Directed by: Martin Weisz
Written by: Wes Craven & Jonathan Craven
Cast: Daniella Alonso, Michael McMillian, Jessica Stroup, and Jacob Vargas
Runtime: 90 min.
Rating: Unrated
Trailer

Whether or not you agree that the “torture porn” genre of horror films is the new black, I think most will agree that it’s quickly getting (pardon the pun) played out. The latest comes in the form of Martin Weisz’s sequel to the superior 2006 The Hills Have Eyes (Alexandre Aja). Hills 2 follows a group of National Guard soldiers who are dispatched to the infamous Nevada desert. They quickly become terrorized and stalked by cave dwellers, and one by one they are picked off in grisly horror fashion.

Sounds familiar, right? Hills 2 is pretty much a carbon copy of its predecessor, only this time with a group of soldiers instead of a small family. And that is really my biggest complaint with the film. At least in The Hills Have Eyes, the audience was able to relate with the family and their problems. In Hills 2, I wanted the entire squad to get killed! There was not a single one that had any redeeming quality to them (well, maybe the blonde). By the third kill, I was rooting for the baddies! Another problem I had with Hills 2 is its misuse of a camera trick known as under-cranking. Whereas Hills used this technique for the entirety of the movie, Weisz pulls it out just before a character gets attacked, which basically told me that a scare was coming.

In the third act of the film, a certain character has a “change of heart” and decides to help out the remaining soldiers (similar to the small child in the first). The problem is we don’t understand his motivation. It would have been more interesting to explore his background, and perhaps get a glimpse as to why some of these cave dwellers don’t harm humans. Hills 2 has tallied $21 million dollars domestically, recouping its $15 million dollar budget. The ending yet again leaves the franchise open for a sequel, the kind will the probably end up in the straight-to-video bargain bin at your local video store. But then again, look at the Saw franchise…

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© Cinephile Magazine, 2007

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