Mama (Cordy Clark)'s fate was left unknown.

There are numerous flashbacks to the first movie, showing most of the Carters and most of the Hill clan. Bobby returns as the owner of a Yamaha dealership. Ruby, who now calls herself Rachel, returns as Bobby's girlfriend, possibly his wife, although their relationship is not made clear. Beast is still around, too. It turns out that Pluto survived, and he returns to menace Ruby and her Yamaha racing team.

Pluto is joined by Jupiter's big brother, the Reaper (John Bloom), who stands 7 feet 4 inches tall. Together, they like to kill people and toss them down mine shafts.

Pluto was mauled by Beast, but he did not die. He explains how he was found by Reaper and nursed back to health.

Yamaha racers Roy (Kevin Spirtas), Hulk (John Laughlin), and Harry (Peter Frechette), their cycle mechanic Foster (Willard E. Pugh), their girlfriends Cass (Tamara Stafford), Jane (Colleen Riley), and Sue (Penny Johnson Jerald), Beast, and Rachel/Ruby, are on the way to a Yamaha race when their bus runs low on gas. Pressed for both gas and time (they forgot to set their clocks ahead, this being the start of daylight savings time), they decide to take a short cut across the old bomb range. When they come across a deserted mining ranch, they stop to see whether there's any gas to be had. That's when the "fun" starts.

Eight years, as evidenced when Ruby reminds Pluto about Beast, "the dog that almost killed you eight years ago."

In the final scene, Roy, Cass, and Beast walk out of the desert together. Harry, Hulk, Foster, Sue, and Jane do not make it. Harry is crushed by a falling boulder, Hulk is shot through the chest with a speargun, Foster's head is split open with an ax, Sue's throat is slashed open with Reaper's machete, and Jane is crushed by Reaper's bearhug. Pluto is pushed off a rock and presumably falls to his death. Like his brother Jupiter, Reaper is tricked into an explosion of fire and is then thrown into a mineshaft some 250 feet deep. Ruby falls and hits her head on a rock. It's said that, in the original script, Ruby was supposed to be killed when she falls into a pit filled with spikes, but her survival in this movie is left unanswered. Most viewers like to think that Ruby does somehow survive.

Sometimes referred to as The Hills Have eyes Part III or Mind Ripper, Peur panique (1995) (1995) was originally written to be a sequel, but it wound up not being so. None of the actors from the first two movies appear in it.

Katy is not featured in this movie, but Ruby mentions her. She says that Katy, who would now be about nine years old, wants to be an actress, just like her mother (Lynne) did before she was killed by the Hill clan.

Yes, it's true. The dog, Beast, who survived the first movie has a flashback.