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1983 - USA Directed By: Wes Craven. Starring: Tamara Stafford, Kevin Blair, Colleen Riley, John Bloom, Michael Berryman, Janus Blythe, Robert Houston, Penny Johnson, John Laughlin and Willard E. Pugh.
Current Availability
A choice between a US R1 DVD release from Image Entertainment or a UK R2 edition from Anchor Bay UK. While both are uncut the Anchor Bay UK DVD features a far better anamorphic widescreen print than the Image release which by contrast features a bland fullscreen print which is only a marginal step up from the old VHS versions. Incidentally the Australian R4 DVD from Umbrella Entertainment appears to be of similar specifications to the Anchor Bay UK version.
Recommended?
Not really recommended. Viewed as a sequel to Craven's classic original The Hills Have Eyes Part II is a huge disappointment abandoning the visceral impact of its predecessor in favour of a far more predictable and rather anemic "teens in peril" affair. To be fair though as far as teen stalk and slash efforts go this is passable enough for what it is and hardly deserves the "worst sequel ever" reputation it enjoys amongst many horror fans. It's a safe bet though that the stupidity of the protagonists and the infamously heavy use of flashbacks to the original film are certain to see even the more forgiving of viewers rolling their eyes more than once.
Review (Contains Spoilers)
Although his highly controversial exploitation picture and feature film debut The Last House On The Left (1972) first embedded Wes Craven’s name in the minds of both critics and audiences it was without doubt his innovative and gruelling seventies horror classic The Hills Have Eyes (1977) which confirmed him as perhaps horrors most exciting new talent. Telling the simple yet riveting and visceral tale of an average All-American family who are waylaid and attacked my a rival family of cannibalistic savages whilst crossing the desert, The Hills Have Eyes was received warmly by both critics and audiences worldwide and swiftly gained deserved recognition as one of the classic horror films to emerge from North America during the late seventies.
In the years following The Hills Have Eyes Craven seemed to tread water somewhat. After killing time with the largely forgotten TV movie Summer Of Fear (1978) Craven moved on to his next cinematic feature, his understated rural chiller Deadly Blessing. Whilst worthy and often underrated in its own right Deadly Blessing failed to attain anything like the success of either Last House On The Left or The Hills Have Eyes despite the presence of the legendary Ernest Borgnine and a young pre-fame Sharon Stone. Following that Craven moved onto his most overtly commercial project to date in the shape of his 1982 film adaptation of the popular comic book series Swamp Thing which unfortunately for Craven met with a lukewarm reception on its release.
By 1983 Craven, according to his own recollections, was seriously strapped for cash so when he was approached to make a sequel to The Hills Have Eyes on an estimated $1,000,000 budget (roughly just over four times that of the original) a cash strapped Craven jumped at the chance. Despite the return of the original films poster villain Michael Berryman along with fellow returnees Robert Houston and Janus Blythe, The Hills Have Eyes Part II was a drastically different film to Craven’s classic original making heavy concessions to the teen-orientated slasher movie craze which had been popular at he beginning of the decade and was also lazily padded out with a high quantity of “flashback” footage from the original The Hills Have Eyes. Despite being shot in 1983 The Hills Have Eyes Part II sat in limbo for best part of two years and was not released in the United States until 1985, meanwhile in the interim Craven achieved his greatest success to date with his eighties horror classic A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984). Upon its eventual release The Hills Have Eyes Part II met with almost universal derision from disappointed fans of the original and to this date is still regarded by many as one of the worst horror sequels ever to grace the silver sreen and by far the lowest ebb of Craven’s career. Even Craven himself seems to hold the film in meagre regard having gone on record dismissing The Hills Have Eyes Part II as a project he took little personal interest in and made purely for monetary reasons.
The Hills Have Eyes Part II picks up several years after the grisly events of the original film. Despite having made a new life for himself Bobby Carter (Houston) is still deeply traumatised by the horrific misfortune which befell his family several years before when crossing an abandoned military bomb testing site whilst crossing the desert on their way to California. The Carter family were waylaid and attacked en route by a wild family of cannibals who left most of the family for dead with Bobby being one of the few to escape from the desert with his life. In the intervening years Bobby has struck up a relationship with Ruby (Blythe) a reluctant member of the cannibal clan who turned against her brethren in order to aid Bobby and the remaining Carter’s in their desperate battle for survival. Since abandoning her families savage way of life to become a part of everyday society Ruby has abandoned her former name and begun a new life under the name Rachel.
Bobby and Rachel are now not only associated with a teenage gang of competitive motorcycle racers but Bobby has also patented a new brand of experimental fuel which enables far faster acceleration speeds than any other currently on the market. At an upcoming race Bobby stands to make a fortune by selling his new fuel formula but the journey to the site of the race would mean travelling close to the stretch of desert where his family were waylaid and killed and therefore he cannot bring himself to join the team. Therefore the team set off to the races without Bobby but Rachel, despite being equally apprehensive about the planned route herself, agrees to go with the team and make sure their journey goes smoothly. They also gain another trusty companion in the form of Beast – the Carter families faithful old Alsatian who had played a vital role in their past bid for survival in the desert.
The team set off in their bus but soon find themselves running late and despite Rachel’s warnings and all the grisly urban legends they foolishly opt to take a “shortcut” along an unmarked dirt road which coincidentally takes them directly along the same route the Carter family were following when attacked years earlier. Sure enough the teens bus soon breaks down and they are promptly set upon by Pluto (Berryman) and his fearsome uncle The Reaper (Bloom) who stand as the deadly remnants of the same cannibalistic brood who the Carter’s had fatally encountered previously. Caught completely unawares and out of their depth most of the teens are swiftly killed off once night falls leaving just the blind yet partially psychic Cass (Stafford) and her boyfriend Roy (Blair) alone in their desperate bid to outsmart their savage aggressors and escape from the desert alive.
If compared directly to its predecessor The Hills Have Eyes Part II fairs extremely badly. The visceral impact of the original and its powerful subtext of civilised, city types resorting to savagery to encounter the aggression of their animalistic counterparts are both abandoned altogether in favour of a more sterile and predictable “teens in peril” plot. However, by the time The Hills Have Eyes Part II finally got a theatrical release in 1985 the slasher movie formula which had enjoyed its commercial heyday in the years immediately following the success of Halloween (1978) and Friday The 13th (1980) had outstayed its welcome and was considered passé. Therefore it will probably come as little surprise to learn that The Hills Have Eyes Part II achieved nothing like the success of the original thanks principally to the combination of growing audience apathy towards the teen stalk and slash formula and the universally derogatory reviews and word of mouth it received from both critics and horror fans alike.
While the teenage protagonists that typically populate your average eighties slasher film have never been particularly renowned for their intelligence, the motley assortment of motorcycle obsessed kids assembled in The Hills Have Reyes Part II are rather lacking in the old grey matter even by the usual standards for this subgenre. To be perfectly honest the abject stupidity of their collective and individual actions are often so illogically stupid that it stretches suspension of disbelief to breaking point. Even though one of their close personal friends (Bobby) is one of the survivors of the onslaught shown in the original film and is still too traumatised to return to the desert this bunch treat the story as if it were a hokey urban legend and spend their bus journey cracking jokes and mocking it. Later when they discover they are running late they cut across the infamous old bomb range which used to double up as a cannibal families stomping ground without a second thought.
It should also be added that Rachel who was once part of said cannibal family reluctantly consents to pass through her murderous former brethren’s old haunt offering mild warning but no real discouragement. On the subject of Rachel it should also be noted that her eventual earth shattering revelation that she is the deranged cannibal clans long lost daughter Ruby meets with the same largely nonplussed reaction from her friends that you might expect if she had announced she were turning vegetarian. Even when confronted by the very much alive remnants of the infamous cannibal clan our teenage protagonists practically beg to get killed by playing infantile pranks on each other, sneaking off to have sex and engaging in macho posturing motorcycle chases with their aggressors. In short they essentially do all the dumb clichéd things that teens in dumb clichéd slasher flicks tend to do.
It doesn’t help matters much that the cast are largely nondescript and at worse irritating with only a few managing to acquit themselves well. Tamara Stafford as the blind yet headstrong Cass and the always watchable and spunky Janus Blythe both make a positive impression and Robert Houston is impressive as the terminally traumatised Bobby. Unfortunately for whatever reason Houston is wrote out of the film before the bus even sets out which is perhaps a pity as if the narrative had been written to see Bobby return to the scene of his families misfortune and confront his demons it might have given fans of the original something to get their teeth into. On a similar note some may also be disappointed to see that the cannibal clan have been reduced from an entire family to just two solitary desert savages. Happily however Michael Berryman – the bald, crag-faced character actor whose fearsome appearance so memorably adorned the original films poster art – returns as cannibal subordinate Pluto and to his credit throws a good deal of enthusiasm into the role even though the writing disappointingly sees him spending most of the film snivelling and on the defensive. All of the killing duties in The Hills Have Eyes Part II are handled by Pluto’s uncle The Reaper played with gusto by John Bloom who at the very least looks the part resembling some sort of fearsome fairy tale ogre with his bearded, burly appearance.
Of course much of the criticism which has surrounded The Hills Have Eyes Part II over the years has centred around the large quantity of recycled footage from the original The Hills Have Eyes which is used in “flashbacks” during the films first act. Looking back on The Hills Have Eyes Part II now retrospectively this heavy use of recycled footage smacks of pure laziness as Craven uses incessant and unnecessary flashbacks as a half-arsed substitute for having to pen any real exposition or character development into his screenplay. Bobby is only on screen for all of ten minutes but in that time has two separate flashbacks and not long after the bus sets out Rachel also has one. However, the flashback epidemic reaches new heights of ridiculousness when the Carter family’s trusty Alsatian dog Beast also has a flashback in a moment of comical stupidity that is so readily ridiculed by horror fans that it has since passed into trash movie legend. To be fair some reviews of The Hills Have Eyes Part II which suggest flashbacks take up half the films running length are wildly exaggerating, but there is little doubt that the way in which footage fromn the original is used to pad out the wafer thin narrative to feature length is by the numbers filmmaking at its absolute lazy worst.
So overall in retrospect is The Hills Have Eyes Part II actually as completely and irredeemably awful as its lousy reputation would suggest? Although I don’t doubt that many of my fellow horror fans will disagree with me on this I would personally have to stick my neck out and say no. Watching The Hills Have Eyes Part II now its readily obvious that Craven set out with no real ambition beyond making a standard teenage body count flick to be released under The Hills Have Eyes moniker to ensure its box office potential. While it hardly softens the blow for disappointed fans of the original to be truthful The Hills Have Eyes Part II, approached solely as a standard teens in peril slasher opus, is really no worse than scores of other similar stalk and slash movies which were flooding the worlds screens during that particular era. Sure the teenage protagonists are basically for the most part a bunch of charmless cretins, but lets face it, how many early eighties teen slasher films can you name where the teens aren’t charmless cretins?
Although it makes a poor substitute for the raw horrors of the original, once night falls Craven musters a modest amount of suspense around the old body count formula. He is aided to this end by a fair soundtrack score from Harry Manfredini which is rather derivative of its composers previous work on the Friday The 13th series yet still befitting and modestly effective. There’s little disputing that this is Craven at his absolute crummiest but there’s even less disputing that at this time Craven was one hell of a horror director and thus he manages to deliver a couple of fine shock moments in the shape of a fairly nasty machete throat slitting and a splendid extended suspense sequence in which Cass feels her way blindly through an old mineshaft strewn with the body[parts of her friends and former victims while The Reaper lumbers after her in hot pursuit.
Judged purely as a sequel to Craven’s original The Hills Have Eyes it is really impossible to dispute that this is a monumental disappointment lacking all the inspired innovation and raw, dark, gritty horror that made its forbearer an instant classic. Even judged simply on its own merits The Hills Have Eyes Part II is a lacklustre horror film where Craven’s well documented disinterest shines through as brightly as a lighthouse beacon on a dark winters night resulting in a standard game of teen stalk and slash plagued with a lazy deluge of regurgitated footage from the original, dumb protagonists and a predictable, derivative narrative. Yet on the same note if one can be objective enough to set aside all expectations based on Craven’s original and view The Hills Have Eyes Part II as a standalone film then it is actually a fairly easy film to sit through with a few effective moments and even its misdemeanours such as its protagonists sheer stupidity and the infamous canine flashback can are actually quite fun in a comic sense if you’re in the right sort of mood. So overall is The Hills Have Eyes Part II a good film? No its not. Is it a hugely disappointing excuse for a sequel? Most definitely. But is it really the worst horror sequel ever? Is it really a worse film than celluloid excrement such as Leprechaun 4: In Space, Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday and Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf? Never in a month of Sundays!
Also Try… The Hills Have Eyes (1977, Wes Craven) / Just Before Dawn / Friday The 13th / Friday The 13th Part 2 / Friday The 13th Part 3 / The Final Terror / The Hills Have Eyes (2006, Alexandre Aja)
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