The Hills Have Eyes Part II

Name: The Hills Have Eyes Part II
Genre: Thriller, Horror
Released: August 2, 1985
Duration: 86 min
Rating: 25
Cast: David Nichols, James Whitworth, John Laughlin, Kevin Spirtas, Peter Frechette

1985

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Generally unfavorable reviews based on 4 Critic Reviews

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Mixed or average reviews based on 7 Ratings

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5.7

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5.7	User Score Mixed or average reviews based on 7 Ratings

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The Hills Have Eyes 2

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Movie Details & Credits

Castle Hill Productions | Release Date: August 2, 1985 | R

Starring: David Nichols, James Whitworth, John Laughlin, Kevin Spirtas, Peter Frechette, Robert Houston, Suze Lanier-Bramlett, Tamara Stafford, Virginia Vincent, Willard E. Pugh

Summary: A group of bikers, heading to a race, become stranded in the desert and find themselves fighting off a family of inbred cannibals who live off the land.

Director: Wes Craven

Genre(s): Thriller, Horror

Rating: R

Runtime: 86 min

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Critic Reviews

Budd Wilkins

Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes Part 2 is a bland, bloodless shambles. Sequel-making of the laziest sort, it’s nothing more than a perfunctory, undisguised cash-grab. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

It’s dull, formula terror pic cliches, with one attractive teenager after another picked off by the surviving cannibals. Read full review

TV Guide Magazine Staff (Not Credited)

It's hard to believe that the same man who wrote and directed one of the best horror films of the 1970s, The Hills Have Eyes, could have pulled the same duty on the sequel and come up with a film as shockingly bad as this. Read full review

Bill Cosford

Those looking to Craven for a new spin on an overworked genre are entitled to feel disappointed. [03 Sep 1984, p.B4]

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TheQuietGamer

Oct 16, 2021

Now here's a film with a particularly foul reputation, standing as one of only a handful of movies to receive a rare 0% on Rotten Tomatoes and being famously disowned by its creator. If you look at Wes Craven's career up to this point things had been going fairly well for the director. ThisNow here's a film with a particularly foul reputation, standing as one of only a handful of movies to receive a rare 0% on Rotten Tomatoes and being famously disowned by its creator. If you look at Wes Craven's career up to this point things had been going fairly well for the director. This did release on the tails of A Nightmare on Elm Street after all (following having been reportedly shelved for two years), which to this day is still considered one of the greatest works of horror ever conceived and rests comfortably alongside Scream as his greatest contribution to the genre. So you could pretty safely say this was his first real major screwup as there's seemingly no one out there with a kind word for it. So is this the cinematic abomination you've heard? In all honesty, not really. It was just a misguided attempt by Craven to turn his savage cult classic into a teen slasher franchise.

You know what was popular in 1984? Friday the 13th. Which around this time had just released its fourth entry. One hardly blame a cash-strapped Craven for trying to copy that formula with the hopes of setting himself up with a series of payday-granting sequels. All he had to do was tone down the more brutal aspects of the original, keep the blood, add some boobage, and come up with a cast of annoying 20-somethings to butcher. A cast that includes a blind girl, the helpful cannibal chick from the first Hills, a poor man's Andy Samberg, and a cartoon stereotype of a black guy alongside a few other characters who are too bland to remember. Robert Houston also returns as "Bobby" to further establish this as a direct continuation, but I guess they couldn't afford to keep him around for the whole thing as he only shows up in the very beginning.

Nothing here is really all that bad. It's just that the new abandoned ranch setting lacks the compelling scenery of its predecessor and the violence is no longer creative or symbolizes anything so it feels extremely generic. It's biggest problem from a filmmaking standpoint is how the first-half is bogged down by flashback sequences to lengthy clips from the 1977 flick, which feel unnecessary as they do little to catch-up viewers who haven't seen it and bore the ones who have. It doesn't help either that after receiving a short, very small theatrical run it was quickly pushed out direct-to-video and on subscription television, which can clearly be seen as it looks like a made-for-TV production.

If this truly is Craven's worst effort as so many people claim though, then his filmography as a whole is more enjoyable than many other's. Overly demonized, this is more a lackluster and ultimately forgettable stab taken at establishing the type of regularly incoming paychecks that he SHOULD have been getting when Freddy Krueger became a household name, rather than the atrocious dumpster fire it's known as. I'm in no way defending the movie as it's genuinely not worth seeking out unless you're a completionist. I simply think its heinous portrayal over the years has been overblown as it's honestly more mediocre than awful.… Expand

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