I recently caught up on The Hills Have Eyes parts 1 and 2 (released in 2006 and 2007) and here is a short review of both of them.
The Hills Have Eyes: It is a remake of a movie that was made in 1977 and considered a cult classic till date. This 2006 version is pretty gory and brutal to say the least, and its strength lies is in its stellar cast, just perfect for their parts. Very rarely do horror genre movies come up with such good casting and The Hills Have Eyes scores pretty well on this front. The story itself is pretty short and to the point, a family gets stranded in the middle of nowhere and is attacked by a group of savages/cannibals/mutants who are the result/creation of the United States Government testing nuclear weapons on a mining town.
The Carter family is on a vacation driving across the desert in a trailer van with father (Ted Levine), mother (Kathleen Quinlan), elder daughter Vinessa Shaw and her husband Aaron Stanford with a newborn baby, younger daughter Emilie de Ravin, and son Dan Byrd, and two family dogs Beauty and Beast rounding it off. It is a typical family vacation with the air-conditioning in the trailer not working, infightings and arguments between members of the family, etc. They stop at a gas station for refueling and stocking up on supplies and the gas station attendant, Tom Bower, suggests they take a shortcut that will save them a couple of hours. This detour leads the Carter family to an abandoned mining town, which is now inhabited by mutants and descendents of the families that refused to leave the mining town when the United States Government ordered them out and commenced nuclear testing in that region. The mutants as expected attack the Carter family who are axed and butchered in a single night and the only ones to make it through the night are son-in-law Aaron Stanford, the newborn baby, Emilie de Ravin, and Dan Byrd. The newborn baby is taken away by the mutants after the attack and the father of the infant, Aaron Stanford, has to then go and rescue his child from the mutants in the mining town. The brother and sister duo of Dan Byrd and Emilie de Ravin meanwhile stay on in the trailer and prepare for the next wave of attack from the mutants. The rest of the story deals with how Aaron Stanford rescues his child and how Dan Byrd and Emilie de Ravin kill the mutants that attack them and survive the ordeal.
As I mentioned the movie is full of blood and gore, but what it really aims to show is that when push comes to shove even the most mild mannered of us “perfect humans” can turn pretty nasty. Here the transformation of Aaron Stanford who refuses to hold a gun at the beginning turning into a scheming and axe wielding aggressor/punisher who starts to chop limbs and heads off of the mutants is a sight to behold. The movie also depicts the loss of innocence of the brother and sister duo of Dan Byrd and Emilie de Ravin and how they are forced to kill mutants to stay alive.
I really freaked out on The Hills Have Eyes and this is a movie that will entertain the slasher genre fans especially. While it is not a movie for everyone, horror fans and those who enjoy slasher flicks and also those who are looking out for something different and new will certainly enjoy it immensely. I have not seen the original 1977 movie myself, but aim to do so and will post my comments on it once I do.
The Hills Have Eyes II: I followed up The Hills Have Eyes with the DVD of its sequel The Hills Have Eyes II. The basic premise remains the same. A group of people stranded in the desert outskirts of a ghost mining town/nuclear test facility of the United States Government now inhabited by mutants as a result of the nuclear fallout in that area. The only change is that the group stranded is not passing through, but is the United States Army which has been called into that area to clear it of all mutants following the events of The Hills Have Eyes I. Seemingly the United States Army has failed and there still remain mutants who methodically go about maiming, chopping and killing the army personnel and the doctors and scientists posted in that area. This takes place at the very beginning of the movie and sets the tone for what we can expect from the remainder of the movie.
A group of National Guard trainees do so bad at their training that their trainer is at his wit’s end and this group of misfits then gets posted to the desert outpost at the foothills of The Hills That Have Eyes, the area in Sector 16 used for nuclear testing by the United States Government and now inhabited by mutants as a result of the nuclear fallout effecting that area. The trainee group arrives at Sector 16 only to find the desert deserted and they only get to hear animal like gnarls and grunts on the short wave radio and walkie-talkies. Now we know better (from such movies) to get away as fast as possible in the event of any such occurrence, but not this group of National Guard trainees. They immediately set out on a search and rescue mission and this sets up the entire trainee group to be much needed fodder by the mutants. To state the obvious each member of the hapless trainee group begins to be picked off methodically in the goriest of fashion by the mutants who want to keep the two females of the group alive for breeding purposes to replenish the diminishing mutant population. Sad to say, but The Hills Have Eyes II is a poor follow up to the vastly superior The Hills Have Eyes helmed by Alexandre Aja who has built up a formidable reputation at least among the fans of the slasher genre. This follow up is helmed by Martin Weisz who made the good Rohtenburg, but somehow fails to capture the vision or scope shown by Alexandre Aja in part 1. The Hills Have Eyes II will not please the hardcore slasher/horror fan and will be deemed disappointing by even the average moviegoer. Stick with Alexandre Aja’s The Hills Have Eyes and give this one a miss or better still check out the 1977 version of The Hills Have Eyes.
Tags: Aaron Stanford, Alexandre Aja, Billy Drago, Dan Byrd, Emilie de Ravin, Kathleen Quinlan, Martin Weisz, Robert Joy, Ted Levine, The Hills Have Eyes II Movie Review, The Hills Have Eyes Movie Review, Tom Bower, Vinessa Shaw