La colline a des yeux 2

The first "The Hills Have Eyes" creeped me out so of course I had to see the second. This time the good guys have guns (in my best southern accent).

A military unit was sent out to the New Mexico desert to bring aid and supplies. Of course, when they get to the seemingly abandoned outpost they run into the rejects of The Toxic Avengers.

I was thinking, "OK now. Now we got some bad mofos with guns, it's about to be on. These circus side show freaks are about to get dealt with military style!" Oh yeah, I was hyped.

Of course there wouldn't be much of a movie then if that happened. After all, these missing links did survive nuclear testing, so what're a few dudes with guns? Prepare for some serious casualties in horrific fashion and more mutant on human violence.

The 2006 remake of "The Hills Have Eyes" was a decent slasher-in-the-desert flick; forgettable but entertaining nevertheless. So here we have the 2007 sequel.

A group of National Guard trainees go to a mysterious camp in the New Mexican desert to resupply and train, but they find it abandoned. They soon discover that the barren "hills" are infested with a bunch of hideous mutant cannibals. Can they get out alive?

I was actually impressed with the serious and sometimes moving vibe this film has. It may be a gory slasher flick, but the filmmakers make it respectable. The cussing-every-other-word tends to bring the respectability down, but I was in the Marines and this was how enlisted guys talked in the field, generally speaking. By "moving" I refer to the love & loyalty that members of the team reveal for each other over the course of the story and the accompanying score.

Some complain about the stupid mistakes the soldiers make but, remember, they're trainees, and National Guardsmen at that, not career soldiers. Besides, mistakes are always made in the heat of life-or-death combat.

I heard someone else complain about Jessica Stroup being too good-looking to be a soldier, but I've seen some hot enlisted babes. One girl I knew from high school enlisted in the army and she sent me a pic of her at an Army party in Europe wearing a bunny costume and she was as hot as any Hollywood starlet you'd care to name (she's now a cougar Colonel, lol).

The problem with this movie is the thin plot. My description above is the entire story. The whole film's an intense survival situation.

Those who like gory slasher or survival flicks should like this, especially if you prefer military-oriented stories. I'm only giving it a fairly low rating because it's not a film I'm anxious to see again. There's just not enough depth, epic-ness or hot women for my tastes (although Jessica Stroup has a really cute face), but that's just me.

The film was shot in Morroco (of all places) and runs a short-but-sweet 89 minutes.

The DVD I saw is the unrated version.

GRADE: C+ (or B for gory slasher fans)

This movies is basically in the category of what you see is what you get. The Hills Have Eyes II is what you would expect of course it's not going to be an Oscar nominated film, it's just pure entertainment which you can just lose yourself in for 90 minutes. This movie is about a group of soldiers who find themselves against mutated hillbillies. In the desert and on their last day of training they find themselves fighting these hillbillies. This movie is full of blood and guts and is extremely violent. The Hills have Eyes II is a wonderful gory film that will keep you wanting to close your eyes. But keep watching and enjoy the movie. Make sure to watch for all that gore flying through.

Even though it was generally well-received by genre fans, I found the remake of classic "The Hills Have Eyes" to be a typical modern remake. The casting was questionable and the overused shaky-cam was nausea-inducing. French director Alejandra Aja bypassed the original's subtle commentary on the American family post-Vietnam for some half-assed shock scenes that he claimed better fit the contemporary American situation. Huh? I also found the storyline to be much too close to it's predecessor.

Well, the sequel is a surprising improvement (and significantly better than the original's sequel from '85, too.) The storyline is different, the shaky-cam is only used a couple times (and less...shaky), and the filmmakers were wise enough to ditch the half-baked social commentary for a straight-up horror gorefest. And it's a lot of nasty fun! There's lots of very sick ideas here that most horror fans can probably appreciate. The acting is average, the characters are pretty much indistinguishable, and it's rather formulaic, but if you can get past all of that, then this one is good times.

THHE2 is entertaining in that you'll laugh a lot and cringe and probably say "oh sh*t!" and "get your face away from the goddamn hole you dumb**s" or things along those lines but I don't know if its really worth seeing- I was very annoyed throughout the entirety with the horrible military characters who don't seem to know the first thing about combat.

Yes there was more violence, gore, and a higher body count than the first one but I am still am debating whether that cancels out my feeling throughout the whole movie about how ridiculous it is (and not a good ridiculousness like Dead Alive or Feast). My time would have been better spent watching Aja's remake for the 5th time.

So go for some laughs, or go for some gore, but don't go hoping to come out of it satisfied.