Reviewed by Melissa Garza
Where is Director Alexander Aja when you need him? Last year, he took Wes Craven’s classic “The Hills Have Eyes” and remade it so well that it turned out better than the original. Of course, Hollywood demanded a sequel, and a year later, here it is; but this time without the insight and talent of Aja.
The plot alone is horrendous. A group of soldiers on their last day of training are led to the old nuclear testing site in the desert where they meet their untimely demise at the hands of vicious mutants who now rape and hold women hostage for breeding purposes.
The movie opens attempting to take the route used by “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” remake by disgusting the audience in hopes of convincing them that revulsion is the same as fear. There’s a woman with matted hair, rotting teeth and long, yellow, corroded finger and toe nails. She is tied to the bed and giving birth to a mutant baby, scared yet? Clearly due to the lack of imagination on the hands of the creators they decide to show the entire birth and make it as gross as possible. It was stupid. The child looked like the small green creature from “Ghoulies.” Any true horror fan knows that nothing good will come from a film when the first scene is cheap enough to attempt to make their viewers close their eyes in the same fashion they would to an episode of “Jackass.”
Then there are the characters. Nearly every one is a cliche. First, we have Millstone (Flex Alexander), a hard as nails, vulgar, but secretly kindhearted and caring sergeant. Then there is Crank (Jacob Vargas), the guy that everyone wants to die. He’s sexist, blames everyone around him for everything, and if he were in a boy band, he’d be the bad ass. Delmar (Lee Thompson Young), on the other hand is fierce but in a fair way. He believes in justice and sticking together. He’s the leader. There are two strong women who are interchangeable for most of the film, until one of them, Missy (Daniella Alonso) makes a stupid move and ends up with the mutants so the other Amber (Jessica Stroup) can play hero. It isn’t that these actors are awful, but they had nothing to work with. The dialogue was lame, there wasn’t any visible drive or energy. The clear motivation of survival was clear, but the emotional scenes needed to connect with the audience so they cared were never shown.
The only exception is Napoleon (Michael McMilian). The creators seemed to mimic Doug (Aaron Stanford), the hero in the first film, when writing Napoleon. If not for the talent of McMillian it could have come across as a blatant copycat. Both characters were against violence. Napoleon was against war and believed in “communication” over “confrontation,” and Doug never wanted to touch a gun. Both are driven to murder and rage they never dreamt possible when pushed too far. McMillian, however plays Napoleon from a level of innocence, where in Doug it stemmed from a philosophical belief in pacifism. By far, if there was any salvation to this movie is came from Napoleon.
All that is left are the mutants. In its predecessor, the mutants were known by face. They were frightening and had distinct features. Even if the viewers didn’t know them by name, they recognized them when they were on screen, and they were terrifying. This time around, the mutants are just lame. For some reason, one has skin that looks like rocks and he blends in with the atmosphere around him. That’s not scary and it’s completely insane that anyone could think it would be. Then there is disfigured monster. This one has an eight inch tongue and licks Missy’s face before attempting to rape her. It’s just dumb, and there is no doubt that the makers knew it. They went for cheap scares that didn’t work and gross out gags that are overused.
There are so many problems with this movie. It’s common sense that the characters have to be afraid to invoke fear in those watching. When everyone has a “let’s take these bastards on” type of attitude, the level of concern the viewer has is diminished. If they’re not afraid, why the hell should we be? The moments of terror that the characters did actually endure were immediately silenced by the ‘we’re going to kill these guys’ attitude usually made vocal by Crank.
All in all, the movie ended up being no more scary than “The Mummy” starring Brendan Fraiser and no more exciting than watching paint dry.
Scared Stiff Review 3/10 – Thank You Hollywood for F’ing something else up.
