The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007)

Better than the other Hills Have Eyes 2 but not as good as the second Hills Have Eyes... Man, movie title marketing is confusing... My roommate loves this one a lot because she has a hard on for military horror, and while I don't love it, I'm still happy to give it a regular re-watch.

Final rating:★★★ - I liked it. Would personally recommend you give it a go.

Sadly, this is just a really poor rip-off of the first film, and a sloppy exploitation of it's 2006 remake. This time our nocturnal nuclear survivors manage to - quite successfully - prey on a platoon of trainee National Guard. It would appear that their finely hones military skills are no match of the their hungry opponents as they are gradually whittled down - even their own guns are turned against them as someone manages to somehow crawl out of a portable toilet! The dialogue is banal and the director Martin Weisz has managed to assemble quite possibly the least capable cast of acting talent I have seen since "Mesa of Lost Women" (1953). The photography is good; we do get up close and personal with the frequently quite brutal action, but it appears that another side effect of surviving a mushroom cloud is a seeming invincibility when shot in the head at 5 paces - which after a while becomes really quite dull to watch. Wes Craven still had a hand in this, but I'm sure even he would look at it now and wonder what was he thinking!