Movies That Suck/Franchises: The Hills Have Eyes. The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1985)

You're not, because you have to watch this crap.

After Wes Craven passed away in 2015, I decided that, while I had naturally seen the most notable movies in his filmography by that time, I should also seek out his more obscure and least popular films, both out of curiosity and a feeling of genuine respect I had for the man, who I did recognize was a great filmmaker, in spite of his stumbling blocks. That notion was boosted by the fact that one of the things I got for Christmas that year was the book, Wes Craven: The Man and His Nightmares, which was a really good, interesting read and has served as a tremendous aid whenever I've written about Craven's films on here. Upon reading that, I decided, "Okay, I definitely must see more of this stuff," and that thinking led me to seek out obscure but, in my opinion, quite well-made TV movies that he did like Summer of Fear (aka Stranger In Our House) and Invitation to Hell, little known but interesting theatrical items like Deadly Blessing, and a truly great thriller in Red Eye. Unfortunately, it also led me to utter garbage like Vampire in Brooklyn, his TV movie Chiller, and this ill-advised and desperate excuse for a sequel to one of his most well-known early movies. This was the last of the Hills Have Eyes movies that I saw, as I'd already seen both the remake and its own sequel (for a little heads up, I don't like either of those movies) by the time I got to it, though I'd certainly heard about how notoriously bad it was supposed to be. I knew all about the constant flashbacks to the first film, one of which was from the point-of-view of the dog, Beast, how the movie went absolutely nowhere and was extremely boring, and that it was shot before Craven made A Nightmare on Elm Street, when he was desperate for work and was virtually broke. I also knew that this was the one film of his that Craven disowned, to the point where, when it was put on Blu-Ray in 2012, he had no involvement at all with that release. So, I had feeling that this wasn't going to be a walk in the park of a viewing experience but, regardless, I decided to reserve judgement until I gave it a fair shake.

Yeah, this was an instance where what everyone had told me about this movie turned out to be true: it was bad. I personally find Vampire in Brooklyn and My Soul to Take to be harder to sit through but this is still among the worst of Craven's filmography by far. I may not be a huge fan of the original film, as I still think it has a fair amount of cons, but I can respect that movie for being one of the forerunners of its motif, along with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (even though I think that's a better movie); this is a complete by-the-numbers affair and lacks any of the imagination Craven often poured into his writing and directing. It's not scary in the slightest, it's incredibly boring, especially in the latter part of the "climax," the returning actors from the first movie are wasted, the other characters are comparable to the most stock, cardboard kind of teens found in slasher movies, it's poorly-shot, its score sounds like the Friday the 13th soundtrack wandered in (not surprising, since it is Harry Manfredini), and, at the end of the day, it's just so typical of the genre. It is literally 90 minutes of nothing.

In the eight years since the Hill family massacred the Carters in the desert, Bobby Carter is still traumatized, having to see a psychiatrist. He's especially disturbed because a biker team that's run by Rachel, formerly Ruby of the Hill clan, and is intent upon using a special fuel that he's concocted to win an upcoming race, is going to have that race in the same general location as the attack. His psychiatrist tries to convince him that there's nothing to be afraid of but, come the morning of the race, Bobby loses his nerve and Rachel takes his place. The biker team, which is made up of Bobby and Rachel's friends Roy, his blind girlfriend Cass, goofy Harry, Hulk, Foster, his girlfriend Sue, and Jane, as well as the German shepherd, Beast, who now belongs to Rachel, pile into their bus and set off into the desert. On the way there, Foster realizes that the night before was the end of daylight-savings time and that, coupled with the late start they had, means they likely won't reach the spot in time for registration. Finding a shortcut through the heart of the desert, they decide to take it, despite Rachel's objections, and the rough road cuts open their fuel line, which they have to stop and temporarily patch up with a wad of chewing gum. They soon come across a mining ranch and decide to stop there to search for fuel. However, as they explore the place, they're unknowingly stalked by Pluto, Rachel's only surviving brother, who attacks her in the attic of one of the buildings. He overwhelms her but is unable to finish the job before her friends come to her aid and he retreats. The others are initially skeptical of her claims but, when Pluto steals one of their bikes, Roy and Harry ride off after him. Harry is knocked off his bike by a trap and eventually killed by another but Roy manages to catch Pluto and tries to make him talk. On their way back to the ranch, Roy is ambushed and knocked unconscious by an enormous, deformed, feral man who Pluto calls "the Reaper." He and Pluto begin stalking the other kids at the ranch, having a particular vendetta against Rachel for betraying them, and it will be up to some unlikely heroes to finally vanquish the cannibals.

When you put it into the context of his career as a whole, this seems to be the first time that Wes Craven really stumbled. I may not love The Last House on the Left or the original Hills Have Eyes but I certainly respect them and see the good in them; Summer of Fear is an odd but enjoyable TV movie; Deadly Blessing is certainly no classic and some aspects of it are absurd, especially the ending, but it's not a bad movie; and Swamp Thing, for all its flaws, is an entertaining comic book movie and fascinating simply because of the notion of someone like Craven doing this type of film. But The Hills Have Eyes Part II was the first time where the deck was stacked too much against him, both in terms of its initial conception and the interference he received from the film's backers. Craven never made any secret of the fact that the only reason he even did the movie was because he was desperate and out of options. After Swamp Thing was released in February of 1982 and virtually tanked (it did well enough on home video to warrant a theatrical sequel and some television followups), Craven didn't work for nearly two full years and, needing money badly, he decided that making a sequel to one of his two most well-known films at the time was the only way to go. With The Hills Have Eyes being the one where that was even remotely possible, he opted to do a sequel to that, which Peter Locke had been trying to talk him into for years. The budget was in the neighborhood of $1 million, a whole lot more than the first film, but was still pretty small considering the fairly decent-sized ones he had for his last couple of movies. In the end, it didn't matter, because according to Craven in a 1985 interview he did with Kim Newman, after the initial stage of shooting was completed, the producers were to cut the footage together to see what was needed for the final print and they would then do another week or so of shooting. Instead, they decided that the film was good enough as it was and acted as if it was finished, which Craven never saw it as. Regardless of how they may have felt, though, the movie, which was filmed in late 1983, sat on the shelf until early 1985, when it was released to cash in on the prestige Craven's name held following the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street. It didn't nothing and Craven, again, completely disowned it.

Of the four returning characters from the first movie, three of them made up its protagonists: Bobby Carter (Robert Houston), Rachel, formerly Ruby (Janus Blythe), and the dog, Beast. And of those three, only two of them take part in the actual story. Bobby's appearance is ultimately pointless other than as an excuse to show some footage from the first movie during his "memories" of what happened, which is especially surprising since he's the first person you see, during his therapy session when he tells his shrink of how he and Brenda fought against Jupiter. Because of this, he's too frightened to join his friends in the desert for the dirt bike race, despite what his doctor says, as well as having a financial stake in it with his new super fuel, and, following a moment where he remembers him and Doug chasing off Mars from the trailer, he tells Rachel and Roy that he can't do it and Rachel goes in his place. You may expect him to show up later, since it'd be pointless to bring back one of the principals only to do nothing with him, but nope, he's never seen again after that. The reformed Ruby, on the other hand, gets plenty of screentime, and it's interesting to see how she's gone from a disheveled, malnourished, dirty wild woman to the really good-looking, well-adjusted runner of the dirt bike team. Blythe plays this new take on the character quite well, also showing that she does still have the enhanced, wild instincts she once did, such as being able to identify something merely by hearing or smelling it, but the problem is that she doesn't get to do much of anything. She's also haunted by the memories of what happened, is wary of getting off the main road because of it, and once they do get stranded, she knows they're possibly in trouble, which is confirmed when Pluto first attacks her (she can fight fairly well in that scene but, more often, has to be saved by someone else). But, her role in the story is little more than to be initially disbelieved by the others, run out into the desert to find Roy and Harry after they fail to come back upon chasing after Pluto, watch Hulk get killed in front of her and run off, be saved from Pluto by Beast, and die by getting thrown back Hulk's corpse, causing her to whack her head on a rock. When that happened, I thought she was just knocked unconscious and was going to come back at the end, so when the credits rolled, I thought to myself, "Wait, did she die?! How!" I had to strain to remember that she hit her head and I was then incredulous that that killed her, because it was such a waste.

The best of the returning characters, by far, is Beast who, despite being eight years older than he was in the first film, is just as badass as he was before. The moment where he has a flashback and remembers when he attacked and mauled Pluto is the much-deserved brunt of many jokes but, the truth is, he's the only one other than Rachel who knows exactly what's going on. He tries to warn the others with his barking and growling whenever he senses the cannibals but no one listens to him and he ends up either confined to or tied outside of the bus for most of the plot. But when Foster accidentally lets him loose, Beast proves to still have it out for Pluto for having killed Beauty, as he saves Rachel from him, tries to chase after him but is unable to cross a jump in the cliffs that he made, finds the unconscious Roy and wakes him up, and does in Pluto the same way he did Mercury, by pushing him off a cliff to his death. He disappears during Roy and Cass' final confrontation with the Reaper but, the next morning, he joins up with the two of them as they begin walking the road back to civilization, which is one thing I will give the movie: as dumb as it was to give Ruby nothing to do and kill her off so stupidly, they at least treated Beast well.

The group of teenagers who make up the new cast are the very definition of generic, stock slasher movie characters, with personalities and traits that are about as profound as cardboard and few of them have any memorable aspects. Plus, it takes them so long to realize they're in real danger that it makes it even harder to care when they do get killed. Roy (Kevin Blair), the pretty boy male lead, is the typical bland "hero" of these types of movies, with little personality to him other than being very peppy and eager to race. He comes across as a nice enough guy, one who genuinely loves Cass rather than liking her simply because she's a blind girl who's pretty hot, and he doesn't deride Rachel's claims about being Ruby and having been attacked by her brother like some of the others, but he's still a pretty sorry excuse for a lead. While he does manage to catch Pluto when he steals a couple of their bikes, he ends up losing him when the Reaper knocks him unconscious and he stays like that until almost near the end of the movie, when Beast finds him and wakes him up. Like I said, Beast is the one who ultimately takes care of Pluto, whereas Roy does little more than make it back to the mining ranch, save Cass from the Reaper, and the two of them work together to ultimately defeat him (though, to be fair, it is Roy's plan). Speaking of Cass (Tamara Stafford), she's the only one of the new characters who's worth a damn, as she has a very likable, caring personality and doesn't let her blindness stand in her way. In fact, she doesn't think of it as a handicap at all, as she's always bubbly and happy and is never offended whenever the others forget that she can't see (though why they do keep forgetting is anyone's guess, as she gets around well but it's still obvious that she can't see), even making jokes about it. The thing about her is that her other senses are attuned to a ridiculous level, to the point where she rivals Daredevil in being able to hear and even smell things that others can't. That's no exaggeration, as she's able to hear anxiousness in people simply by listening to their breathing and at one point, she seems to be able to hear Pluto rummaging around in the far off hills. Early on, Rachel makes a joke about Cass being kind of psychic but, as the movie goes on, you honestly wonder if it isn't just a joke. But, as likable as she is, watching Cass fumble around in the dark, trying to avoid the Reaper, for the better part of the climax is not at all exciting or suspenseful to watch, even when Roy manages to narrowly save her from him, and the fact that he's defeated by a blind girl and someone like Roy, who's anything but tough, only makes the Reaper even more pathetic than he already is.

Foster (Willard E. Pugh), the mechanic who built the bikes, and his girlfriend, Sue (Penny Johnson), are the only African-Americans in the cast and they're both little more than caricatures, especially Foster. He's the cliched skiddish, cowardly black guy with an attitude and a big mouth, sometimes talking a mile a minute, and he's also an unfaithful horn-dog in how, after having sex with Sue in the bus, he spies on Jane as she's taking a shower and makes a lewd joke about the two of them when asked what he'll do if Sue catches him (which she does). However, of the two of them, Foster is the one with more personality, as Sue has nothing to her, save for occasionally bossing Foster around, being one of them who doesn't at all believe Rachel's claims of having been Ruby and also for catching Foster when he's hitting on Jane, kneeing him in the crotch for it. She then runs out into the desert, with Foster commandeering the bus to chase after her, and the two of them are then both killed by the Reaper. The one member of the group who really doesn't believe Rachel is Harry (Peter Frechette), the prototypical goofball, jokester of the group who first enters the movie by crashing motorbike into some boxes stacked against the garage they meet up at. On the way there, as he's driving, he starts telling them the story of the Hills family in an over-the-top voice, making it clear that he doesn't believe a word of it, and it's his idea to take the shortcut when they discover they're running late for registration. He continues to be a joking guy when they reach the mining ranch, with him and Roy playing a joke on Jane, and when Rachel makes her claims about being attacked by her "dead" brother, he asks if she and Bobby had been taking "controlled substances." When Pluto steals one of their motorbikes, he and Roy ride off after him, only for Harry to get knocked off his bike by a line stretched across the path, leaving Roy to continue the chase himself. After that, Harry comes across one of the deathtraps Pluto and the Reaper have set up and, thinking he's smarter than they are, he triggers it and mocks them when he manages to avoid the big piece of wood with spikes on it that comes at him... and then, he gets squashed by a big boulder that falls down on him from above. Hulk (John Laughlin) has little more to him other than being the big guy of the bunch, with some bits of humor and banter here and there, and also being one of the group who's sympathetic to Rachel, sticking by her and accompanying her into the desert that night to look for Roy and Harry (there's a hint that he may have another interest in her but it's very minute). When they find Roy's bike and helmet, the latter of which is filled with blood, Hulk is so enraged that he yells a challenge at the killers but Rachel convinces him them that should just try to escape, only for him to get killed by the Reaper before they can. And finally, Jane (Colleen Riley) is just... Jane. Seriously, there is nothing to her at all, save for her being Harry's girlfriend, her getting spied on by Foster while she's taking a shower, and her close friendship with Cass as they explore the ranch.

There's no reason at all for Michael Berryman to have returned as Pluto other than because he was the most iconic part of the original film and the character everyone would have wanted to see back, especially since he was definitely dead at the end there from Beast tearing his throat out (he claims the Reaper sewed him back up, which itself retcons the fact that he clearly expired right after Beast finished him off). And even then, I don't think those who really wanted to see him back got their money's worth, because he has very little to do. Like I said in my review of the first film, I only think that Pluto is as well-remembered as he is due to Berryman's striking appearance and because his image dominated the marketing for that movie; as a character, he doesn't have much to him, and his role in that movie is rather small when you get down to it. Here, he has more of a significant presence, since he and the Reaper are the only cannibals stalking the characters, but once again, he doesn't have much to him other than being a knife-wielding killer that they have to contend with. In fact, Pluto doesn't kill anybody directly, as all of the deaths are either at the hands of the Reaper or traps that the two of them set up. True, in the first movie, he only actually killed Beauty, but the fact that he was part of a deadly family of cannibals made that easy to overlook, whereas here, he comes off as the Reaper's sidekick who does nothing but stalk around, try to kill Rachel and fail both times (she kicks his ass the first time), and steal motorbikes. In addition, the sole defining part of his character here is his desire for revenge against Rachel for betraying the family. I still don't think he had much to him in the first film but at least what was there was somewhat memorable, like his sexual deviancy and how he acted like a psychopathic manchild, but here, despite occasional traces of the latter, he's even more bland and boring a villain. Not to mention, the outfit he wears makes him look ridiculous, with that light-blue vest over that shirt, bits of fur on him, those earrings, and that thing with an animal tail tied around his head. Finally, while it helped add to Beast's badassness, the fact that Pluto died from simply being pushed off a cliff by him like Mercury was a cheap way to do him, particularly it seemed like there was going to be a big, epic confrontation between him and Beast after he learned he was back as well.

As bad as Pluto's inexplicable revival and lackluster role is, it's nothing compared to the Reaper (John Bloom), this character whom Wes Craven definitely pulled out of thin air and shows just how slapdash this movie was in every way. Near the end of the movie, when they're trying to bait him into their trap, Roy says, "The Reaper sucks!", making me wonder if that was in the script or if Kevin Blair threw that in as an ad-libbed, under-the-radar critique, because either way, that is one true statement. Nothing about the Reaper works. His origin makes no sense, as he's said to be Jupiter's older brother, who took over after Jupiter died. Where the hell was he during the events of the first movie, and what's more, what did Grandpa Fred do with him if Jupiter was so bad that he left him out in the desert to die? He's not intimidating or scary in the slightest, coming off as a big, dumb-looking oaf with a misshapen forehead, wearing a coat whose edges are lined with fluff, a hubcap over his torso, and barely says anything other than growling, laughing stupidly, and whispering, "Ruuuuuuby." And when he does talk, he sounds dumber than the other cannibals ever did, saying stuff, "Reaper no get fooled like Papa Jupe! Oh, no!" (Why is he calling his little brother "Papa Jupe" like his kids?) The only reason he was able to take over from his dead brother was probably because, with Jupiter and Mars gone, there wasn't much competition, and Pluto and his mother, whose fate remains unknown (he probably killed her), were hardly ones to put up a challenge. Yeah, he does all the killing, sets up deathtraps, and throws his victims' bodies down a mineshaft, but any brute with half a brain can do that. The only thing he does have on his side is that he's apparently good at resurrection, considering how his "sewing up" Pluto brought him back from the dead. Bottom line, the Reaper is one of the lamest villains imaginable, is definitely one of the worst characters Craven ever came up with, and he can't begin to touch the intimidation factor that Jupiter had.

An often derided aspect of the film is the use of stock footage from the first one, which includes the same mountain range that the camera pans across during the opening credits (while a mixture of sound clips from that movie, some of them warped, plays), Bobby and Brenda's final confrontation with Jupiter, Bobby and Doug chasing off Mars after he and Pluto have ransacked the trailer, sections of the chase and fight between Doug, Mars, and Ruby, and Beast's attacks on Pluto, which are edited together to make it look as if they were one big struggle. People criticize this for being nothing more than a means by Wes Craven to pad out the running time and further proof that he was bankrupt of ideas when he came up with this film but, the thing is, it's far from the movie's biggest problem. This is not a case like Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, where a third or more of the movie is nothing but footage from the first film. Don't get me wrong, though, these flashbacks (the footage of which looks worse than it did in 1977), aren't needed at all, as their only function is to make the movie a tad bit longer, and the one that everyone talks about, the one that involves Beast, is truly ridiculous (I once saw an interview with Craven where the interviewer asked him, point blank, what the hell he was thinking with that and he just laughed and said, "I don't know,"), but they make up a very small part of the movie.  Trust me, there are far worse aspects to this film than its constantly reminding you of the superior film that spawned it.

Before we really delve into the movie's negatives, I would like to say that I think it's a shame that the movie sucks as bad as it does since, again, the location is really good. Rather than go back to Apple Valley and Victorville, Craven and company shot the sequel in other California locations like Bronson Caves, Joshua Tree, and San Bernardino, and while you can kind of sense that it's not the same place, it still has that same general vibe. Like before, it's a dry, rocky stretch of desert, with a dirt road that detours from the main one leading through it, hills made up of stacked rocks, plenty of nooks and crannies to hide in and slip through, and an abandoned mining ranch. That, in particular, is a type of location that I like in a horror film: a deserted place in the middle of nowhere, where no one can help you, and I also like the idea that it's the place that Pluto and the Reaper use as their lair and that they dispose of the bodies of their victims by tossing them down the mineshaft. There was a lot of potential in such a location, one that has mine tunnels running beneath it, places to hide like attics, storerooms, abandoned living quarters, and outdoor showers, and occasional remnants of the cannibals' handiwork, like when Cass stumbles across this animal that's been hung upside down as food, but the movie, unfortunately, never takes full advantage of it.

Bar none, the movie's biggest technical problem is how awful the cinematography is at night or in any interior scenes. Outside in the daytime, it's passable; otherwise, you often can barely see anything. I complained about the nighttime photography in the first movie but here, once that sun goes down at the end of the second act, it is so hard to make out what's going on as the characters stumble around in the dark, all the while stalked by either Pluto or the Reaper. coming off as irritating rather than creating any kind of tension. But even during the daytime portion of the movie, it is still really dark during scenes set inside buildings, like the garage where the gang meets up at the beginning or when they first arrive at the mining ranch and start exploring inside. Seriously, the blacks are so deep in those scenes, as if there are either no windows or they're all covered by really thick drapes. It does kind of make sense at the ranch, since it looks completely deserted and they didn't find the generator that Pluto and the Reaper used, but I don't know why it's so dark in that garage or, for that matter, in the doctor's office when Bobby is having his session at the very beginning. You'd think Bobby, being as freaked out as he is, would want the lights on as he tells his shrink the horrific story of what happened but instead, the only source of light in that dim office is the sun coming through the window. Plus, remember, the only version of this movie I've ever seen is the Blu-Ray version, where it was remastered in high-definition, and it was still often hard to see, so I can't imagine how awful it must have looked like on that DVD release that's long since gone out of print. And even putting the darkness problem aside, the movie just looks ugly and cheap, its low budget being painfully obvious. The only Wes Craven movie I've seen that's shot worse than this is Chiller and that's only worse because the one available copy is an awful VHS-rip.

Story-wise, the movie sucks because it's just plain boring. I may have felt that the buildup during the first movie took longer than it should have but the payoff made up for it, with a really well-done climax, whereas 90% of the sequel's third act is watching these characters, most of whom you don't care about, bungle around in the irritating darkness, make stupid decisions, and get killed in lackluster ways by the Reaper. It's also a movie that just goes on and on and on, with the drive to the desert feeling like an eternity, the flashbacks to the first movie doing nothing but adding extra minutes to the running time, and when you finally do get the "action," as it is, like when Pluto jumps Rachel in the attic or when Roy and Harry chase Pluto into the desert when he steals a motorbike, it's unimpressive and short-lived. Worst of all, the ending sucks, plain and simple. After watching Cass endlessly feel her way around through the dark mining ranch, gradually learning that all of her friends are dead, we have to endure a boring chase sequence, if you can even call it that, as she's pursued through the mine tunnels by the Reaper, leading into a final confrontation that has none of the creativity or intense craziness of Brenda and Bobby's last stand against Jupiter. Trust me, if you have insomnia, watching this can be a surefire cure for it.

Ultimately, though, I think what's most disappointing about the movie is how it is nothing more than an uninspired, shitty slasher flick. If you've been following this blog for a while, you'd know that I have nothing against slasher movies at all but, when it's Wes Craven, you expect so much more, especially since the other movie of his that can really described as a slasher, A Nightmare on Elm Street, has many other facets to it, chief among them being the inspired notion of the killer lurking in your dreams. However, the desperate need for money that produced The Hills Have Eyes Part II is so apparent in how typical and generic the setup, characters, and execution of it all are, especially given the time in which it was made. When Craven made the first movie in the late 70's, the slasher genre hadn't quite found itself yet and so, the notion of a group of people finding themselves stuck in an isolated location with a killer or killers after them wasn't a cliche. By the time the sequel was released in early 1985, though, the idea was not only played out but so was the genre itself, as its heyday was more or less over, which made this already ho-hum movie feel even more derivative and uncreative. And on a side not, a desert motorbike race? Seriously? Maybe it's just because it's not something I'm into but I really wish Craven, as desperate as he was, could have come up with a better setup than that. Maybe if the movie hadn't been taken away from him before he felt it was truly finished, he could have been able to improve the movie and make more of it but, either way, it just seems like this was destined to become Craven's most run-of-the-mill film.

Even slasher movies with the most generic of setups and cardboard of characters can often be saved with some entertaining and creative kills (most of the time, anyway; <cough> The Prowler <cough>) but, unfortunately, The Hills Have Eyes Part II strikes out here as well. Not only are the kills unimpressive but there are very few gory makeup effects to grab your attention, with most of them being quite basic: Harry gets squashed by a giant boulder and afterward, you see nothing but a shot of his leg twitching as he dies (you do see his severed arm on a spear later on, though); Hulk gets a spear bolt through his chest and you see some blood coming out of the wound and his mouth; Foster gets pulled under the bus and his body later falls out of a closet, with a small hatchet sticking out of his head; Jane gets grabbed and squeezed to death, her body later falling on top of Cass; Ruby, as I said, pathetically gets killed by getting knocked to the ground by Hulk's body and she hits her head on a stone; and Sue probably gets the most brutal death, as the Reaper throws her through a window and then slashes her throat open with a machete, with a big spurt of blood shooting out of the wound. During the climax, when Cass ends up in the mine tunnels as the Reaper chases her, she comes across a room where her friends' bodies are being kept and this is where you see the grisliest makeup effects the movie has to offer, with one body hanging from a meat-hook and another having apparently been sliced in half, as she finds a pair of legs and a waist on a table, as well as a severed hand down by the feet. They don't look half bad but the bad lighting makes it hard to appreciate them. When the killers get theirs, they have the least impressive and satisfying comeuppances possible, with Pluto getting pushed off a cliff and the Reaper, after getting blown up along with the bus, rushes out on fire towards Cass and Roy, only to fall down a mineshaft, which is even more pathetic.

This movie has the gall to start out with a text crawl and an accompanying narration like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where the narrator says that the movie is based on fact and then goes on to recount the events of the first movie, ending with this pretentious line: "And of those who did survive, none can forget that far out in the unmapped desert, beyond the towns and roads, the hills still have eyes." I'm hoping this was the idea of the producers rather than Wes Craven himself, because either way, this movie does not deserve to rip off that far superior movie one bit. (And yeah, The Last House on the Left began with a similar proclamation that it was an account of a real event but that was just one line of text and it wasn't ripping off anything.) In any case, following that, the opening credits, and Bobby's therapy session, where we get the cliff-notes version of how he and Brenda vanquished Jupiter (again, seriously, look at how damn dark it is in this guy's office), we get a scene where we're introduced to Cass, as her alarm clock wakes her up at 6:12 in the morning. Outside, a guy pulls up by the house on a motorcycle, and after he sets the brake and takes off his helmet, we see that he's wearing a goony mask with long hair and a toboggan. Grabbing a ladder nearby, he props it up against the house and climbs up to Cass' open bedroom window, where he slips in. Looking at her she sleeps, he sits down by her on the bed, breathing deeply and groaning, reaching for her hand, when he then gets up and goes into the nearby bathroom. He comes back out with a glass of water and turns to the bed, when he sees that Cass is gone. She then comes up behind him and grabs him, yelling, "Gotcha!" The guy's about to protest but Cass quiets him, telling him that he'll wake up her father. He then removes his mask and hat to reveal himself to be Roy, who says that he's wearing it in order to give her a scare since she always feels his face first (good thing he explained it, because when I rewatched this movie after having not seen in a long time, I initially wondered why he was bothering with the mask if she's blind). After kissing and him giving her a scarf as a present, which he puts around her neck for her, Cass decides to take advantage of the half hour they still have, as she removes his leather jacket.

They then take Roy's motorcycle to the garage, where they meet up with Hulk and Foster, the latter of whom shows them the modifications he's made to the motorbikes, with a split gas tank that has the best of the competition's fuel on one side and Bobby's new "super fuel" on the other. After they talk about their intentions to sell the fuel's formula to a big gas company, Foster asks if anyone knows where Harry is and Cass says she thinks she hears him. The four of them head outside and see Harry coming down the street, popping a wheelie as he does so, but when he pops another as he enters the parking lot, he crashes into some boxes stacked up against the garage's wall. When he gets back up, he explains that he bet the girls that he could beat them there, which he did, as the bus carrying the girls then pulls up, with Jane jumping out and accusing Harry of cheating by cutting through a yard. As the girls pile out of the bus, Rachel shows up and takes Roy aside, telling him that Bobby's not doing so good, and we then see just how bad off he is, as he's sitting down, somewhere, and shaking as he remembers when he and Doug just barely managed to save Brenda from being killed by Mars. Roy steps in to ask him how he is and Bobby says that he's not going to be able to go out into the desert, suggesting that none of them should. Since that wouldn't be feasible after all the work Bobby has put into the fuel, Rachel offers to go in his place, seeing as how she knows the way and can take care of the business side of things as well. With that, the bus heads out, but not before making one last stop at a kennel to pick up Beast, as well as get their entrance fee from Mrs. Wilson, the woman who runs the place. Rachel tells the kids that the $400 is due to the Beast (could someone explain to me why the woman is giving Rachel money for keeping her dog, because I don't get it) and everyone begins hooping and hollering because of it. They start calling Beast as well, which is something that Mrs. Wilson, who's apparently had her hands full with the dog, asked her not to do. Sure enough, Beast comes running through the place's main yard, manages to lift up the latch to the gate, and jumps through a window in the bus in order to get aboard. Thanking Mrs. Wilson, they all drive off.

Movie, I'm already bored. Don't tempt me.

They're then on the road again, and as they head towards the desert, Harry, who's driving, starts telling everyone the legend of the Hills clan in an over-the-top, growling voice, describing the area as, "Where the sand ran with fire and blood, and the hills had eyes." (Lines that the announcer said in the theatrical trailer, I might add.) Ignoring Cass' telling him to watch the road, Harry goes on to talk about Jupiter, Pluto, and Mars, and when asked about the daughter he forgot to mention, he says that she killed her brother in order to save the Carters. All the while, Rachel, who's fallen asleep in her seat, remembers back to that very instance, where she helped Doug save his baby girl by helping him kill Mars. This flashback goes on for a good minute and a half, as Rachel wakes up just as Harry and the others remember that Jupiter's daughter was named Ruby and they ponder whatever happened to her. Cass, hearing something, goes back there to sit with Rachel and asks her if she's breathing as if she's scared. Rachel insists she fine and as they drive on, Cass mentions how upset Bobby seemed (she was not there when Rachel and Roy tried to comfort him, which makes me wonder if she really is meant to be psychic, as Rachel says that she is). After they pass a sign on the road that warns for all drivers not to get off of it, there's another fade to show more time passing, as Harry, who's handed the wheel off to Roy, is still fooling around as he crawls along the floor of the bus towards the cooler, talking about a dying prospector as he does so. When Rachel mentions the late start they got and that, if they don't make it for registration by 11:00, they can forget, Foster, who's reading the newspaper, sees a little article that reminds him and everyone else that the night before was the end of daylight savings time. In the next cut, they've stopped off the road and are looking at the map, and Rachel realizes that they're now never going to make it in time. Roy then brings up Harry's "maneuver," which is to take a shortcut through a road that cuts straight across, something Rachel is dead against. When Harry insists, she decides to put it to a vote, and while Cass votes that they turn back, everyone else is for taking the shortcut and Rachel has no choice but to concede. The scene ends with Jane asking her what the big deal is, adding, "Are you afraid of the desert too?"

Back on the road, as they sing 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, they come across what appears to be the shortcut, which Harry says he's sure it is, upon looking at that map... at least, he's kind of sure. With Roy back behind the wheel, they take the detour onto the rough, dirt road, as someone with a piece of clothing that reflects the sunlight watches them from afar atop a large rocky cliff. Harry sees it and asks Roy if he did, but when he says no, he then says that he didn't either. Looking at the map, Hulk says they're heading for a bomb range, to which Harry responds, "Holy shit! We're out of beer. We're all gonna die! We're all gonna be fried!" Telling everyone to be quiet, Rachel tells Hulk he has the map upside down and he sees that he was simply keeping her on her toes. They then come across a sign on the side of the road and stop to take a look at it... only to find that it's decorated with animal skulls, feathers, and miscellaneous objects, leading up to the plaque that says, "Welcome." After wondering why someone, or, for that matter, who, would put a welcome sign up in the middle of nowhere, they drive on, with Harry now behind the wheel. The road gets bumpy and rocky, with one large rock tumbling underneath the bus and cutting into the fuel line, which begins leaking gas across the road. Cass says that she smells the gas and Harry says that he doesn't, only for him to glance at the fuel gauge and see that they're just about out of it. They then stop and Hulk does what he can with the cut in the line, patching it up with some gun that Foster chewed, which he says will only hold for so long. Cass suggests that they use the super fuel but Foster tells her that the bus would blow up if they did. Seeing a fence nearby, Hulk decides that it might lead to a ranch where they can buy some gas. With no other options, they decide to do it, but Rachel warns them to be careful, as, "People who live this far out usually have a reason."

Another dissolve and they drive up the dirt driveway to the ranch, which looks both creepy and deserted. As everyone disembarks, Beast starts whining, while Harry, as he stops down into the dirt, takes one look at the place and says, "This is definitely not the races." They look around a bit, at the place's bizarre, bone-incorporated architecture and atmosphere, as there's hardly any sound, save for the wood creaking, when Roy and Cass stumble across an open mineshaft. Telling Cass to be careful, Roy picks up a rock and drops it down the shaft, listening to how it takes to hit bottom... which they never really here. Roy warns the others about the mineshafts and, having not found any gas, Rachel suggests that there could be some inside one of the buildings, possibly a storage tank, and says that she can tell that people have been there recently. After Foster acts silly, acting like a native warrior, they split up to search the place, with Rachel and Hulk following Beast into one of them. While that's going on, there's a moment where somebody, who's revealed to be Pluto, watches them from the nearby hills, as Cass, who's sitting in the bus' open door, appears to hear him. Elsewhere, Sue tries to get Foster into one of the buildings but he refuses, afraid of being attacked by wild animals that could be lurking in there, such as, "Pythons." Sue says that pythons aren't even from the United States and Foster, in his genius rationale, says, "That's what bothers me: we know they're there, but we can't find the fuckers." Sue looks in, calling softly for any snakes, prompting Foster to say that she doesn't talk to him in such a nice way, while in another part of the ranch, Jane walks into a building, looking for Harry, and comes across Roy. Roy, in turn, acts like he's attacked by someone, when it's his own hand, hidden behind something, that's choking him, and to follow that up, they hear heavy breathing and someone jumps out at them, wearing a welder's helmet, a leather coat, and yelling like a maniac, only to reveal that it's Harry. After laughing at Jane's fear, Harry says that there's a bunch of clothes in the back.

Back with Rachel and Hulk, they hear Beast, who's barking up at the building's loft from the bottom of a ladder heading up there, and walk into the next room, which is big and cathedral-like, full of tools and primitive-looking weapons, like some spears. Beast continues barking and Hulk says that there's probably something up in the loft. Behind him, Rachel takes a sniff of the air and tells him that it's a raccoon, which shocks Hulk, although she says that she just knows how Beast acts when a racoon is around. Hulk then goes to check it out, pushing Beast aside and climbing up the ladder to the loft, while Rachel keeps sniffing the air. Sure enough, a raccoon walks up to Hulk, which startles him and his yell chases it away. He has to admit that she does seem to really know Beast, while outside, Cass, who's still sitting in the bus, punches out a black strand of tape made of tin, with the message, ROY... I LOVE YOU... CASS, on it and puts it on the front of his bike helmet. Hulk then comes out with Beast and puts him in the bus, telling Cass about how he's going nuts over a raccoon, which he proves as he continues barking inside the bus. Back in the ranch, Rachel, smelling an all too familiar scent, climbs up into the loft herself. Finding another ladder that leads onto the roof, she climbs up there a bit and then comes back down, only to get grabbed from behind and shoved to the floor by Pluto. As she gets to her feet, he pulls out a big, hunting knife and lunges at her, but she grabs his arm and flings him into a table on the other side of the loft. He slashes at her but she again grabs his arm, elbows him in the gut, and flips him over her shoulder, onto his back. Outside, Cass and Hulk hear the commotion (Cass says, "Ruby," instead of "Rachel") and Beast rushes out of the bus and into the building, while Rachel kicks Pluto up against the wall and then grabs his leg and causes him to fall on his back again. As Cass and Hulk rush inside as well, Pluto gets kicked through the loft's railing and lands on the floor below, with Rachel jumping down there to face him. He then grabs a tool from the table behind him and throws it at her, hitting her in the head and knocking her out. Hearing Beast barking outside and the others coming, Pluto slips out of the building through a backdoor, while Rachel comes to as Hulk kicks the door in and he and Cass come to her aid. Recognizing Pluto's scent, Beast barks at the closed back door, while the cannibal escapes into the hills, laughing as he goes.

As Hulk tries to help her with the cut on her head, Rachel tries to make the others understand that she was attacked by her brother. At the same time, Beast, who's been put away in the bus, is barking continuously and that's when we get the infamous moment where he remembers stalking and attacking Pluto, although he apparently has a skewed view on what happened, as both attacks are lumped together in the flashback. While Pluto watches them from nearby, seeing them as sitting ducks, Rachel then tells the others that she's Ruby, that she turned against her family to help Bobby's family escape, and that her brother killed Beast's mate, kidnapped baby Katy, and helped kill Bobby's mother and sister. Harry remains skeptical, convinced that, even if Rachel's story is true, all she saw in the ranch was a hallucination and there's nothing to be afraid of. Cass, who's more open to what Rachel claims, then says that she hears someone out by the bus. Rushing there, they find that Beast is fine but one of the bikes has been taken, with Pluto having left behind one of the patches of fur he has on his outfit as a sign. Realizing that, since they didn't hear the bike start, he's probably trying to roll it as far as he can before driving off, Roy and Harry decide to use their bikes to catch him. Despite Rachel and Cass' protests, the two of them suit up, when they hear the sound of the stolen bike and Pluto hooping and hollering on it. Harry takes off first, followed by Roy on one of the bikes with the super fuel, and it doesn't take them long to catch up with Pluto, the three of them jumping a rise before driving through a clearing with patches of grass amongst the dirt. They manage to stay on Pluto's tail, chasing him around the clearing and through a small passage in the rocks, but when he and Roy make it through, a rope is suddenly pulled up into the across the width of the passage, knocking Harry off his bike. Enraged and getting to his feet, Harry sees Pluto laugh at him from a nearby ledge and yells at Roy, "Get that fucker!" Roy gives him a thumbs up and continues the chase along the tops of the rocky hills. Roy then decides to cut in the super fuel and when he does, he's on Pluto within seconds, managing to speed past him, surprising him to the point where he falls off the bike. Pluto decides to run for it and Roy, in turn, abandons his own bike and runs after him across the rocks, through a tight passage in them, along the edge of a cliff, and down into a small canyon. Instead of chasing him through the canyon, Roy decides to skirt above it and manages to tackle Pluto to the ground. He gets up and kicks him in the gut, when Pluto stands up and whips out his knife. Not at all scared, Roy manages to grab Pluto's arm when he stabs at him, sock him in the gut, flip him over (they change positions between cuts here), straddle him, punch him in the face a couple of times, and grab his dropped knife and use it to make him settle down.

Walking through the hills by himself, Harry makes his way through a narrow path in the rocks, when he hears what sounds like Roy asking him for help, saying that he's hurt. Harry takes his knife to be cautious and, calling for Roy, creeps through the tight spaces between the rock walls and, upon rounding a corner, decides that he's probably about to be tricked again. His suspicions prove to be right, as he finds another wire stretched along the width of the passage and follows it to see that's tied to a big chunk of wood with spikes sticking out of it that's sitting atop a nearby cliff. Getting on the other side of it, he yanks the wire and ducks out of the way of the spiked wood, which swings and smacks a large rock behind him before swinging back. Harry then steps out and catches it when it comes back, mocking, "You missed me, you missed me! Na, na, na, na-na-na" However, he's not so smug when a big rock comes crashing down towards him from up top and he's unable to get out of the way before he gets squashed. Elsewhere, Roy is forcing Pluto back the way they came at knife-point, making him stop when they reach the spot where Harry left his bike. Roy calls for Harry but gets no answer, and he then forces Pluto down to his knees and puts the knife to his neck, demanding he tell him who set the trap that knocked Harry off his bike. Pluto simply tells his that he's not the only crazy person to be found out there and Roy says that he just picked a fight with a bus full of them. Back at the ranch, the others have lit a fire to try to signal Roy and Harry with the smoke, while Foster calls for them, getting no response. He and Hulk walk into the bus to get some firecrackers to try to use them, while in the hills, Roy is forcing Pluto, whose neck he has a noose tied around, to push Harry's bike back to the ranch. When Pluto stops, continuously looking up at the canyon walls, Roy asks him what he's looking for and Pluto tells him that the one he really has to watch out for is the Reaper. Roy then asks who the Reaper is, when he hears a bird-like whistle nearby. At the ranch, they set off one of the firecrackers, which explodes with a loud boom, and Foster and Hulk follow that up with some whistles and calls of their own. Rachel asks Cass, who's sitting on top of the bus with Sue, if she hears anything but she just shakes her head.

A big, fat cannibal on a motorbike. I'm petrified.

Roy continues forcing Pluto through the canyon, which is dotted with spears decorated with skulls and feathers, and having to force him on as he continuously stops, while at the ranch, Rachel then suggests that they get out of dodge right then and there, when Jane reminds her of how little gas they have left in the bus. She also says that there isn't any reason for them to panic. At that moment, Roy and Pluto get out of a passage and into a clearing, when Roy sees Harry's severed arm on some spears in the ground. Roy barely has any time to process it, when the Reaper comes barreling through behind them on one of the other motorbikes, knocking Roy to the ground and making him drop the knife, which Pluto promptly grabs. The Reaper tells Pluto grab his rope and when he does, he's pulled off along in the ground in a quick retreat. Seeing this, Roy gets up and watches as the Reaper comes back around, pulling up near him and yelling at as he stands up on the bike. Roy then mounts Harry's bike and takes off on it, driving across the rocks as fast he can. He appears to get in the clear, when he runs over a trigger for another trap, as he and the bike are scooped up in a big net that's yanked up into the air, before crashing back down onto the ground. The Reaper then walks up to him and whacks his helmeted head with a machete, and at that very moment, at the ranch, Cass tells the others she thinks she heard Roy scream. Foster, however, reminds her of Roy and Harry's propensity for practical jokes and when he asks her if she really, truly heard him, Cass admits it was more like she felt him scream. As Hulk says there's no reason to be getting paranoid, Foster and Sue come up with a means to get back at the two "jokers," putting a bucket of water atop of an ajar door at the ranch and waiting for them to come back so they can scare them. But as the sun sets and Sue looks out the window, she doesn't see them coming, and come nightfall, Rachel and Hulk are looking for anything that could help them survive the night. Coming across a separate shed from the ranch, they find a diesel-powered generator, and Hulk prepares to turn it on. In another part of the ranch, the girls and Foster discuss whether or not Rachel is actually Ruby and Cass says she is, as she can tell when someone is lying. They talk for a little bit and goof off, when Hulk and Rachel get the generator working and the lights come on. Rachel, almost tripping the "booby trap" on the door, comes through the window and tells everyone to stay together, as the place has clearly been used for something recently. She then tells them that she and Hulk are going out to look for Harry and Roy, as they've been gone too long for it to be a joke. The two of them head out, with Rachel telling Cass to keep her ears open, and once they're gone, Foster and Sue climb out the window, telling Cass and Jane that they're going to look for some "tools or something."

As you might expect, the real reason they go out is to have some alone time, as they head to the bus and go inside, nearly getting eaten up by Beast before they make him realize who they are. Not wanting him to be in there with them when they get started, Foster puts Beast outside, tying him to the side of the bus, when he starts barking at the darkness surrounding the ranch. When Sue, who's now topless, calls him into the bus, Foster forgets any worry about what Beast may be sensing and runs in the bus, shutting the door behind him. While Cass and Jane look around their part of the ranch, finding a bunch of candles, as well as a draft with a strange smell to it akin to cleaning fluid, and Foster and Sue have sex in the bus, Beast barks at the sound of the Reaper calling him. If you can't tell, this is where the movie gets really bogged down in boredom, as you then see Jane lead Cass over to an outside shower that she finds and decides to get clean before Harry shows back up, while Cass pokes around the place some more. Meanwhile, Rachel and Hulk are looking for their missing friends, as Rachel tells Hulk that she hopes Katy will achieve her mother's dream of becoming a movie star, discovered by a big-time director (this was after Dee Wallace had been in E.T., so it is a genuine, if corny, attempt at being meta). Hearing something nearby, Hulk calls for Harry and Roy but gets no answer, when a bike comes rolling at them from the other side, a helmet dropping off of it as it falls. Hulk picks up the helmet, which is bloody on the inside, and discovers that it's Roy's. Rachel tells Hulk that they should use the bike to get out but he initially yells at their attackers, trying to get them to come out and fight. Rachel has to convince him to just come on and they get on the bike, with Hulk taking off on it. But, they don't very far before they hit a bump and Rachel falls off. She yells for Hulk to turn back around and he does, but before he can reach her, a spear bolt whizzes through the air and gets him right in the chest, knocking him off the bike, which crashes. Rachel runs to his aid but it's clear there's nothing she can do, as he's barely able to tell her to just go before he expires. She then hears the sound of the Reaper calling her, saying, "Gonna rip you up, girl," and she flees the scene.

Back at the ranch, we get more of Cass fumbling around inside, going through a bedroom into a kitchen, finding a refrigerator whose door she can't open, a recently-slaughtered animal hanging down against the wall, some butchering tools, and a newspaper clipping of the events of the first film taped to the wall. Outside, Jane finds Foster staring at her but she laughs at it rather than getting angry, covering up as he says that he thought he saw in burglar but now, he can see that "everything" is definitely in order. Jane asks him what he would do if Sue caught him and he says, "I'd tell her to go mind her own business, because this thing is bigger than the both of us," looking down at his crotch for emphasis. That's when Sue makes her presence known, and as Foster fumbles over himself, saying that he and Jane were just talking, she decides to give him something to talk about and knees him in the groin. She then slaps him in the face for good measure before running outside, with Foster hobbling after her, as Jane simply watches and thinks to herself, "Love." Sue runs off in the dark, leaving Foster behind, as he calls for her, only to hear the Reaper call to him with Sue's name from nearby. Instead of thinking about how weird that was, Foster simply calls for Sue again and limps towards the bus, finding Beast inside but no sign of Sue. Starting the bus up, in spite of how little fuel they have, and turning on the headlights, he drives through the dark, while the Reaper watches and laughs nearby. He chases after Sue, even though she yells that she hates him and throws dirt at the bus, and decides to try to cut her off, only for the engine to cut off, as the gas runs out. Reluctantly, he disembarks, leaving the whining and panicking Beast inside, and again, tries to find Sue in the dark, calling for her. Creeping through the dark for a bit and calling for Sue, he, again, hears the Reaper say Sue's name as well but doesn't react to it; what he does react to, though, is Rachel coming up behind him, jumping on and silencing him, forcing him to the ground. When she takes her hand off his mouth, Foster has the guts to call her an "ex-bush monkey" and threaten to clean her clock if she doesn't get off him, prompting her to punch him right in the face. Following that, she asks him if anything is going on and he says no, to which she says, "Hulk's dead."

Following a moment where Jane, walking back from the shower, notices that the bus is gone and then sees somebody creeping around outside the main building of the ranch, Rachel tells Foster to go back to the bus and get the others ready to leave, while she finds Sue. Going back to the bus, complaining to himself about how it's out of service, Foster opens the door and Beast runs out and into the wilderness before he can stop him. A hatchet then suddenly drops to his feet and he's quickly grabbed by a hand from underneath the bus, with another grabbing the mallet. Foster is yanked to the ground and, though he tries to brace himself by grabbing the bottom step of the bus' door, he's slowly and painfully dragged underneath it. Out in the dark, Sue hears his screams, while at the ranch, Jane rejoins Cass, who tells her that a butcher must have lived there. Jane mentions that she can't find Sue and Foster, saying that she's afraid to go into the ranch's other buildings by herself, and steps in, only for the lights to suddenly go out. Outside, Sue finds her way back to the bus and, seeing that it's abandoned, she climbs onboard and turns the headlights off. Indoors, Cass says that she found a separate switch in the kitchen, meaning there could be separate lights, and she pulls it. Rather than turning any lights on, it makes the facade of the refrigerator door swing open, which she hears. Fumbling around, she makes her over to it and sticks her head in the opening, which is in the wall of a drafty mineshaft. Pulling out, she asks Jane if the lights came back on and she says that, while they didn't, she can hear something in the other room. Walking in there, Jane finds that the sound, which was a watery one, was their little trap going off, and as Cass sticks her arm back into the opening, Jane looks down at her feet to see the bucket come rolling across the floor to her feet. Thinking that it's Harry and he's hiding somewhere in the room, she tries to find him, first by coaxing him out and then by yanking open the door of a wardrobe, only to find no one in there. At least, it looked like no one was in there, but Foster's body suddenly falls out, the small hatchet buried in his head. Horrified, Jane tries to run for it but is grabbed by the Reaper, lifted up, and squeezed until her bones break. Amazingly, Cass, with the super-hearing, didn't hear that, as she has her head in that drafty opening at that very moment. Before the Reaper can move in on her, though, he hears Sue calling for Cass in another part of the ranch and, heading outside, waits until she gets fairly close and then rushes right at her. Cass hears her scream, as the Reaper grabs her, throws her through a window, steps in after her, laughing crazily, and slits her throat open with his machete, killing her instantly. Now, Cass is all alone and seems to realize that, as she slips back inside and closes the door behind her after peeking out, calling for Jane and Sue, and getting no answer.

Out in the desert, Rachel hears a man's voice calling her by the name of Ruby and she stops, initially thinking it might be Sue, when Pluto jumps her from the darkness, sending her to the ground. They both get up and Rachel goes in for a kick but gets knocked back down. Pluto taunts her, telling her to get up, and when she does, he grabs her from behind and flips her over his back, before grabbing her and slamming her back down more securely. Pulling his knife on her, he tells her that he's going to kill her in order to get in good with the Reaper. That's when it's revealed that the Reaper is Jupiter's big brother, who took over following his death, and patched Pluto up. He tells her that the whole desert belongs to them and that anybody they kill gets tossed down a special mineshaft, which is where he intends to throw her. Rachel tells Pluto that if he kills her, Beast, who she tells him is the dog that nearly killed him before, will come for him. Pluto thinks she's trying to trick him and adds that no dog will sneak up on him anymore. That's when Beast comes charging at him from the side, knocking him off of Rachel, and chasing into the dark, across the rocks. When he comes to the edge of a wide chasm, it seems like Beast has Pluto trapped but Pluto manages to make the jump to the other side, a jump Beast can't hope to make. Pluto taunts Beast, calling him a "puke eater," like he did before, telling him he has the brains of a beer can, and calls him some more names before running off laughing, while Beast barks at him. Meanwhile, Rachel runs back through the desert, only to stop and once again hear the Reaper call her name. She sees no sign of him in the dark but she hears him again, saying, "I want you." A trap is then sprung, with Hulk's corpse getting flung at her, knocking her down, and causing her to whack her head on a large rock on the ground, with Reaper laughing as she dies. (Look at that image. Does she look dead or just knocked out?) Back at Beast, he finds Roy, who's still unconscious, lying up against a large rock, and licks him to wake him up. Roy yells, "I can race!" when he awakens and, holding his bleeding head, he slowly realizes that it's Beast. Hearing some rustling nearby, Beast runs elsewhere and hides, as Pluto comes over the rocks. Seeing him, Roy jumps up there to face him but is too dazed from his head wound to put up a fight, as Pluto prepares to stick him with his knife. But then, Beast comes running up behind him and pushes him, causing him to fall off the cliff to his death, in exaggerated slow-motion, no less. Roy tells Beast way to go and says that they should go get Cass now.

We have to endure more of Cass stumbling around the ranch, first in the dark but, after a minute, the generator starts back up and the lights come on. In the room she's entered, she feels down at the floor, touching a puddle that I initially thought was blood but, given that she sniffs it on her hands and doesn't react, I'm guessing it was just water, as she mentions the trap they set up. After opening the wardrobe and searching inside it, Cass feels around and touches the lit light bulb hanging from the ceiling, which is when she realizes that the power's back on when she recoils from its heat. She figures that means someone's there with her and she hears someone whisper her name, prompting her to stumble into the next room. As Roy and Beast make their way back to the ranch, Cass finds her way into the room with the lofts, stumbling and bumping into things, when she hears some rustling up there. A biker helmet tumbles down and hits the floor near her, and when she finds it and touches it, she realizes that it's Roy's because she feels the message she stuck on it. She calls for him and then climbs up into the loft with the ladder behind her, asking him if he's up there. Fumbling around some more and calling for him, she screams when the Reaper crashes through the skylight behind her. He's unable to attack her right away, though, as his feet get stuck in the loft's wood, giving Cass time to climb back down and run for the safety of the kitchen. She fumbles to open the refrigerator facade, only for Jane's body to tumble out onto her when she does so. Able to recognize who it is from touching her face, she cries her name but then quickly crawls into the opening and down the ladder beyond it, to the bottom of the mineshaft, which is lit red by the lights. At that moment, the Reaper, who's been struggling to get loose this whole time, finally pulls his feet free and climbs down the loft, while Cass feels a bunch of stuff down there, like clothes and other things that I can't make out because of the poor lighting. As the Reaper reaches the kitchen, Cass finds her friends' bodies down below, coming across Hulk's as it hangs from a hook and Sue's as it lies on the ground, up against the wall. Feeling around more, touching a severed pair of legs as it lies on a table, as well as a hand, Cass makes her way to some shelves and finds some large bottles resting on them. Gradually realizing what the liquid in one of them is (which I don't know, honestly), she sprinkles it along the floor, as the Reaper makes his way down there and enters the room, searching and sniffing for Cass.

Unable to pick up her scent, he walks to the edge of the room and looks down a tunnel, thinking that she may have escaped. That's when she bashes him over the head with the bottle she had and tries to get around him but is unable to, forcing her to go down the tunnel, as he fumbles towards her, his eyes now cloudy because of the liquid. Up top, Roy, who's made his way back to the ranch (and lost Beast somewhere along the way), hears Cass yell for help, as she finds her way to an open mineshaft, with the moaning Reaper not far behind. She screams for Roy and he calls for her, prompting her to grab the rope that's hanging down the center of the shaft and start climbing up it. She doesn't get far before the Reaper reaches the rope and starts pulling her back down. Roy, hearing her, finds the shaft's opening on the surface and, seeing the predicament she's in, reaches in, grabs her hand, and pulls her out. He then cuts the rope for good measure to ensure that the Reaper can't follow them, as well as hoping that he'd fall, which he doesn't. Roy asks Cass if there's another way out of that shaft and when she tells him there is, the Reaper proves her point by running back the way he came. Roy then pushes a cart with a large chunk of coal to the shaft's entrance and starts running the rope from there, across the yard, back to the bus. After that, the two of them take one of the drums of super fuel to make a trail of the stuff all around the bus by pushing the drum on a cart while leaving the tap on the bottom open. The Reaper then finds his way back up to the ranch and emerges from the building, coming out into the yard and following the rope. Roy and Cass reach the back of the bus, the former using a pneumatic tow-line inside to pull the drum of fuel up the ramp into it, while still running the fuel out. He then covers it with a blanket to hide it, as fuel continues to leak out, and when Cass says they have to get out, Roy tells her not yet. Outside, the Reaper reaches the bus and finds Roy's bike helmet sitting on a stick, with a lit flare on top of it. Walking up to it and touching it, the Reaper laughs and says that they're not going to fool him like the Carters did Jupiter.

Roy and Cass step out of the bus, with the former yelling the very true words, "The Reaper sucks!" The Reaper starts skirting around the bus towards them, laughing, while Roy threatens to kick his ass. Stopping, the Reaper pulls out his machete, while Roy, behind his back, pulls a line connected to the helmet he has rigged up, causing it and the flare to fall to the ground. Initially, the flare seems to have missed the trail of fuel on the ground, and the Reaper laughs at him, when it suddenly ignites and the fire quickly spreads around, running behind the Reaper. Roy yells for Cass to go and, after a second of hesitation, she does, running past the Reaper and making it out pas the spreading fire just in time. Disappointed at not being able to kill her, the Reaper still smiles and chuckles at Roy, when Cass yells at him to come on and he, in turn, yells, "Now, Cass!", putting his racing goggles on. Cass then pushes the chunk of coal at the mineshaft entrance and Roy hits the ground and grabs the rope that's tied to it. When the coal falls, Roy is quickly pulled along the ground, right between the Reaper's legs, and goes through the fire quickly enough to where he isn't injured. Reaching the entrance, he tells Cass to jump and when she does, the force of the coal chunk falling rips down the awning above the shaft's entrance. Now completely surrounded by fire, which is closing in on him, the Reaper runs into the back of the bus for cover, only to notice the object that's covered with the blanket. He pulls it back to see the fuel drum, which has the word, EXPLOSIVE, right on top of it, and he barely has time to groan in terror before the bus explodes. Watching from outside the fire, Roy and Cass are both relieved that their plan worked, with Roy hooping, and they then climb atop the shaft entrance and embrace. That's when the Reaper comes stumbling out of the fire, his back engulfed in flames, and he rushes at them, but they see him and jump out of the way, as he falls over the edge of the pit and down the shaft to his death. Not seeing what happened, Roy gets to his feet, asking where the Reaper is, but Cass tell him he's gone and Roy is overjoyed when he sees where he went, laughing and kissing Cass. The movie then ends on a shot of the two of them, along with Beast, who inexplicably showed back up, walking home as the sun rises. It may seem like a happy ending but the odds of them making it back to civilization before they die from the elements are virtually nil (then again, Bobby, Doug, Brenda, Ruby, and Katy made it after the events of the first films, so what do I know?)

Harry Manfredini had worked with Wes Craven before, having done the score for Swamp Thing, so it wasn't that unusual that he would do another score for him, though I doubt Craven had any input in the scoring for this movie at all and if he did, I don't know if he would have been happy with it. I wasn't kidding earlier when I said that Manfredini was in full Friday the 13th mode when he did this score, as it has those same, distinctive uses of strings, synthesizers and echo machines, and even the same kind of very high-pitched, plucking bits that were heard in his score for The Final Chapter, which was the movie score he did right before this. And the flavor and rhythm of the music is exactly that of a Friday the 13th score, from the loud stings for the jump scares to the same kind of driving, urgent pieces to create an ominous, uncertain atmosphere. Really, the only thing that's missing is the "ki, ki, ma, ma," and even then, at the very end of the credits, there's something that almost sounds like it wants to be that but not quite. While I do like Manfredini's work on those films, as it gives that series its own distinctive, musical voice, it's very off-putting hearing that music in a sequel to something that was meant to be more than just a slasher movie (making it doubly weird to hear it playing over the footage from the first film). Since this one is more like a slasher movie, it seems appropriate, but I feel like, in a way, it cheapens it even more. I don't mind the music Manfredini did for the loving moments between Roy and Cass, especially the theme that plays over the ending and the first half of the credits, but otherwise, I find this score to be very distracting and, since this movie sucks anyway, it makes me just want to stop it and put in a Friday the 13th instead. (Another connection this movie has with that franchise is that Kevin Blair, who plays Roy, would go on to star in Part VII: The New Blood, which was also the debut of Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees and who was also one of the stuntmen here.)

There are a lot of bad sequels out there but The Hills Have Eyes Part II is unique in that it's not only bad but also just plain useless, adding nothing to the original at all and coming off as the cheap, uninspired, slapdash product that it is. Other than the likable characters of Cass and Rachel, the still badass Beast, the nice-looking location, an okay gore effect here and there, and some occasional bits of score that sound fine, there is nothing about this movie that makes it worth watching, even for diehard fans of the original. The story is nothing, the characters are typical slasher movie victims with nothing to them, none of the returning characters from the first film, including Pluto, are executed well (save for Beast), the Reaper is a very lame villain, the cinematography is awful and often so dark, you can barely make anything out, the movie is incredibly boring, with even its kill scenes and climax being lackluster, it uses a fair amount of footage from the first one to pad out the running time, the music is far too derivative of Friday the 13th, and the fact that it is nothing more than a generic, by-the-numbers slasher movie is what hurts it the most, especially since it sucks at that and because it's from Wes Craven, who usually managed to be kind of creative even in his worst films. This is one movie that I can say I don't recommend to anyone for any reason. Just skip it and move on with your life.