The Hills Have Eyes 2
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| The Hills Have Eyes 2 | |
|---|---|
 Domestic Poster |
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| Directed by | Martin Weisz |
| Produced by | Wes Craven Johnathan Debin Peter Locke |
| Written by | Wes Craven Jonathan Craven |
| Starring | Jessica Stroup Michael McMillian Daniella Alonso Lee Thompson Young |
| Distributed by | Fox Atomic |
| Release date(s) | March 23, 2007 |
| Running time | 89 Minutes |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $15,000,000[1] |
| Preceded by | The Hills Have Eyes (2006) |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Hills Have Eyes 2 is the sequel to Alexandre Aja’s 2006 remake. The film follows several National Guard members as they fight for survival against the mutant people living in the New Mexico desert hills. The Hills Have Eyes 2 is directed by Martin Weisz and it was written by father and son team Wes and Jonathan Craven. The film is rated R for prolonged sequences of strong gruesome horror violence and gore, a rape and language.
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[edit] Plot
The movie follows a group of National Guard troops in the New Mexico desert, in a fictional secret army base called 'Sector 16', the site of nuclear testing in World War Two.
The team of soldiers are delivering electrical conduits to a scientific team when they find that none of the aforementioned scientists are there. After hearing a broken-up radio message via walkie talkies, the team set out into the surrounding hills to recover the missing scientists. During their search and rescue mission, the team of soldiers are attacked by the merciless people in the hills.
The soldiers' ascent into the higher ground leads the team into the mines within the hills, after one of their own is taken by one of the hill people. Armed with only limited ammunition and unable to contact any outside parties, the team must work together if they wish to live another day.
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Michael McMillian | PFC "Napoleon" Napoli |
| Jessica Stroup | PFC Amber Johnson |
| Daniella Alonso | PFC "Missy" |
| Jacob Vargas | PFC "Crank" |
| Lee Thompson Young | PFC Delmar |
| Ben Crowley | PFC "Stump" |
| Eric Edelstein | Cpl."Splitter" |
| Flex Alexander | Sgt. Jeffrey "Sarge" Millstone |
| Reshad Strik | PFC Mickey |
| Michael Bailey Smith | Hades |
| David Reynolds | Hansel |
| Derek Mears | Chameleon |
| Tyrell Kemlo | Stabber |
| Jason Oettle | Letch |
| Gáspár Szabó | Grabber |
[edit] Characters
Joblo.com received an official synopsis and the mutant characters description, because of how the descriptions are written, the document may have been used as a casting call for filming in Morocco. The casting calls for four new mutants. Like the remake, this film's names for the mutants, seem to reflect their personalities or how they should be perceived.[2]
Col. Lincoln Redding is a tough, experienced Special Forces member who's been to hell and back one too many times. He gets attacked in the opening sequence, only to be found later by the National Guardsmen.
Sgt. Jeffrey Millstone (Sarge) is a hard-assed, no-nonsense soldier and the leader of the National Guard Squad. He particularly gets off on tormenting Napoleon and his intellectual ways.
Pvt. Amber is an attractive young woman and a new recruit, who is not yet seasoned at battle and not very mature. But though she is not the toughest or most experienced of the cadets, she delivers when the team is in peril.
Pvt. "Missy" Martinez is a brave, tough woman. She is a single mother who is also an Emergency Medical Technician as her "day job". She gets taken hostage by the mutants and raped by the head mutant Hades, but she fights to the very end.
"Stump" Locke is solid and reliable but unassuming, and comes more to the foreground when the team enters into danger.
David "Napoleon" Napoli is thoughtful and a pacifist by nature - he tried to get out of his National Guard duty by pleading "conscientious objector" status. Some of the other cadets think of him as a coward. He is nervous about entering dangerous situations, but when the chips are down he taps into his primal self.
Mickey Elrod the most classically heroic of the cadets. He saves Amber's life from a mutant attack.
Delmar Reed is large, and tough as hell. Rock solid, he is a true soldier's soldier.
"Crank" Medina is tough with a bad temper; he and Napoleon fight a lot because Crank doesn't appreciate Napoleon's anti-war sentiments.
"Spitter" Cole is the oldest of the soldiers except possibly Sarge. He struggles a bit to keep up with the younger soldiers. He got his nickname because he has a speech impediment that makes him spit every time he makes a "sp" sound.
Dr. Han is a hip geek and a military tech expert. He gets dispatched in the film's extended opening sequence.
Dr. Wilson is another scientist. He is one of the people working at the military installation, in the film's extended opening sequence. He initially survives the initial attack and is discovered by the cadets, only to expire after being found due to thousands of small cuts inflicted on him by the mutants.
[edit] Production & Trivia
The Hills Have Eyes 2 began filming in the summer of 2006 in Ouarzazate, Morocco where the previous movie was filmed.
Writer Wes Craven's initial inspiration for the film came to being as he was having a casual conversation with producer Peter Locke. Craven invisioned that the previous film's character, Brenda (Emilie de Ravin), traumatized by the torment of the events in The Hills Have Eyes, would join the National Guard to overcome her fears. Barely through her basic training, Brenda would receive a call from her sergeant, who explains that they are sending a team back to the New Mexico Desert to rid of the remaining mutants. Her sergeant and the team need her, for she is the only left alive who knows the mutant's location. Because of de Ravin's involvement in the television show Lost, her schedule was unable to encompass filming for the sequel. Wes Craven replaced her character, but kept with much of the original idea in terms of using National Guard cadets in training.[3]
A one-minute teaser trailer was released on December 12, 2006. In addition to that, a series of clips with an introduction by Wes Craven and a small gallery can be found on the Fox Atomic website. Also on Fox Atomic you can find a soundless clip of the mutant, Grabber attacking Amber. Recently a full length trailer and two new clips were released to Yahoo! Movies.
Alexandre Aja, the director of the first remake, did not direct the sequel. Craven originally looked at Michael J. Bassett, the director of Deathwatch, to take over the directing role, but ultimately chose Martin Weisz after scheduling conflicts with Bassett.
A few of the characters refer to the entire group as being part of the US National Guard. This is incorrect for there is no federal National Guard. All National Guard units are governed by the state. They would refer to themselves as being a part of the state that governed their unit followed by their branch (i.e. the New Mexico Army National Guard)
Although the original 1977 movie had a sequel with the same name, this is not a remake of that movie.
[edit] External links
- The Hills Have Eyes 2 at the Internet Movie Database
- Teaser and Trailer on Apple Trailers released on January 4, 2007
- The Official Website at Fox Atomic The Trailer, Teaser, Photos, and more.
- Cast List, Synopsis, Production Notes, & Photos for The Hills Have Eyes 2 at MIN
- Review at Dread Central
