Eyes soreReview by Vives Anunciacion
Directed by Martin Weisz
Written by Jonathan Craven, Matrin Weisz
R18 / 89 mins
Fox Atomic
* ½ (1 ½ stars)
From the trailer I thought Wes Craven directed this, so I thought Hills Have Eyes 2 was promising. The trailer looked promising. I forget that promises were made to be broken.
The original Hills Have Eyes, directed by Wes Craven in the 1970’s, was read as a statement on the US’s nuclear weapons program. Last year’s remake, directed by French newcomer Alexander Aja, was less of a political statement and focused more on bringing horror onto the screen.
The Hills Have Eyes 2, co-written by Wes Craven and his son Jonathan, tried to do both: it’s a loose statement on the US policies on the war on terror (the main characters are National Guards on training for deployment in Kandahar) and it’s a horror movie trying to replicate Aja’s successful remake. Didn’t our mommas tell us never to do two things at the same time?
In the movie, a group of trainee National Guards are sent to the New Mexico deserts to deliver supplies to a military-scientific detachment. On their arrival, the soldiers discover that the site has been eerily deserted and they immediately investigate. No sooner than they set off to the nearby hills that they are picked off one at a time, butchered, axed, like in Part 1, in all manner of death the filmmakers can conjure, by the mutants living in the hills. Quite a few survive by the movie’s end, but only after some very fierce violence.
The actors are forgettable, the characters are forgettable and 5 minutes after the start, the audience couldn’t care less if at least one of the soldiers survived the cannibalistic massacre by the mutants. Thanks to the previous movie, the sequel need not bother to explain the whys and the wherefores of the mutants – which only means this movie cannot stand alone by itself. Would there be a part 3? You betcha.
Yes some scenes are scary, if scary means seeing someone’s head get smashed into pulp bits like a watermelon. But mostly it’s the surprise-gulat kind. I almost jumped in the Portalet scene, but after a few seconds I realized something – the movie isn’t scary, it’s disgusting.
Directed by Martin Weisz
Written by Jonathan Craven, Matrin Weisz
R18 / 89 mins
Fox Atomic
* ½ (1 ½ stars)
From the trailer I thought Wes Craven directed this, so I thought Hills Have Eyes 2 was promising. The trailer looked promising. I forget that promises were made to be broken.
The original Hills Have Eyes, directed by Wes Craven in the 1970’s, was read as a statement on the US’s nuclear weapons program. Last year’s remake, directed by French newcomer Alexander Aja, was less of a political statement and focused more on bringing horror onto the screen.
The Hills Have Eyes 2, co-written by Wes Craven and his son Jonathan, tried to do both: it’s a loose statement on the US policies on the war on terror (the main characters are National Guards on training for deployment in Kandahar) and it’s a horror movie trying to replicate Aja’s successful remake. Didn’t our mommas tell us never to do two things at the same time?
In the movie, a group of trainee National Guards are sent to the New Mexico deserts to deliver supplies to a military-scientific detachment. On their arrival, the soldiers discover that the site has been eerily deserted and they immediately investigate. No sooner than they set off to the nearby hills that they are picked off one at a time, butchered, axed, like in Part 1, in all manner of death the filmmakers can conjure, by the mutants living in the hills. Quite a few survive by the movie’s end, but only after some very fierce violence.
The actors are forgettable, the characters are forgettable and 5 minutes after the start, the audience couldn’t care less if at least one of the soldiers survived the cannibalistic massacre by the mutants. Thanks to the previous movie, the sequel need not bother to explain the whys and the wherefores of the mutants – which only means this movie cannot stand alone by itself. Would there be a part 3? You betcha.
Yes some scenes are scary, if scary means seeing someone’s head get smashed into pulp bits like a watermelon. But mostly it’s the surprise-gulat kind. I almost jumped in the Portalet scene, but after a few seconds I realized something – the movie isn’t scary, it’s disgusting.
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