大象传媒

Wes Craven continues to cannibalise his back catalogue in The Hills Have Eyes 2, a clapped out sequel to the remake of his seminal 1977 shocker, that replaces the Carter family with a bunch of weekend warriors. With French gore-master Alexandre Aja jumping ship, this loses the nihilistic cruelty that made the last outing so disturbing. Still, Craven doesn't throw the mutant baby out with the bathwater. This is Cannibal Hillbilly Holocaust Part Deux: shorter, funnier and enjoyably stoopid.

Opening with a placenta-ripping mutant birth scene, HHE 2 goes for guts not glory as a squad of unbelievably idiotic National Guardsmen (and women) led by Michael McMillian (Veronica Mars) and Jessica Stroup (School For Scoundrels) get trapped in the desert hills. No prizes for second-guessing the insistent subtext, writers Wes and Jonathan Craven (his son) poking us in the eyeballs with their Iraq/Afghanistan symbolism until it becomes bleeding obvious: "It's not the mother****ers in caves halfway around the world who keep me up at night, it's the ones right here!"

"SPLATSTICK LAUGHS"

In the forgotten '80s tradition of horror sequels (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, The Evil Dead 2), Aja's replacement Martin Weisz reworks the concept for splatstick laughs, his gristly, full-bodied SFX pushing the horror OTT. Rape by mutant ("Give me baby") and gory gags in which hands are cut off and waved at their former owners make for a tonally off-key sequel that's likely to either pleasantly surprise or absolutely annoy hardcore Hills fans. Cheesy and yucky, it's a guilty pleasure but not good enough to make you stick The Hills Have Eyes 3 on your movie wish list.

The Hills Have Eyes II is released in UK cinemas on Wednesday 28th March 2007.