The Hills Have Eyes Part II
So you think you're lucky to be alive...
Year of Release: 1984
Genre: Horror
Rated: R
Running Time: 86 minutes (1:26)
Director: Wes Craven
Cast:
Tamara Stafford ... Cass
Kevin Spirtas ... Roy
Janus Blythe ... Rachel / Ruby
John Laughlin ... Hulk
Willard E. Pugh ... Foster
Peter Frechette ... Harry
Colleen Riley ... Jane
Penny Johnson Jerald ... Sue
Robert Houston ... Bobby
Michael Berryman ... Pluto
John Bloom ... The Reaper
Nicholas Worth ... The Reaper (voice) (uncredited)
Summary:
Ignoring the warnings of a survivor of the earlier gruesome ordeal, a group of youngsters set out to take the desert road again. When their bus runs short of gas and they are stranded in the middle of nowhere, the crazed mutants reappear, their blood lust unabated.
In the lethal duel that ensues, the lucky ones die first. Until, finally, an injured man and a blind girl are left to face the terrible Reaper - alone.
Review:
The Hills Have Eyes Part II, remindin' us that eyes'll only getcha so far if they've got no vision.
And speakin' of turnin' a blind eye, I'm kinda ashamed to admit that I hadn't seen this one since it first come out 'cause at the time I considered it a second-rate Friday the 13th ripoff. 'Course in those days I wasn't the cultured, well-rounded, professional amateur film critic I am today, and I've come to see what an immature attitude that was. Hills Part II is NOT a second-rate Friday the 13th ripoff - it's a third-rate Just Before Dawn ripoff elevated by the inclusion of Penny Johnson Jerald's breasts. I apologize if that was already apparent - I just wanted to get that on the record so you wouldn't think I was shallow or prone to oversimplification.
To be fair, the first time I saw it was back in '85 at the Grime Time when it was still located out by Haystack Bend on the way to Lake Gunkamucka (which, no disrespect to Skunky Hernandez' cattle ranch, was a much better location since you could go out there and watch whatever Empire Picture was playin' for free with a pair of binoculars while you catfished) and I was a little distracted that night.
What happened was, Chester Grimes'd hired Aurilla Magstadt to work the ticket booth, and I don't wanna speak ill of the dead or anything, but she was about as much fun as Nancy Reagan when somebody accidentally invited Ron to the same party.
It was always somethin' with her. One week she wouldn't like the "Ass, Grass, or Cash" bumper sticker on Duke Tankersley's '62 Chrysler Imperial. Another time she got all bent outta shape about Billy Hilliard straddlin' the drive-in barrier arm and "making suggestive motions." And I remember once she even called the cops after Dick Buford accidentally parked his Datsun King Cab up against the outhouse door while she was in there takin' a monumentus dumpus and went home with Marla Ostman in her Pinto. I guess what I'm sayin' is some people just aren't cut out for the drive-in lifestyle.
Like I was sayin' - it was me, Duke, Billy, and Cleave Furguson all piled into Duke's rig that night and it musta been August 'cause it was so hot that Aurilla wasn't wearin' a turtleneck, and we're just mindin' our own business, partaking of a little Quiet Riot at the optimal decibel level required for maximum enjoyment, when she starts in on us.
"That'll be $4 and... are you relieving yourself?!" she shrieked.
"Ferguson, you piss on my seat and I'm gonna pound you until your Mello Yello turns Shirley Temple," Duke threatened after spinnin' around to find Cleave refilling a recently drained Pepsi bottle.
"Relax, dude, I've got a handle on this," Cleave grinned nervously.
"Really shouldn't stare too long, he's jail bait, ya know," Billy pointed out.
"Yes, I'm aware. And if it were up to me none of you would be allowed in here to see this trash. It's poisoning the minds of our young people and..." she lectured.
"Right, sure, imminent collapse of society, blah blah blah... mind if we see the movie while we still have young minds to poison?" I asked, wavin' the money out the rear window.
"I guess it's none of my business. But if you continue down this path you'll never contribute anything to society," she sighed, snatchin' the money.
"We contribute plenty. Look, I'll prove it - here's a nickel!" Cleave cackled, openin' his door and tossin' the refilled bottle in the direction of Aurilla's sandals just as Duke started acceleratin'.
I know, two wrongs don't make a right, but by God, the woman was standin' between us and radioactive cannibals and we'd already missed the ad for the Arcadia Pinball Palace where "the high score can be yours if you've got the balls," so no court woulda convicted us.
'Soon as Duke parked the Imperial we all took off runnin' for the concession stand hopin' to make it back in time for the openin' jolt (we didn't know at the time that the chunkhead investors hadn't ponied up enough dough for Wes to include one), only by then Aurilla'd radioed Chester about the Dr. Pecker incident and so we hadda explain ourselves before he'd sell us anything habit-forming.
"She's a bitch," Cleave summarized.
"What he means, sir, is Aurilla just doesn't fit in here. She's badmouthin' the movies, judgin' the customers, and boring everyone who comes in with speeches about how she'll never go back to Avon even if they beg her to," Billy explained with considerably more tact.
"He's right; woman's a menace. Why'd you hire her any... hey... what the hell is this?" I spat, horrified by the contents of my fountain drink.
"New Coke, why, don't like it? And to answer your question, she's my sister-in-law," Chester replied.
"Sister-in-law, huh? That's rough," Duke sympathized.
"Yeah, I don't have a lotta say in the matter, if you follow me. 'Course, if she was to quit all on her own..." Chester shrugged.
"Chester, you're a reasonable guy - you get The Gipper on the horn and fix this Coke debacle and we'll see what we can do about the Iron Maiden," I offered, lookin' down into my cup to determine whether the problem could be seen with the naked eye.
"Deal," Chester agreed, offering the bemused wink of an adult who doesn't realize he's just entered into a binding pact with a juvenile.
"I kinda like it," Billy said, takin' a pull off his straw between bites of hot dog.
"I'm tellin' you guys," Cleave smirked, shakin' the horrible concoction he'd brewed up usin' every type of soda in the fountain.
Cleave swears to this day that he invented the "Suicide," and since I haven't been able to obtain definitive proof otherwise I stopped arguin' with 'im decades ago, but that particular evening I had more pressing matters to attend to.
Call it poetic justice. Call it a defense of the Drive-In Oath. Call it a buncha teenagers with no imagination on a New Coke sugar high, but right around the 45-minute mark (gimmie a break, the Reaper doesn't appear on screen before then and the human brain doesn't fully develop until the age of 25) I knew what we had to do.
"How come I gotta be the retarded one?" Duke grumbled.
"'Cause you're the hairiest," I insisted.
"Not if I go pick up Ferguson's mama," Duke chuckled.
"Hey, screw you, Chewbacca!" Cleave fired back.
"Which one of you's gonna be Pluto?" Billy interrupted.
"Whaddya mean, 'which one of you's?' Why can't YOU be Pluto?" Cleave demanded.
"See, this right here is why you're goin' to summer school, Cleave. Now shut up and let's do this," I instructed, tryna get everyone focused on the task at hand.
Cleave's scissors cut my paper and so Duke went to work shavin' my head with the straight razor he kept in his glove box to manage his ongoing mat issues while Cleave and Billy borrowed a hubcap off a 1970 Mercury Cougar and a coupla deer hides from the back of Coach Butts' pickup to complete our desert mutant ensembles.
I swear to God we were just tryna scare 'er a little. Plus, given the way she'd been pissin' on the movie there was the highest probability she'd never actually watched it. But when Duke and me crept up to her booth it became clear pretty quickly that she had occasionally glanced up from her book to take in the events on screen. The book, incidentally, was one of those paperback romance deals with a cover that paints unrealistic expectations of what a man should look like, which I only bring up because of where the story's headin'.
I never woulda admitted it to the guys, but that was the first time I'd seen a woman nekkid from the bottom down, but apparently that ticket booth was the only real privacy Aurilla got on account of her crashin' on Chester's couch at the time.
In retrospect, I think just attackin' the booth and doin' a little snarlin' like we'd planned woulda been less traumatic for 'er than that moment when she looked up to find us watchin' her flick the ole California raisin, but that's the way it shook out, and before we knew what was happenin' she'd tore the door clean off the ticket booth and headed for the first signs of life she could find... which, unfortunately, was the concession stand.
Chester got 'er drawers back up about as fast as could be expected, but I'm sure all the howlin' and carryin' on she was doin' led to the kinda awkward conversations most folks were hopin' to leave to the middle school Health teacher to cover.
I still feel bad about what happened, and if it's any consolation I spent the rest of the summer peelin' the skin off the top of my head every night and havin' to reassure everyone that there was no need to take me to Disneyland.
That's about the end of the story, but in my defense, I was stupid enough in those days to believe that Chester had enough pull to get the original Coke formula back on store shelves all by himself in accordance with our agreement, and I respected the hell out of that man until I found out the truth a few months back. Still, I wouldn't have it any other way, 'cause it probably accounts for my deeply held belief that, through the drive-in, all things are possible.
We got three more good years before the Grime Time bit the dust, but as luck would have it, Chester hired a hygienically-challenged young upstart by the name of Skunky Hernandez to maintain the grounds and man the ticket booth during its twilight years, so the story, unlike Aurilla's evening, had a happy ending.
Anyway, gettin' back on track, basically what we've got with Hills numero-two-o is a man forced to prostitute his legacy, run his own canon through a woodchipper, and spit out a sequel that would fit the mold of the '80s slasher film in order to pay the mortgage. I'm tellin' you this upfront so that you'll have a chance to temper your expectations and understand that what you're about to see is a project brought to life by a man who, at the time, had become a mere shell of his former self, and who faced production difficulties so extreme that his finished product can only be rated three to four times better than the average direct-to-Netflix picture.
But even at his lowest Wes could still make ya think - and if he were still with us I'm sure he'd insist I share my observations about the deep, philosophical meaning hidden beneath the sands of mediocrity that blew in and buried a promising film due to the meddling of cleftskulled executives. That, or he'd order every copy of the flick destroyed and beg us never to speak of it again. Probably that second thing.
First, seasons don't fear The Reaper, but could possibly be convinced to if he'd take off that ridiculous hubcap. Second, if the hills had ranged weapons they could reduce their losses significantly. And third, "My Girlfriend Ate My Dad" is a topic even Jerry Springer wouldn't touch.
The movie begins seven years after the events of the first flick with Bobby tellin' his therapist about the day the rural/urban divide came to a head as the doctor listens politely with a look on his face like he wishes this woulda come up sooner instead of spendin' the last six years talkin' about the time his client walked in on his parents havin' a threesome with the carpet shampooer. Thankfully, Bobby's doin' a lot better after shackin' up with Ruby and dedicatin' 'imself to the development of a new fuel formula that'll help dirt bike racers go faster, fly farther, and get more chicks while recovering from catastrophic brain injuries. Unfortunately, when the time comes to hit the desert and competitively pass gas he starts fixatin' on that fateful day when the planets aligned to murder the bulk of his family, and so he wusses out and sends Ruby to play Desert Bus and keep the next generation of state fair daredevils (Roy, Harry, Foster, and Hulk) and their chicks (Cass, Sue, and Jane) from doin' anything that might get 'em turned into buzzard tacos. This includes collectin' Beast from the kennel where his neck-gnawin' genes are bein' bred into litter upon litter of future police K-9 units, but Beast ain't much protection against the road scholar who figures a shortcut through two-track cactus country in a Carnival cruise ship is next level thinkin', and before ya know it they end up tearin' a fuel line at a jackalope crossing.
The group make their way to one of those "if things go to shit" homesteads that everybody who reads Soldier of Fortune has been savin' up to buy since the Clinton Administration, 'cept when everyone splits up to look for gas Ruby finds 'erself at a family reunion with Pluto, whose Middle Child Syndrome has only intensified since the dissolution of his nuclear family. Pluto bolts before the Beast comes back for seconds, and while everyone's attendin' to Ruby he goes tearin' off on one of the kids' bikes and lures Roy and Harry into a canyon where Harry gets a boulder dropped on 'im while Roy ends up concussed in a cargo net by a hairy Neanderthal Quasimotocross caveman. Everyone just assumes they're off lubricatin' their crankshafts or somethin' so they don't think anything of it until night falls and Ruby feels an ethical obligation to seek out any identifiable parts that haven't yet been roasted over a spit, only when she and Hulk go searchin' somebody rolls one of the missin' bikes down a hill toward 'em and Hulk goes and gets 'imself smashed when he tries gettin' Ruby back to yonder ridge. Meanwhile, Foster and Sue sneak off to the bus to make the sign of the hydraulic pork barge until Foster's fuel pump loses all its compression and he hasta go sneak a peek at Jane while she's spongin' down 'er chassis to get his pistons churnin' again.
Sue's P.O.'d, so she goes runnin' into the scrub like the cops just showed up to bust 'er bonfire and when Foster gives chase he runs into Ruby who tells 'im she'll see about findin' Runaround Sue if he'll go unleash the Beast, only the Beast musta left the stove on back at the kennel or somethin' 'cause he goes tearin' off through the brush and throws Foster under the bus where Death Valley Dahmer is waitin' with a fork and a supper bib. While all that's goin' on, Cass's been usin' 'er heightened blind woman senses to gain insight into the situation and conclude that when three-quarters of your party go missin' there may be danger afoot, and sure enough, the moment she starts rootin' around in a hidden trap door leadin' down into an old mine shaft Sue's body comes flyin' through the window and the leather-clad Sagesquatch uses the distraction to grab June and give 'er some complimentary chiropractics. Elsewhere, Pluto finally gets his hands on Ruby and tells 'er the hills have lies and that the rumors of his exanguination were greatly exaggerated 'cause The Reaper (the hubcap wearin' Chonky Kong 'causin' all the mayhem, and big brother of Papa Jupe) was able to surgically repair his severed jugular after gettin' a degree in Nursing from that Sally Struthers home study course, and that the two of 'em are gonna make a fortune parcelin' off tracts of land to right-wing paramilitary groups and whacked out hippie Socialists fleeing civilization to commune with the Earth spirit.
Pluto's pretty well got 'er right where he wants 'er now and it's lookin' like Ruby's about to take a spin in the ole rock tumbler until Beast leaps outta the darkness and starts gnawin' on Pluto's nipples 'n bits till he hasta retreat, but in the course of tryna keep his celestial body outta harm's way, he discovers that Roy has somehow survived the grunt-force trauma inflicted that afternoon and lets his guard down just enough for Beast to get the drop on 'im and send 'im tumblin' off a cliff - thus marking the first time Pluto and Mercury ever shared an orbit. In the meantime, Cass's been stumblin' around usin' all of 'er enhanced sensory perception to hear, smell, and feel precisely how screwed she is until The Reaper falls through the farmhouse skylight like he'd been watchin' 'er and drawin' parallels between himself and Eric Stoltz in Mask. Too late though, 'cause havin' heard the glass shatter she thinks Stone Cold Steve Austin's comin' for 'er and so she hasta descend into the mine shaft/meat locker and try to find someplace to hide while hopin' The Reaper didn't have the medical trainin' necessary to patch up Anthropophagus as well. I'd best call it quits right here so I don't spoil the endin' for all the people who've never seen a Friday the 13th movie, but it might be worth stickin' around for the resolution of the Chekhov's racing fuel subplot for any scholars of cinematic arts seeking closure.
Alrighty, so due to recent developments there is some good news for The Hills Have Eyes Part II, namely that, since the release of Phantasm: Ravager, it is no longer the single most disappointing sequel in genre history. That's the best I can do, unfortunately. So you're probably wondering what happened; after all, we've got Wes Craven back directing, Janus Blythe and Michael Berryman returning, it's an '80s sequel, and there're hills aplenty, so it really can't miss, right? Well, never underestimate the ability of studio executives to screw the pooch.
The problems first began, as anyone with a kitchen table and a calculator can attest, with dinero. The studio got uptight about the amount of money being spent and halted production when it was around two-thirds finished as a result of Craven's hedonistic insistence on the film having both hills AND eyes. Okay, fine. I get it. The cocaine petty cash was runnin' short and back then mid-sized studios were so reliant upon it that they wrote it off on their taxes as an operating expense. But a few months later a funny thing happened - a second Wes Craven production hit theaters and became one of the biggest success stories in genre history, eventually spawning seven sequels and a remake. You mighta heard of it - obscure little gem called A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Okay, well, that settles that - turns out the guy who made Last House on the Left, the original Hills, and Swamp Thing *does* know what he's doin', so maybe there's still hope for The Hills Have Eyes Part II gettin' back on track and into theaters. Pretty quick the studio calls Craven - they wanna finish the flick... but using only the footage he's already shot. It all makes sense now, doesn't it? The flashbacks, the Chainsaw style text-crawl at the beginning, Ruby goin' down for the count following a blow to the head and failing to return to the fray as the avenging savior - pitiful.
Now, I'm fully aware that Elm Street was a ground-breaking concept the likes of which audiences had never seen and that a sequel to a seven-year-old movie with a strong '70s aesthetic was never going to generate anything close to the box office revenue Elm Street was yielding. But you would think that after Elm Street raked in $25 million on a budget of $1 million the production company would have done whatever it took to get Craven the money he needed to properly finish Hills Part II so that they could distribute it with his name on the theater marquee during a time when he was the most celebrated new talent in genre history. That's all I'm sayin'.
That said, there's plenty of blame to spread around here, so let's break out our picks and see if there's any gold in thum thar hills or whether we're fools for even botherin' to prospect.
The plot takes an unfortunate (if logical) approach by moving away from the grim, deathly serious tone of the original and pivoting to a standard '80s slasher format, complete with intentional humor. The only difference between Hills II and a Friday the 13th sequel is that there're two slashers working together, and when you put it under the microscope you'll find that it's got more in common with the first six Friday the 13th movies than the last two entries in the Paramount cycle have with its predecessors. The flick even has a soundtrack composed by Harry Manfredini, which in itself is not technically a flaw, but nonetheless adds an inescapable link between the flick and the king of slasher scores. Something that *is* egregiously wrong, however, is something written into the script by Craven himself, and that's the addition of The Reaper character who does not fit into the original story's canon because in that story it was made quite clear that Jupiter was the patriarch of the cannibal clan. You could also get bent outta shape about Pluto having survived what were inarguably mortal wounds at the paws of Beast, but if you're gonna grumble about that you've got no business enjoying any slasher movie ever made. Nonetheless, this is a serious unforced error and borders on insulting when it would have been just as easy to add previously unseen members of the family that don't violate the original canon. Bottom line - it's an incomplete movie chock full of filler flashbacks that jumps around haphazardly out of necessity, and while Craven deserves a little credit for almost makin' a movie out of the pieces, it's still a raging dumpster fire.
The acting ranges from middling to decent, with good performances by returning cast members Michael Berryman as the inbred mutant whose brush with death has blessed him with a new-found sense of humor, and Janus Blythe as the recently domesticated chainsmoking ex-cannibal trying to make it in a strange new world of fast food and personal hygiene. Among the newcomers, the strongest talents are those of Willard Pugh and Peter Frechette as the redundant but likable wise-cracking comic relief, and Penny Johnson Jerald as the sassy fox who knows how to beat the heat, while Kevin Spirtas, John Laughlin, Colleen Riley, and Tamara Stafford are capable, if one-dimensional. I dunno about you, but anytime someone appears in the credits as "and introducing" I brace myself for an underwhelming performance from someone who's being pushed into too big a role too early into their career, and Stafford's performance here, while not bad, resembles that remark. It's surprising that there aren't any genuinely bad performances in a flick this broken, but if I've gotta give a burnt biscuit award it'd probably go to John Bloom and his portrayal of The Reaper, who comes across as more ridiculous than menacing and undermines the decent character design by Dick Brownfield who would later go on to do the special effects on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Of course, for all I know Craven may've given him instruction to act that way, but regardless, it's more silly than anything.
Here's who matters and why (besides Michael Berryman who's kind of a big deal in horror circles): Robert Houston (The Hills Have Eyes 1977), Janus Blythe (Eaten Alive 1976, The Hills Have Eyes 1977, Phantom of the Paradise, Drive-In Massacre, Spine, The Incredible Melting Man), Kevin Spirtas (Subspecies II, III, & V, Blood Bound, Embrace the Darkness, Friday the 13th Part VII), Tom Laughlin (The Lawnmower Man, Gacy, Storm Trooper, Space Rage), Willard E. Pugh (RoboCop 2, Mil Mascaras vs. the Aztec Mummy, Progeny, Puppet Master 5, The Guyver), Peter Frechette (The Unholy, The Kindred), Colleen Riley (Deadly Blessing), Penny Johnson Jerald (Night Visions), John Bloom (Star Trek VI, Dracula vs. Frankenstein, Brain of Blood, The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant), Nicholas Worth (Darkman, Starforce, Blood Dolls, Timelock, Hologram Man, Circuitry Man II, Hell Comes to Frogtown, Swamp Thing, Invitation to Hell, Don't Answer the Phone!, The Terminal Man, Scream Blacula Scream).
And those who ascended: Kevin Spirtas (Tom Gallagher on Rituals), John Laughlin in Footloose, Willard E. Pugh (Harpo Johnson in The Color Purple), Peter Frechette (George Fraley on Profiler), Penny Johnson Jerald (Dr. Claire Finn on The Orville, Captain Victoria Gates on Castle, Kasidy Yates Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Beverly Barnes on The Larry Sanders Show, Vivian Conway on The Paper Chase).
The special effects are shockingly few for a flick that follows the Friday the 13th formula so closely. There's a spear through the gutbucket stickin' out of a lumpy, padded stomach, a slashed throat that looks good and features excellent arterial spray, decent mutant makeup on The Reaper, and an explosion that doesn't come close to rivaling the one at the end of the first film. Impossible to say whether the effects were deliberately toned down due to the recent crackdown by the MPAA or whether they were planned but never completed, but we're well below the standard of an '80s slasher film any way you slice it.
The shooting locations are noticeably different from those of the original flick despite being filmed a scant 70 miles away. It's logical to assume that Craven, after an additional seven years of life experience, decided that no movie is worth dyin' for and chose a location closer to civilization, or perhaps he didn't wanna press his luck after having blown up an endangered Joshua Tree while shooting the first movie, but whatever the reason, the new locations lack the bleak, hopeless landscape of Hills Part I and showcase entirely too much green vegetation. In the first flick, the hills and their accompanying sea of desert were so hostile in appearance that they essentially reached character status in their own right, where some of the areas chosen for this sequel feel bright and almost scenic. Still, the buildings on said property ring true as authentic for anyone who's spent any length of time driving off the beaten path, and the interior production design is littered with junk and relics of a bygone era that help channel the spirit of both the original Hills and Tobe Hooper's Texas Chain Saw Massacre upon which it was modeled. Not up to the standard set by the first film, but still well-scouted and beneficial to the film's atmosphere.
The soundtrack is vintage Manfredini, and completely indistinguishable from the early Friday the 13th films he scored. It's actually jarring to watch the flashback scenes and hear Manfredini's music playing over them, as the change triggers something in your brain that instantly designates the music as a kind of reverse anachronism. It's not a bad score by any means, and although he does add in a little xylophone percussion now and again to try giving it some semblance of individuality, there's just no way a person can listen to those trademark violins and think of anything but Friday the 13th. Again, it's important to differentiate one's expectations about what a Hills Have Eyes sequel should look, feel, and sound like from the finished product when evaluating technical proficiency because while you may personally feel it's tonally wrong (as I do), that doesn't mean mistakes were being made in selecting music to accompany the film as it was constructed. In reality, because the movie was modeled so closely after what was the most popular genre franchise at the time, there's no question that Manfredini's score hits the mark in terms of intent, and thus, on a technical level, fits in well with movies of this subgenre. It's damned unfortunate that Craven decided to move away from what made The Hills Have Eyes an all-time classic, but one's feelings about that decision must be relegated to the opinion section of a movie's rating, and so it shall.
Overall, my scoring system is going to be a lot more generous than most on the basis that many people weigh a film's plot as the be-all-end-all factor that determines its net worth, while I give equal weight to acting, special effects, shooting locations, and musical scoring. If you count yourself among the first group, I would not recommend seeing his flick under any circumstances, as it is a complete clusterfuck in that respect. It also completely abandons the tone and "anybody can die at any time" tension of its predecessor in favor of a cookie-cutter '80s slasher format that I feel does not suit it. That said, the acting is decent, it has good shooting locations, and if you're into '80s horror you will enjoy the soundtrack, so this is the part where I try to make clear that you should not get your hopes up, despite there being zero chance that your completionist nature was ever going to bypass an '80s slasher flick.
Rating: 50%