The Hills Have Eyes 2 - 2007

What It Is: Bland sequel the recent, mildly enjoyable, remake of The Hills Have Eyes.

Why I Watched It: Military Horror is a favorite sub-genre of mine, so I just crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

What I Thought: The best, this movie was not. It's predecessor was only mildly entertaining and THHE2 couldn't even manage that.

Congratulations Martin Weisz! You've succeeded in portraying exactly what it's like to be stalking mutated monstrosities through old mine shafts. Mostly, it's pretty dark.

THHE2 and The Descent (another recent horror flick) both strive so hard to get the feel of being in a dark scary place right, that they forget how boring it is too watch movies when there's nothing on screen to see. Maybe other people are into this kind of thing, but restricted vision in movies and video games is a huge pet peeve of mine.

Not that Mr. Weisz will ever read this, but I'll provide him an educational example anyway. Silence of the Lambs handled the "plunge into darkness" bit famously. Clarice couldn't see a damn thing, but we could see everything through Bill's night vision goggles. We could see exactly how scared she was. Our vision wasn't impaired at all, but we were still shaking in our respective boots because we knew exactly what she was going through.

Movies are an audio/visual experience. Don't cut out half of that beautiful pair unless you've got the balls to make something great out of it. I hate to say it Mr. Weisz, but your balls were kind of sad.

Highlights: Um... the end credits? That's a little harsh, but THHE2 really wasn't very good. It's wasn't painfully awful, but it definitely wasn't good.

Who Should See It: Nobody. It's not worth it.

How Soon: See above comment...