The Hills Have Eyes II opens with an unidentified woman (Cecile Breccia) tied to a bed and screaming in pain as she gives birth to a stillborn child. The camera does not flinch, director Martin Weisz instead relishing the woman’s pain and anguish whilst capturing every drop of blood flowing from her womb. The scene ends with the woman clubbed to death by a mysterious, brutish figure, and sets the tone for what is to come in this gross out attempt at horror. 

Essentially a rip off of Aliens, the film continues from last year’s unpleasant re-make of Wes Craven classic The Hills Have Eyes where a group of travellers are subjected to days of terror from a family of cannibal mutants who live within the hills of the New Mexico desert, which was once a nuclear testing ground.

When the authorities receive word of said event, the army is called in to initiate search and destroy missions. The first order is to install electronic surveillance in the area, with a group of soldiers in training sent to the desert to assist in the mission, yet find themselves under attack by the mutants, who use the terrain to their advantage and kill their prey one by one.

The Hills Have Eyes II is another ultra-violent, torture porn pile of crap which features poor caricatures, sloppy acting, and crappy dialogue that mostly consists of macho talk and innate observations. In a low move, the filmmakers rope in the current Iraq conflict to enhance its dramatic effect, which only comes off as pretentious and degrading to the real soldiers fighting in the God forsaken war. 

The movie rests solely upon its ability to shock, but whilst doing so it becomes nothing more than a nasty piece of cinema, which relies on depictions of carnage and rape to tell its story. How some of these scenes got by the censors is a sad, disturbing mystery.

These are moments when the films vast desert setting provides chills, yet they cannot save this miserable excuse of a movie. Wes Craven should be ashamed.