THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART II (1985)Up until yesterday, I had never seen this much-maligned rushjob. I have a thing for cheesy 80's sequels (you might call it a piquancy), so I owed it to myself to add The Hills Have Eyes Part II to ye olde Netflix queue. Wes Craven has disowned it. Most fans despise it. I was expecting a colossal scourge, and while it pales in comparison to the original, it wasn't the unpardonable waterloo that I thought it would be. It's a decent slasher. Nothing more, nothing less. I get the ubiquitous admonishment, though. The characters are drab, the gore is non-existent (the slit throat is hardly worth plaudits of any sort) and the villains - all two of them - are about as threatening as Squidward Tentacles.
On the "glass half full" side of the argument, I can't say that I was ever bored. I dig Michael Berryman, and the blind chick is somewhat likeable. With a little extra bite, this could have been a fun splatter reel. Alas, Craven was teething behind the camera. How did he go from A Nightmare on Elm Street to this muzzled turkey? Apparently, the reason why he agreed to shoot a sequel to The Hills Have Eyes was because he needed the coinage. Fine, but that doesn't explain Vampire in Brooklyn.
Only dog flashbacks are real
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