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Hills Have Eyes (The) (2006)
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jari Kovalainen (11th November 2007). |
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The Film
 There’s a lot of negativity towards “remakes”, especially when it comes to the horror genre. While there have been many bad or mediocre ones, some remakes still manage to do justice for the original film, while still being creative. “The Hills Have Eyes (2006)” from Alexandre Aja was one of the excellent remakes from the recent years (along with “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)” and “Dawn of the Dead (2004)”). It was very well crafted, intense and also a brutal horror-ride, leaving the viewer almost out of breath after the film. This positive experience raised the bar for the sequel “The Hills Have Eyes II (2007)” from the German born director Martin Weisz (e.g. controversial “Grimm Love AKA Rohtenburg (2006)”). The result is not a homerun this time, but fans who are looking for the edgy and bloody survival-horror will get at least something for their money. It starts by reminding the viewers what type of film is waiting for them; the gruesome childbirth scene opens the story. This is also the hint; the mutants are not gone. On the contrary, they’ve been re-populating. We also learn that after the events in the first film, the army has conducted a search & destroy-mission in the training and testing area in the New Mexico desert. It was this area - “Sector 16”, where the family from the “The Hills Have Eyes (2006)” took the fatal wrong turn. Now a group of scientists are in the area, installing electronic monitoring systems. At the same time elsewhere, the group of U.S. National Guard is having a tough training under their commander, Sgt. Millstone (Flex Alexander - e.g. “Snakes on a Plane (2006)”). On their way to the rifle range, they’re ordered to drop some equipment to the scientists in “Sector 16”, the old nuclear testing site of the government. When the group arrives on the scene, they discover that the scientists are missing and they receive a strange radio signal, coming from the top of the cliffs. The group divide, with Private First Class “Napoleon” Napoli (Michael McMillian) and PFC Johnson (Jessica Stroup - e.g. upcoming “Prom Night (2008)”) staying behind to guard the base, while the rest start climbing. The peaceful search-operation changes into the real fight for the survival, when a mutilated man is found in a portable toilet (!). He whispers “they’re here” before dying of his infected wounds. “They” are group of mutants from the hills and caves, now aiming to kill the National Guard soldiers one by one. “There are fates worse than death”. In the extras, the director Weisz admits that the sequel had to be “bigger, wider, faster and louder” and the screenwriting/co-producer team of Wes Craven (e.g. “The Hills Have Eyes (1977)” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)”) and his son Jonathan Craven also reveal that the studio is probably looking for a new “horror franchise”. This often sadly means, that it’s more important to keep the saga going (the screenplay was written in roughly a month) than to really sit down and think what would be the best way to create the film. In “The Hills Have Eyes II”, the more “intimate feeling” - if you will, from the first film is mostly gone and many of the surprise elements with it. In the 2006 film the thread was isolated towards the family and the mutants were a tight family of their own, the mutants in the 2007 sequel are animal-like “super-humans” almost, killing the faceless soldiers. This is the clear weakness of the film, since you don’t care about the characters like you did in the first film. And let’s face it; “soldiers against the monsters”-setting has already been done perfectly in “Aliens (1986)” and pretty good also in “Dog Soldiers (2002)”. “The Hills Have Eyes II” offers very little originality in that regard. What would’ve been the new, fresh way to approach the film? Since based on Wes Craven this “more action” was the “only way” to make the sequel. Bringing another family in the area probably wouldn’t have been a very original idea, either. It just had to have faster pace and body count. While I´m not the right person to answer that, I´m still wondering why all the characters in the film are so one-dimensional and the dialogue mostly weak “grunt humor”. Either the director Weisz isn’t very experienced in handling character-scenes (he’s mostly done music videos and commercials prior this film) or the dialogue was weak from the get-go. Or perhaps the studio pressure for action and blood was too high, so that was the first priority with the filmmakers. If Pvt. Hudson was the perfect “cocky, loud and high-strung” character in “Aliens (1986)” - almost stealing the whole show, PFC “Crank” Medina (Jacob Vargas - e.g. “Traffic (2000)”) is like the bad Hispanic version of Hudson. Being a quite prominent character in the film, his repetitive actions tend to get irritating in the end. Perhaps that was the whole point of “Crank”? The other thing that felt rather silly in the film was the way many characters behave in certain scenes. A guy has just been ripped to pieces and the lethal mutants are “out there”, but the characters are calmly taking a pee or shout to the empty caves (they might as well just shout “I´m here, please kill me!”). Now I don’t claim that this is nothing new in horror-films, but it just made some of the scenes look rushed or just plain unconvincing. Even for the horror-film. All is still not lost and in the end the film can offer some tension, wild action and definitely good gore-scenes. Special makeup effects designers Gregory Nicotero and Howard Berger from “K.N.B. EFX Group, inc.” are again handling the bloody effects and everything looked real and grizzly (at least in this “Unrated”-version). Only a few weaker CGI-effects (the blood spilling from the decapitated hand, for example) are giving a few pumps on the gory road. The film is actually stretching the censorship envelope (for a major studio movie) with one scene involving the female soldier PFC “Missy” Martinez (Daniella Alonso - e.g. “Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007)”). Although you don’t see much, it’s clear what’s going on. Where the film takes the wrong direction with the mutants is the “tongue-scene”. It makes the mutants too “non-human” and “campy”, which wasn’t the wisest choice in my opinion. You start to see them as plain “monsters”, rather than “deformed humans” with the results of nuclear radiation, what they essentially are. But again, perhaps that was the whole idea of the film. Mutants have evolved. They’re not “family” anymore, but rather like a group of organized, bloodthirsty hunters. This scene was probably also a part of the black humor that sometime veers its head during the film (quite weak “s*itter scene” being the prime example). The dark caves give a new dimension to the “Hills”-saga, but in the end it can’t create the similar claustrophobic effect than e.g. “The Descent (2005)” does. Do note, that although “The Hills Have Eyes (2006)” was the remake of Wes Craven’s original “The Hills Have Eyes (1977)”, “The Hills Have Eyes II (2007)” is not the remake of “The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1985)” (also directed by Wes Craven). Glad I got that off of my chest.
Video
The film is presented in 2.35:1 widescreen (1080p 24fps) and is using AVC MPEG-4 compression. The transfer is quite excellent; clean, mostly sharp, and detailed. Since the majority of film takes place in a sunny desert or at the dark caves, the color palette is not very vivid, but the certain “desert look” with “dusty”, brown-ish tones are very well rendered. Contrasts are solid and I didn’t spot any edge enhancement. Darker scenes reveal minor grain, but it’s not very visible in the film. In that sense the look is not that “gritty” (even when the film is). Black levels are deep enough. “BD-25”-disc is used and there are 16 chapters. The “Unrated”-version runs 90:00 minutes and disc is confirmed to be "Region A" only. Review equipment: Sony Bravia KDL-40W2000 LCD (1080p) + Playstation 3, via HDMI cable.
Audio
The disc includes three audio tracks, English DTS-HD Master 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 Kbps), and French Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 Kbps). English HoH, Spanish, Cantonese Chinese, and Korean subtitles are included. French subtitles are listed in the back cover and my PS3 indicates that they’re on the disc (when pressing the “subtitle”-button), but they’re not for some reason (not listed in the “Set-up” menu on the disc either). I believe only one player (Samsung BD-P1400, via latest firmware) can fully decode DTS-HD Master-track (nor that many of the current receivers) at the moment. This means that like the rest of the current players now, Playstation 3 supports the 1.5 Mbps “core” from the DTS-HD Master-track (full track would use variable bitrates up to 24.5 Mbps on Blu-ray). As most film buffs know, 1.5 Mbps is equal to “full bit rate” DTS from the selected standard DVD’s. Even in 1.5 Mbps, the track is quite stunning. The action and horror-scenes provide a real workout for the surround-speakers (e.g. the first scene with the National Guard is quite explosive), there are directional dialogue pans, and the mutant movement, hissing and other noises e.g. in the cave can give some nice spooks for the people sitting at the comfortable couch. “The Hills Have Eyes II” is the prime example how the effective sound-design and the crisp, high bitrate audio can provide a very enjoyable experience at the home theater also. Don’t worry, if you hear “only” the core from the DTS-HD Master-track. It’s just great in its own right.
Extras
Blu-ray includes all the extras from the SD DVD-release and apart from a few “bonus trailers” and are all presented in 480p standard definition. Extras don’t have any subtitles. No “exclusive HD extras” are included this time. -4 Deleted Scenes run 3:11 minutes with “Play all”: *”Spitter’s name” (0:42 sec) Spitter and Mickey are talking about the Spitter’s speaking pattern (he “spits” sometimes when talking). *”Crank Wants Out” (0:27 sec) Nervous Crank urges that he and Delmar would leave while they still can. *”Camo-smell” (1:06 min) With certain liquid from the cave, the group can hide their own “smell” from the mutants. *”Missy Wakes Up” (0:55 sec) After her ordeal in the cave, Missy wakes up to her horror. -Alternate Ending (0:55 sec) This you have to find out yourself. -Gag Reel (3:37 min) is another “funny reel” that’s hardly funny at all. Perhaps for the actors themselves, though. -“Mutant Attacks” -featurette (9:47 minutes) is the first proper making of-featurette, where the various people from the cast & crew talk about the mutants in the film and about the differences between the “The Hills Have Eyes (2006)” and this sequel. -“Birth Of A Graphic Novel - The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning” -featurette (12:42 minutes) is actually a quite interesting look of creating the graphic comic novel “The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning”. It’s the prequel to both 2006 and 2007 films, looks at the families from “Sector 16” that refused to leave from the area and ultimately devolved into mutants that you find from the films. Count me interested. Since I’ve been drawing comics when I was younger, I also found the process quite intriguing. Although in quick pace, the featurette shows how the process evolves from the idea to plot and from there to full script. Then the actual drawing process starts from penciling, moves to sketches and from there to inking. Finally the colorist (with computer) gets to work, as well as the letterer and finally the book designer takes care of the rest. And of course; then the marketing will include a featurette about this comic book on the DVD and HD-releases of the film. As a side note, it’s actually quite funny how the ultra-violence of the comic book is advertised in the featurette. It’s not aimed for the kids that’s for sure. -“Exploring The Hills: The Making Of The Hills Have Eyes 2” -featurette (12:43 minutes) starts of by telling about the premise of the project and the screenplay. Wes Craven and his son Jonathan wrote the screenplay in a month in a hotel room. Everybody in the featurette are praising the “s*itter scene”, so I´m not sure what it tells you about the filmmakers. The actors talk about the tough, physical conditions (the film was shot in a hot Morocco, as well as in the dusty and dark studio) and about the “boot camp” where they all bonded. Some creative decisions are also shared. -“Fox Movie Channel Presents: Life After Film School With Wes Craven” -featurette (10:20 minutes) is an interesting extra, but way too short. In this TV-special, co-writer/co-producer Wes Craven is being interviewed by three film students. Craven admits the he didn’t want to “re-done Aliens” with the soldier premise, talks about the birth of the screenplay and seems to prefer shooting films in the US (with “Scream (1996)”, he already walked out of the project because the producers wanted it to be shot in Canada). He still admits that it’s cheaper to film outside the US, and eventually you can put that saved money into a film in another way. Craven also speaks about the potential issues when the outside director is handling the screenplay that he has written and also that the relatively newcomer Martin Weisz was a “calculate risk” to direct the film (he speaks positively about Weisz, though). Craven again admits that the studio wanted a “punchy film” this time. Not necessarily blood in every scene, but still enough to keep it interesting for the fans of “R-rated” horror. Since Craven is a pretty good talker, an Audio commentary with him and Martin Weisz probably would’ve been interesting. -Bonus Trailers (in 1080p HD) for “The Hills Have Eyes (2006)” (2:25 min), “AVP: Alien Vs. Predator (2004)” (2:17 min), “From Hell (2001)” (2:22 min), and “Sunshine (2007)” (1:58 min) round up the extras. Three latter trailers run 6:37 minutes with “Play all”. Sadly, the great Teaser for the film, nor any Trailers are not included. What gives?
Overall
“The Hills Have Eyes II” can offer a good popcorn fun and effective bloodletting, but the overall-results are still nearing to mediocre horror than anything that special. This sequel is not bad, but “The Hills Have Eyes (2006)” is a better film in every way. The A/V quality of this Blu-ray is excellent and also some decent extras are included. In that sense no major complains. For more info, please visit the homepage of Fox Blu-ray.
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