The Hills Have Eyes 2

Plot

A captive woman—forced to breed mutant children—gives birth to a stillborn. She is then killed by mutant leader Papa Hades (Michael Bailey Smith) for being unable to provide healthy offspring. Later, scientists working in an area in the New Mexico desert, designated Sector 16, are attacked by Letch.

A group of National Guardsmen in training are sent into the desert to resupply the scientists, who were working for the United States Department of Defense on installing a surveillance system (implied to be a result of the events in the first film). The soldiers arrive to find the camp apparently abandoned, and outside radio contact impossible due to the topography. When the radio operator, Spitter (Eric Edelstein), picks up a faint distress call, the sergeant (Flex Alexander) organizes a search and rescue mission, leaving behind Napoleon (Michael McMillian) and Amber (Jessica Stroup).

The search party discovers the mutilated body of a scientist in the hills, while Amber and Napoleon pull another dying scientist out of the portable toilet. On her way to join the group, Amber is attacked by Stabber (Tyrell Kemlo), but a returning Mickey (Reshad Strik) wards him off. Just as Napoleon catches up, Mickey is pulled into a bolt-hole and killed. At the same time, the remaining troops are attacked by Letch, and the sergeant is accidentally killed by Spitter's friendly fire. Napoleon and Amber reunite with the group, and Spitter is killed by an unseen mutant sabotaging his rappelling gear as the others attempt to lower him down the hill. With their remaining gear stolen, they are forced to try to find another way down.

The remaining troops soon locate their commanding officer, who has clearly become unhinged from recent events. He warns them of the mutants' plans to capture women for breeding and kill everyone else. He then commits suicide after telling them the only way down the hill is through the mining caves. After the group kills Stabber, Missy is captured and taken into the mining caves by Chameleon. Chameleon attempts to rape her, but Missy fights him off, only to be captured by Hades, who scares Chameleon away and savagely rapes Missy himself. The remaining troops attempt to rescue her, with the exception of Stump (Ben Crowley), who is killed by Letch while attempting to climb down the hill without ropes. After being separated from Crank (Jacob Vargas) and Delmar (Lee Thompson Young), Napoleon and Amber cross paths with Chameleon, whom they kill. They later locate a non-violent mutant named Hansel (David Reynolds), while escaping Grabber (Gaspar Szabo). Grabber is killed by Crank after shooting Delmar. After reuniting with Napoleon and Amber, Delmar dies from his wounds, and Hansel leads Napoleon, Amber, and Crank to the exit. Along the way Crank is killed by a trapped crate of dynamite that he attempts to take with him, incidentally triggering an explosion.

After killing Letch, Napoleon and Amber find the captive Missy, and all three fight Hades, whom they manage to kill as well. The three leave the mines, but a text blended into the screen states that the National Guard trainees remain missing and the existence of Sector 16 has still not been officially acknowledged. As the survivors prepare to depart, they are watched by an unknown mutant using their surveillance equipment.

Cast

Production

The Hills Have Eyes 2 began filming in the summer of 2006 in Ouarzazate, Morocco, where the previous movie was filmed. The alternative title was The Hills Have Eyes 2: The Hills Still Have Eyes.

Writer Wes Craven's initial inspiration for the film came during a casual conversation with producer Peter Locke. Craven envisioned that the previous film's character, Brenda (Emilie de Ravin), traumatized by her suffering during the events of The Hills Have Eyes, joins the National Guard to overcome her fears. Barely finished with basic training, Brenda receives a call from her sergeant, who explains that they are sending a team back to the New Mexico desert to eradicate the remaining mutants. Her sergeant and the team need her, for she is the only one left alive who knows the mutants' location. Because of de Ravin's involvement in the television show Lost, her schedule was unable to accommodate the filming of the sequel. Wes Craven replaced her character, but retained much of the original concept, including the group of National Guard soldiers in training.

A one-minute teaser trailer was released on December 12, 2006. The teaser featured "Insect Eyes," a song by indie folk recording artist Devendra Banhart. In addition to that, a series of clips with an introduction by Wes Craven and a small gallery can be found on the Fox Atomic website. Also on Fox Atomic is a soundless clip of the mutant Grabber attacking Amber. Later on a full length trailer and two clips were released to Yahoo! Movies.

Craven originally looked at Michael J. Bassett, the director of Deathwatch, to take over the directing role, but ultimately chose Martin Weisz after scheduling conflicts with Bassett. The Hills Have Eyes 2 had a budget of $15 million.

Reception

The total gross at the box office of The Hills Have Eyes 2 was $37.4 million.

Critical response

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 11% based on reviews from 66 critics, and a rating average of 3.2 out of 10.. TV Guide gives the film 1 star out of 5 stars. Film critic Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian wrote in his review which was printed in the Taipei Times: "The sequel of the remake of Wes Craven's original horror film has mutated into a boring mess of a movie." Review aggregator Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 32% based on 10 reviews.

Critic Matt Seitz of The New York Times wrote in his review: "Wes Craven’s 1977 film, The Hills Have Eyes, in which suburbanites battled mutant cannibals, was a pulpy parable of the thin line separating civilization from savagery. Last year’s remake was basically the same movie with glossier production values and a less satirical, more bludgeoning approach to violence. This follow-up — in which National Guard trainees are trapped on a former atomic test site and are stalked by flesh-eating freaks headquartered in a warrenlike mountain hideout — is essentially a catalog of transgressive images, lighted and edited like a heavy-metal video."

Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club wrote in his review: "The premise for The Hills Have Eyes 2, the quickie follow-up to Alexandre Aja's skillful but gratuitous 2006 remake of Craven's original, seems like a perfect opportunity to give the mutants their due, since it deploys a group of military people back to the scene of the crime. And yet it stupidly does the opposite, reducing the mutants to mine-dwelling freaks who murder and rape because, well, that's what they do. After a prologue so repugnant that it's unworthy of description, the film touches down in New Mexico's "Sector 15", where a handful of military technicians are busy installing a top-secret surveillance system. When a group of National Guard trainees are dispatched to the site to deliver equipment, they're shocked to discover the men either missing or dead, and they start combing the surrounding hills on a search-and-rescue mission. What they don't realize is that the mutants are luring them into various traps designed to kill the men and abduct the women for (ugh) breeding purposes. So it's up to these unseasoned and often downright inept soldiers to fight their way out of trouble. Directed by music-video veteran Martin Weisz—in the future, can producers please look elsewhere for talent?—The Hills Have Eyes 2 assembles the most motley group of incompetents this side of a Police Academy movie, yet somehow misses the laughs."

Release

The Hills Have Eyes 2 was released in theatres on March 23, 2007. "The Hills Have Eyes 2" was made available on DVD by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on July 17, 2007. In addition to its theatrical earnings, the film generated more than $30 million from domestic DVD sales, bringing its total revenue to $67,915,885.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was released on July 31, 2007 via Bulletproof Records.

1. "The Hills Have Eyes" – Loudlion
2. "My Fork in the Road (Your Knife in My Back)" – Atreyu
3. "Unretrofied" – The Dillinger Escape Plan
4. "Redemption" – Shadows Fall
5. "Darkest Nights" – As I Lay Dying
6. "Hard Rock Hallelujah" – Lordi
7. "Prayers" – In This Moment
8. "I Know Hollywood and You Ain't It" – Walls of Jericho
9. "Throwing Stones" – The End
10. "Failure in the Flesh – Through the Eyes of the Dead
11. "Sleeping with the Fishes, See?" – The Number 12 Looks Like You
12. "Own Little World" (Remorse Code Remix) – Celldweller