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Hills Have Eyes II, The
Fox Atomic / 20th Century Fox


4.0

based on 18 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 57 votes
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FILM:

The Hills Have Eyes

MPAA RATING: R for prolonged sequences of strong gruesome horror violence and gore, a rape and language

Starring Michael McMillian, Jessica Stroup, Daniella Alonso, Jacob Vargas, Lee Thompson Young, Ben Crowley, Eric Edelstein, and Flex Alexander

As part of a routine mission, a unit of National Guard soldiers stops at a New Mexico outpost in order to deliver equipment to a group of atomic scientists. When they arrive at the isolated research camp, however, they find it is mysteriously deserted. After spotting a distress signal in a distant mountain range, the team decides to embark on a search and rescue mission into the hills in order to locate the missing scientists. Little do they know that these are the very hills that the ill-fated Carter family once visited, and that a tribe of cannibalistic mutants lies in wait. (20th Century Fox)

GENRE(S):	Horror
WRITTEN BY:	Jonathan Craven Wes Craven
DIRECTED BY:	Martin Weisz
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: July 17, 2007 Theatrical: March 23, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	89 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The director, Martin Weisz , doesn't lean on a lot of noise and editing tricks. He can relax, since all the scares are built into the Cravens' script, which invokes both "Goonies" and last year's instant-classic, chicks-versus-cave-dwelling-vampires flick "The Descent."

Empire Kim Newman

Pretty solid gory horror.

Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirschling

A retro horror-comedy featuring quick deaths and cheapo-looking gore, with a few dorky laughs and gross-outs but not so many scares.

Village Voice Jim Ridley

For anyone other than hardcore gore-hounds, this flipbook of deliberately invoked global-unrest horrors, from friendly-fire killings to rape as a breeding weapon, is effectively mean and unrelenting--and pretty far from fun.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Though written by Wes Craven and his son, Jonathan Craven, this is pretty standard stuff: A lot of creeping through dark tunnels with just enough characterization to help you keep track of who's still alive, but not enough gore to really satisfy fans of Aja's bloodbath.

Variety John Anderson

The politics of "Hills 2" won't enlist any new converts to the horror ranks, but existing fans will be drawn to the combination of visceral tension, violent payoff and the patented Craven gift for innovative gore.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

It's not fun to watch.

The New York Times Matt Zoller Seitz

The film is brazenly indebted to old cowboys-and-Indians movies and to James Cameron’s "Aliens." Gleefully sensationalistic and paced like an adults-only shoot-'em-up video game, it's ultimately less interested in subversion and subtext than in making viewers squirm, shriek and throw up into their popcorn bags.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

The Hills Have Eyes 2 proves that even grisly, gory violence can be awfully boring.

New York Post Kyle Smith

The mutants are brain-damaged; the filmmakers don't have that excuse to justify this movie, which is the kind of thing the sergeant would call "a stunning display of individual and group stupidity."

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jason Anderson

A perfunctory gore fest and quite possibly the year's worst date movie.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

As a fan of the genre, and someone who genuinely loves such recent horror efforts as "The Descent" and "The Host," I respectfully suggest that the atmosphere for horror movies might be better if moviemakers stopped making ones like this.

Los Angeles Times Gene Seymour

You'd like to think such bankruptcy of imagination means we've seen the last of these subterranean creeps. But you know they'll be back soon to collect their royalties from the gore hounds who apparently don't care how dull or warmed over the accompanying package.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

After this disgrace, it's time to shut the hills' eyes for good.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

On the whole, this is an awfully long slog through very arid terrain, in which generic soldiers track, fight and try to escape from generic villains (you'd be surprised at how uninteresting mutant flesh-eaters can be). I can't speak for the hills, but I spent most of the movie just trying to keep my eyes open.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Assembles the most motley group of incompetents this side of a "Police Academy" movie, yet somehow misses the laughs. But humorlessness is probably the least of the film's problems, lagging behind amateur-night performances from the no-name cast, a homogenous visual palette (and from a music-video director, no less!), and lots of pointless sadism.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

As witless and simpleminded as the irradiated humanoids that serve as the franchise’s bad guys.

Film Threat Felix Vasquez, Jr.

This horror fanatic doesn't have room for Craven in his genre anymore. Collect your cash and call it a day already, Wes.

The average user rating for this movie is 4.0 (out of 10) based on 57 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jasen W gave it a4:
This movie definitely didn't live up to my expectations. The story line had potential, but they blew it. Including women in the National Guard combat unit made the movie more of a comedy than a horror movie. The rape scene was a good touch and there was some good gore.

Tyler D gave it a3:
The Hills Have Eyes 2 flat out fails at everything it attempts to do. It's filled with terrible acting and a lack of sympathy mixed in with stupid characters and an even dumber story (if it's considered that.) The inclusion of soldiers being the main cast also takes away from the scariness. Overall, it fails miserably to live up to The Hills Have Eyes.

Rock V gave it a1:
I think it is a horrible movie. The rape scene is horrible principally, the violence is exaggerated. Not that it is bad to have violence in those movies, but the violence against womens in that way, especially after hearing what happened in the second movie, i was disgusted. I saw lots of horror movies, even those with rapes in them never made me angry like that. I understand people liked it, and that they gave a 10, but I don't understand what went into the creators heads when they wrote it. Mediocre movie.

Patrick C. gave it a3:
New horror movies normally are bad. Remakes of old horror movies are normally bad. But when you make a remake of Hills Have Eyes two, you know the movie is going to be bad. Sure enough, Hills brings the awfullness we all knew was coming. The movie isn't scary, isn't entertaining and quite frankly it's boring. Wes Craven should stop selling the rights to his old horror films and start making new ones.

Christopher W. gave it a1:
This film had a fantastic teaser trailer, and after seeing it, one might expect something more than one actually gets. I saw it in an empty theater, likely one of many empty theaters. I LOVED the first remake and thought it was one of the best horror films in recent years, but this one disappointingly played much like the countless direct to video 'fright flicks' that collect dust on rental shelves. I wasn't terribly bored, but I do recall talking on my cell phone during the third act. Oops!

syzygy gave it a5:
Way more skill than imagination, the plot is retread, a homage to nothing, just a routine exercise to bank in on the money garnered by its predecessor. If you think of this not as a film but as a film school graduation project where you score the director on how well (or not) he executes the fundamentals of creating a basic mood, squeezing beleivable performances out of your principals, and splicing everything together neatly, then he passes. Your modest expectations might even feel a surprise or two. Altogether, forgettable otherwise.

PJ R. gave it a1:
I love a good horror movie, but, lord this flick pissed me off. Horribly acted (and I mean, really bad, especially the big guy with the Cindy Brady lisp), and an implausible, stupid story. The characters behave in ways that make you want them to die quickly and violently. At a merciful 89 minutes, this movie was still way too long.

Hills Have Eyes II, The Fox Atomic / 20th Century Fox

Hills Have Eyes II, The
Fox Atomic / 20th Century Fox