The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007)
Cast: Michael McMillian, Jacob Vargas, Flex Alexander, Jessica Stroup
Director:  Martin Weisz
Nutshell:  Bloody and yet anaemic and uninspired follow up to the excellent remake from the year before.
Reviewed by Omar Khan

Alexandre Aja's 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes remains one of the very few horror remakes that arguably surpassed its source material. Brutal, uncompromising and often genuinely shocking, it was also exceptionally well acted, beautifully photographed and directed with tremendous confidence. Aja crafted a film that balanced relentless violence with genuine suspense, maintaining an almost unbearable level of tension from beginning to end.

It was, quite simply, a brilliantly made horror film.

The inevitable sequel therefore had impossibly high standards to live up to.

Unfortunately for Wes Craven and fans of his classic, Aja was unavailable to direct the follow-up, having already committed himself elsewhere. Craven and his son Jonathan, who co-wrote the screenplay, turned instead to German music video director Martin Weisz, no doubt hoping for a result similar to Marcus Nispel's accomplished remake of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Nispel never eclipsed Hooper's masterpiece, but he produced a stylish, respectful and highly effective reinterpretation that won over many horror fans and proved a major box-office success.

History, however, was not on Craven's side.

When he hastily produced The Hills Have Eyes Part II back in 1984, the result was a complete disaster. Poorly written, badly acted and sloppily directed, it remains one of the most disappointing horror sequels of its era. I vividly remember seeing it at the cinema and being genuinely shocked by just how dreadful it was. Thankfully, this new sequel wisely ignores that film altogether and instead continues directly from the events of Aja's remake.

The grotesque community of radiation-mutated cannibals still inhabits the desolate mountains, and this time a squad of National Guard recruits has been sent into the area to eliminate them.

One wonders whether Craven was attempting to draw subtle parallels with America's military adventures in Iraq or Afghanistan. There is certainly the faintest suggestion of that, with young soldiers fighting a hidden enemy in a labyrinth of caves that occasionally evokes images of Tora Bora. Thankfully, the film never labours the point and instead settles into a straightforward survival story.

It doesn't take long before the blood begins to flow.

The recruits soon find themselves trapped in hostile terrain, facing a brutal enemy that specialises in savage ambushes. Limbs are severed, bodies are mutilated and the screen is awash with blood as the mutants dispatch their victims with ruthless efficiency.

There is certainly no shortage of action.

The problem is that it all feels like a rather average video game.

The characters simply move from one set-piece to another, surviving successive "levels" before progressing to the next encounter. There is plenty of gore, but very little suspense to connect these sequences. Unlike Aja's film, which constantly generated dread even during its quieter moments, Martin Weisz never creates any sustained atmosphere or genuine fear.

The mutants themselves remain suitably grotesque and the make-up effects are excellent, but style alone cannot compensate for the lack of tension.

Even more damaging is the complete absence of emotional investment in the characters. They are so thinly written that they possess little more personality than computer game avatars. Their fates become increasingly irrelevant because we never truly care about any of them.

The result is a repetitive, mechanical experience that steadily descends into monotony. Despite all the bloodshed, there is remarkably little horror.

The film simply plods towards a conclusion that never raises the stakes or provides the exhilarating climax it desperately needs.

Ultimately, The Hills Have Eyes 2 represents another failed attempt to continue a franchise that had briefly been reinvigorated by Alexandre Aja's superb remake. It is by no means one of the worst horror films ever made, but compared with its immediate predecessor it feels uninspired, pedestrian and disappointingly ordinary.

Perhaps that was for the best.

At the time, the Wrong Turn series was already occupying much the same territory, serving up its own brand of mutated hillbilly mayhem. Another long-running franchise built around deformed mountain cannibals may simply have been one too many.

In the end, both The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1984) and The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007) deserve the same fate.

Both are pale shadows of the films that preceded them, and both are probably best left forgotten.