AllHallowsEve

My thoughts: A sloppy, terribly made film and a waste of the free ticket. Trees everywhere are demanding their limbs back. This film received zero advanced screenings -- including genre coverage -- and now I know why.

Basically, this film is what The Hills Have Eyes 2 '85 is to The Hills Have Eyes '77 all over again. An unneeded mess... I didn't much care for the first remake, but this film somehow imparts it with a shimmering Hitchcockian glow by comparison. How so?

Problem 1: The script is completely inept. It's as if Craven and his son were in an accident at the paintball range one Sunday morning, and, as a result, were suffering temporary concussions while writing this. Even an intoxicated J. Carpenter came up with better material than this imploaded mess. Halloween 2, while by no means a masterpiece or even a good film, is miles better than this atrocity.

Problem 2: These characters are just dumb. I'm wondering how they even made it into The National Guard, let along how they passed the training. A few of the lines given by these "thespians" are truly atrocious. I think we have a new rival for Freddy vs. Jason in the bad acting/unlikable character department; once again, we root for the villains and can't wait till the entourage is discarded.

If anything must be said, it's the following:

Bring back the dog! Whereas in the first sequel (in the original series) the event was just idiotic and illogical, it would have made this film better.

Bottom Line: A terrible film that is being blasted by everyone everywhere and with good reason. I don't watch "scary" (I say that loosely) horror for the gore though, so what do I know.

D-

Bluelitespecial

I saw a matinee as well yesterday, I enjoyed the remake a lot last year, but this film was just sloppy. I was rooting for the mutants to kill these people. Btw,

I love watching gory horror films but that wasn't necessary to have in the film.

cerial442

I'm planning on checking it out this week.

It got trashed on the DVDTalk review, but then again so did Dead Silence and I enjoyed that one.

Greg MacGuffin

No dog flashback, no sale.

resinrats

So the question is, why doesn't the military just bomb the crap out the the area? They must know the area the mines are in so use bunker busters to collapse the whole thing. Say it is a 'training excercise'. It is on a military base so they can do what they want there.

DRG

Not a great film by any means, but I thought it was better than Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. The movie actually has a fairly decent setup/initial premise, but it squanders this with the stupidity of its characters. Almost every death is a result of someone making a dumb decision. And thus this is where the promising setup falls apart... the filmmakers couldn't find a feasible way to put a team of armed soldiers in peril at the hands of lesser armed mutants. If the soldiers make the right decisions, they obliterate the mutants and there's no movie. But going the other way obviously wasn't the answer, either.

JumpCutz

I saw this today. I couldn't wait for it to end. Just Dreadful. Liebesman's 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:The Beginning' is sublime in comparison.

Giles

not sure if violence was trimmed but Fangoria noted that director Martin Weisz will more than likely reinstate some back story that got dropped for time/pacing.

Seantn

That ain't sayin' much! I thought TCM: TB was one of the more pointless 'big horror' films to come out of horror in recent years.

Giles

pointless yes, but the trend of ultraviolent films and leniency of the MPAA to horror films is a plus to gorehouds.

demonio

we did a video review for it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdpTMJffSL0

mdc3000

I hated it. This is exactly how you don't do a sequel. I would have rather seen a straight up retread of the stranded family than this shit. Some of the worst dialogue I have ever seen, and even the 'heroes' were unlikeable. This was a pussy horror movie that thought it was tough as nails. NONE of the scares work, the gore feels forced and the 'freaks' are just flat out lame.

Also, whoever keeps thinking that showing a disgusting birth scene in a horror movie is a good idea needs to be shot - I didn't find it cool or 'bad ass', just stupid as fuck, which how I felt about a similar scene in TCM: The Beginning. Aja's movie looks like Citizen Kane next to this.

MATT

The hills don't have eyes, the hills have vaginas.

Rammsteinfan

I enjoyed it just for the gore. It was very very thin on story but kept me entertained enough to probably purchase it on DVD someday especially if its unrated. It was just an excuse to make some ugly dudes and kill off people.

Hank1215

Totally enjoyed it, will definitely get it on dvd(Hopefully Unrated).

matome

I love this stuff.

Peep

Normally I love this type of story also and my expectations were very low, but I still thought it sucked. It would have sucked even as a DTV rip-off of THHE.

Seantn

Based on a lot of stuff that i've read, i'm skipping it. I enjoyed the first one, and I love horror movies, but this one just doesn't interest me. Over the top violence as the only reason to see it? Yeah, I'll just re-watch the first one.

Rammsteinfan

Glad to hear the dvd will have an unrated version in June. Hope it has some decent extras. Hopefully it will get enough $$$ back so they can make one more. Im game for a few more mutant head bashings and impalings.

Perkinsun Dzees

I saw this yesterday and thought it was rather cool. It's no classic, but much better than that stinkbomb called "300" -- and with better dialogue and action scenes.

This film is to the original movie as "Aliens" was to "Alien". Instead of a straight ahead horror movie it's more of an action film with the stereotypical military types duking it out against the mutants. The second half is kind of a ripoff of "The Descent" but with enough gore to satisfy even the most hard-to-please gorehound.

I was amused to see the guy from the TV show "What I Like About You" as the lead character. Too bad Amanda Bynes wasn't also in this flick, but the blonde chick they had here was pretty cute nonetheless.

cerial442

I saw this tonight, and I really didn't care for it. It wasn't the worst movie I have seen, but it wasn't anything to write home about. I think if they wouldn't have rushed this it would have turned out better.

An army of mutants vs the national guard troop could have been cool, but it was rushed and didn't get close to the level of intensity of the first film. Oh well. I would still be down for a part 3, but they need to take their time with it.

chaz k

What an absolute piece of crap. Wes Craven should be ashamed to have anything to do with this disaster. The second half was a total ripoff of The Descent. Just downright awful. When part 3 comes out, unless it has 75%+ good reviews i will not waste my time or $$$ on it.

Seantn

Part 3 ain't happening, at least not in theaters. After 2 weeks it'll only have made about 15 million, which is what part 1 made in it's first weekend. This'll probably be out of theaters in the next 2-3 weeks.

cerial442

What was the budget for part 2 compared to part 1? It looked to be a lot less.

If they wouldn't have rushed it, they could have actually done something decent with the film.

Giles

this series seems cursed, both sequels 1985 and 2007 have been really savaged by critics and fans of the series.

Seantn

Just saw this.... WHAT A SHITTY, SHITTY MOVIE.

I mean, it was just flat out awful. I hated all the characters and wanted them all to die instantly. That was a big change from the 2006 remake in which I actually cared about the family and didn't want to see them all die. These new people - Couldn't stand them.

Because of this, none of the violence or anything had any impact on me and the movie felt like it was simply trying to be shocking - and it wasn't at all. It was just a really crappy film.