 |
| That's the only way I'll ever watch this again. |
In the lair of the mutant "Hill people," a captive, impregnated woman gives birth to a stillborn mutant baby and is killed for it. Following the Carter family's encounter with the mutants, the American government has demanded that surveillance equipment be installed at an old, defunct military base in that area of the New Mexico desert, designated as "Sector 16." However, the scientists and the commanding officers there are slaughtered by the mutants while installing the equipment. Meanwhile, a group of rookie National Guard soldiers fail a training exercise simulating an operation in Afghanistan, as they're unable to work together as a single unit and all have their individual faults that contribute to their failure. After angrily admonishing them for it, their sergeant, Jeffrey Millstone, tells them that they're next being sent to New Mexico to deliver supplies to the scientists working at the installation. Upon arriving, they find that the place is apparently deserted, although they hear a garbled distress call over an abandoned portable radio and they then see what appears to be a reflective mirror signal at the top of a very steep, rocky hill. Millstone orders a search and rescue mission, taking everyone except the anti-war "Napoleon," whom he punishes for his questioning his authority, and Amber Johnson, whom he has monitor the camp's radio. On the way up, Mickey Elrod nearly falls through a mineshaft but is saved, although he twists his ankle in the process and is forced to head back to the camp. There, while attempting to use the portapotty, Napoleon discovers that one of the missing scientists, badly maimed, is down in the latrine and he and Amber manage to pull him out, only for him to die from massive infection, warning them, "They're here." Afterward, their transport vehicle is suddenly burned and their rifles stolen. Amber runs into the hills to find the others, only to be attacked a mutant wielding a meat cleaver. She's saved by Mickey as he returns but he, in turn, is pulled down one of many holes in the hills to his death. The main group, at this point, has discovered the mutilated body of another of the scientists at the top of the hill and are promptly attacked, with Millstone accidentally getting fatally shot in the chaos. Now, with their commander dead, their ammo running low, their repelling ropes taken, and the mutants using the mine tunnels within the hills to attack them, they may have no choice but to take the only way back down there is: through those very tunnels.
Spitter (Eric Edelstein), the lisping radio operator, is the one tubby member of the group, which Sgt. Millstone uses to berate him with at one point. After he's unable to pick up any transmissions at the base, he becomes little more than another member of the group that Millstone leads to the top of the hill. However, he's the one who ends up accidentally fatally shooting the sergeant in the chaos of their first getting attacked by the mutants and is absolutely devastated by this. Later, when they're trying to get down, he volunteers to go down with the body but, to make things more uncomfortable and morbid for him, he has to be tied tightly with Millstone's corpse to keep it from slipping out of the harness. It proves to be his undoing, as one of the mutants cuts the rope as they're lowering him and he falls to his death with the corpse. Stump (Ben Crowley) is memorable for only two things: often making dirty jokes and being some of a lech towards the women of the group, as well as for stupidly deciding to go off by himself and try to find another way down without having to go through the mine tunnels, claiming that he'll bring back help once he gets down there. While he's climbing down, the mutant called Letch grabs him and slices one of his arms off, making him unable to continue climbing and sending him falling to the rocks below. And finally, there's Mickey (Reshad Strik), who on the way up the hill, nearly falls through a mineshaft and twists his ankle in the process. Millstone sends him back to the base, much to his chagrin, and on the way, he saves Amber from being killed by the mutant called Stabber. He doesn't get too much farther, though, before he's grabbed and pulled through one of the many holes in the rocks in a very painful manner.
There are a handful of other characters besides the core group of National Guardsmen, most notably Col. Redding (Jeff Kober), the commanding officer of the installation who, like everyone else, gets brutally attacked by the mutants at the beginning. He's the one whom everyone searches for when they arrive there and, when they find him, he's barely alive and almost completely crazed from the attack, pulling a gun on them, mocking how screwed they are, and, after revealing that he knew about the mutants before the installation began, tells them that the only way down the hills is through the mutant-infested mines. He then commits suicide by shooting himself in the head and plummeting over the edge of the cliff. Along with him, there's Dr. Wilson (Jay Acovone), the scientist monitoring the installation who can be heard questioning why Redding would want to put such equipment in a place that base. He's badly maimed and then left to die in the toxic, chemical soup of the latrine, though he manages to live, almost literally scaring the crap out of Napoleon when he's climbing out of it, and is helped by him and Amber. However, he dies from massive infection shortly afterward. Dr. Foster (Philip Pavel) is another scientist who runs into the docile Hansel while calibrating an infrared sensor up on a cliff near the base and, while distracted by him, is killed by another mutant. Finally, there's Dr. Han (Archie Kao), who gets killed offscreen while testing some equipment set up in the depths of the installation and is later shown to have been completely cut in half below the torso.
The obvious question to ask is which film is worse, this or the sequel to the original, but it's not so easy to answer, as there are a number of adverse elements, story- and production-wise, they both share, as well as negatives that each film has all its own. They were each undoubtedly made as little more than cash-ins to a far superior film, with the original sequel having been spawned out of desperation on Wes Craven's part, while this was rushed into production to capitalize on the success of the remake, and I as mentioned earlier, they do share some aspects of their story construction and plot. They both have lackluster casts but, while the original's characters were just typical slasher movie teenagers, this one suffers from having loathsome characters along with others that don't have much to them to make you care. On the flip side, even though both movies are around the same running time (this film is just 88 minutes and that's counting the ending credits), this one does have more action and feels like it goes at a better pace than the original, which dragged painfully, especially during the third act. And finally, above everything else, what makes both of these sequels disappointing is that, while the movies that spawned them were trying to be something more, these are just so typical of the popular horror movie trends of their individual eras. So, deciding which is worse is tough but, if I had to choose, I'd say that I have to give this one the edge. As bad as 95% of the characters are and as uninspired as the story is, at least this one compensates with more action and plenty of gory makeup effects, which the original sequel didn't have nearly enough of. But, in any case, I really don't see myself ever revisiting this film once this review is through.
Like all of these movies, good or bad, the location (Morocco, once again) is really nice to look at and has an atmosphere about it but, what I like about the setting in this case, and why I wish this movie was better, is that the main "hub," if you will, feels more isolated and claustrophobic than ever. I really like the idea of this old, long-abandoned military bunker in the middle of the barren wasteland, with a small camp of a couple of tiny tents outside in the shadow of those ominous, rocky hills (said camp looks quite eerie when it appears abandoned) and the bunker itself, which had been built into the mountain, being made up of dark, rat-infested corridors and a main room with "security dummies" sitting around a table. It's such a great setting and of a type that I really like (truly the antithesis of the Antarctic outpost in The Thing), as well as full of so many possibilities, that I wish the movie had centered around the small group of scientists and military men setting up the surveillance equipment and their fight to survive against the mutants, rather than focusing on these National Guard rookies and their trying to escape down the hills through the mining tunnels the mutants live in, which are connected to the bunker. Mine tunnels and shafts also make for good horror film locations and setting the better part of the film's latter half in such an environment was a nice way to distinguish it from its predecessors but I've never felt like they used them as well as they could have. I like the idea of the mutants being able to attack from and slip in and out of the many holes in the rocks that lead down into the mines but I wish it would have been utilized more than it was and, what's more, I once again have to criticize the cinematography of the many sequences that take place down in the mine. It's not quite as bad as in the original sequel or, for that matter, in Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, which came out the same year, but it's still often really hard to make out what's going on during that second half. I've said it before but I'll say it again: I get that when making a horror movie in this type of environment, you'd want things to be dark in order to create an eerie mood but, the thing is, if you don't do it well, I'm just going to be annoyed that I can't make everything out. The perfect example of this done right is The Descent: I couldn't make out many details of the cave system in that movie but it was so damn creepy and incredibly claustrophobic that it really added to it. With The Hills Have Eyes II, though, it's never scary or suspenseful and, as a result, I just get irritated that I can't see more of the sets of the mineshafts, as they do look good (they were actually made by the same people who worked on The Descent), coming across as appropriately grimy and uncomfortable. That room where you see the butchered remains of the mutants' victims is especially grim to look at, as is the one where Papa Hades has his way with Missy (which is near the main part of the bunker), and I really wish I could have seen more of the details in it.
As for the cinematography in the film as a whole, it's passable, though not as lush or lovely as the previous film's sometimes looked. In fact, this one seems a little more intent on making the landscape look like an ugly and uninviting place, as the color palette is much more muted and drab, playing up the desert's grimy, dirty feel and the wide vistas of the landscape, while scenic in some shots, seemed to be made to look constantly ominous. Otherwise, for the most part, it's a typical-looking, color-timed movie of the period, and a prime example of how a movie made by a music video director tends to come off visually. The camerawork never gets all that fancy, save for some downward-looking shots in some of the climbing scenes, like when Delmar scales the one cliff to secure a line that the others can use to climb up, but things do tend to get shaky and the editing really kinetic during the action scenes, which especially sucks during the second half of the movie in the mines, when things are already hard to see.
When reviewing the movie upon its release, Scott Tobias of the entertainment website, the A.V. Club, had this to say: "The premise for The Hills Have Eyes 2... seems like a perfect opportunity to give the mutants their due, since it deploys a group of military people back to the scene of the crime. And yet, it stupidly does the opposite, reducing the mutants to mine-dwelling freaks who murder and rape because, well, that's what they do." I couldn't have said it better. The mutants were already little more than monsters in the remake but that movie still, at least, attempted at some points to give them some characterization, even though it wasn't nearly enough; this movie try at all. Like Tobias said, they're just a bunch of ugly, vile, inhuman creatures that have barely any dialogue and no other identity other than how they love to slaughter and devour everyone and everything they see (they're truly little more than copies of the inbred killers in the Wrong Turn movies in that respect), as well as that they're trying to increase their numbers after they were nearly wiped out by kidnapping and continually raping women. None of the little pathos that was given to them before, in how the government tried to force them from their homes and they were exposed to radioactive fallout, is present here, save for the friendly mutant, Hansel, and he's ultimately so inconsequential that he might as well not even be there. Speaking of which, other than Papa Hades, I never even knew any of them had names until I read up on them (at least I knew the names of most of the mutants in the remake thanks to the dialogue) and they're so indistinct from one another, having the same generic, freak form to their overall design, that I tended to forget just how many there were. I actually thought the ones called Chameleon and Letch were the same character, just in and out of clothes, and I'm often unsure which one was attacking the characters at a few points. That's not a good way to do movie monsters, let me tell you.
KNB once again did the makeup designs for the mutants, as well as the gore effects, but, like I said up above, they really dropped the ball here when it came to the former. As over-the-top and ridiculous as a lot of the mutant designs in the remake were, at least each one was unique enough to where they had some semblance of individual identities, whereas here, they all either look they're covered in clumps of clay or have cliched, inbred attributes like oversized heads, very little teeth, and such. Combine that with how they have so little characterization and it's very likely that, like me, you'll be confused as to how many there are and which are which during your first few viewings. Letch (Jason Oettle), the one that's dressed in a kind of military uniform and the one that tends to hoop and holler as he runs across the rocks, is the wildest and most violent one, doing most of the killing and attacking. He attacks Col. Redding and kills Dr. Foster at the beginning, ambushes the group up in the hills and continues plaguing them until they make their way into the mines, is likely the one who cut the rope that sent Spitter falling to his death with Sgt. Millstone's corpse, slices off Stump's arm as he tries to climb down and sends him falling down there as well, and is the penultimate mutant to die, as he ambushes Napoleon and Amber by disguising himself as one of the security dummies in the bunker. Chameleon (Derek Mears) is probably the one everyone remembers, even if they've only seen the advertising, as the part where he licks Missy's face was often used as part of it. As his name suggests, he's able to blend in with his environment, as half of his body has tan-colored and bumpy skin, like the hills themselves, and he uses this to slip up on Missy and take her down into the mines. He attempts to have his way with her when he gets her down there but gets half of his tongue bitten off when he sticks it in her mouth and is then beaten by Papa Hades for it, as he wanted her for himself. After that, Chameleon runs into Napoleon and Amber in the tunnels and is killed by the former when he smashes his head into a blood pulp with a big rock. Stabber (Tyrell Kemlo), the one wielding a meat cleaver as a weapon, is especially basic, even by this movie's standards, as he really has nothing to him other than trying to kill anyone he sees. He jumps Amber when she heads up the hills to reunite with the others after their transport is sabotaged and their rifles taken, and while he's chased off by Mickey, he manages to escape through one of the holes leading into the tunnels and then painfully pulls Mickey through another to his death. He later tries to attack Amber and Missy but it turns out to be a trap, as the other soldiers promptly gun him down.
Grabber (Gaspar Szabo), this spectacle-wearing mutant who never leaves the tunnels, is another aspect of the movie that makes me think of The Descent, as he appears to be blind and tries to find his victims purely through sound, like the Crawlers, only he's not as agile and coordinated as them. Getting his hands on a rifle, he manages to fatally injure Delmar by shooting him a couple of times, although Crank takes him down with his own rifle immediately afterward. Papa Hades (Michael Bailey Smith), the patriarch of this clan, is little more than a poor man's Jupiter, as you get no insight into him other than he's a disgusting, drooling slob of a mutant whose only interest is in impregnating captured women to increase their numbers and killing anyone who tries to stop him. The way he moans, "Give me baby," while drooling on Missy before brutally raping her is just vile to watch, as is the opening where one captive woman gives birth to a stillborn baby and Hades promptly kills her for it. As if he didn't come across as misogynistic enough, he also uses words like "bitch" a lot, like when he's monstrously attacking Missy and Amber during the climax. He's the last of the mutants to die and, fittingly, he gets a pretty brutal death, in how he's shot in the head, stabbed through the torso, gets a finger in his wound, a pickaxe to the arm, a sledgehammer to the crotch, and finally, the barrel of an assault rifle stabbed into his mouth. Then, there's Hansel (David Reynolds) who, like Ruby before him, is the one good egg in the bunch who doesn't take part in his clan's cannibalism (when you first see him, he's eating a snake) and who tries to help the last remaining troops escape the mines when they meet him. That's all you get, though. You never learn why he doesn't go along with his family and is trying to save others from him. Granted, there wasn't that much insight into Ruby in either version of the original story but there were certain nuances that didn't make it necessary. Hansel has none of that, and any issues that do surround him, like whether or not they should trust him and Crank's yelling and berating him for what he is, ultimately means nothing, as he literally disappears after Crank accidentally blows himself up.
Like the remake, this movie doesn't skimp on the gore and graphic violence at all, once again to the point where it becomes positively mind-numbing. The movie starts with a captive woman giving birth to a bloody stillborn baby that's yanked out of her, cord and all, and from there, you see the sliced-in-half remains of Dr. Han; Dr. Foster getting an axe to his head; Col. Redding getting stabbed completely through his shoulder and tossed over a cliff, later found as a bloody mess, missing an eye and some teeth, before blowing his own brains out; Dr. Wilson being found covered in cuts and dying from septic infection; Mickey getting pulled through a hole in the rocks, his right leg getting bent all the way back in the process; Sgt. Millstone getting shot up; Stabber and Grabber suffering the same fate; Chameleon getting his tongue bitten off by Missy, his eye gouged out by Amber, and his head smashed into nothing by Napoleon; Stump getting his arm sliced off by Letch; Delmar getting shot and slowly succumbing to his wounds; Letch getting his Achilles tendon cut, stabbed in the back of the neck, and again in the torso repeatedly with the barrel of an assault rifle; and Papa Hades really getting an aforementioned much-deserved, painful death at the end of the movie. There's also a scene where Hansel is leading them to the exit and they have to pass through what is essentially the mutants' version of a butcher shop, full of grisly sights like human body parts in a refrigerator, flesh in a meat-grinder, a pair of legs on a chopping block, human limbs hanging from hooks in the ceiling, and Mickey's decapitated head on a table. Pretty sick stuff and, as usual with KNB, it looks good and very realistic. There's not as much obvious digital work this time around, save for moments like when Redding shoots himself and the green screen used when Stump falls off the cliff to his death, as well as possibly to remove body parts from certain victims, like Redding's eye and teeth and Mickey's arm in his aforementioned death, and to add to some of the mutants' deformities.
The movie opens and the credits play over the horrific image of a woman, who's obviously in pain and bound to a mattress (by both ropes and chains), screaming, with there initially being no sound but, as it goes on, the audio slowly comes in. You see that her toenails are rather long, indicating that she's been there for a while, and the camera shows you more of her, as she screams and breathes heavily, it becomes obvious that she's in labor. After some more screaming and pushing, a small hand bursts out of her womb, followed by the rest of the baby, which is then roughly yanked the rest of the way out, umbilical cord and all. The woman lies there on the bed, trying to catch her breath, as the newborn takes a few, gurgling breaths but quickly expires, much to the anger of the person holding it, Papa Hades. He stomps towards the woman, who repeatedly says, "No," and yells, "Die!" before punching her right in the head. Things quickly go black and the title comes up, and let me just say that it and the other credits look so cheap, like something you could do on Windows Movie Maker, which is why, when I first saw this, I questioned whether or not this was originally made for a theatrical release.
Following that are some captions that quickly sum up the events of the previous film, adding that the army conducted search and destroy missions in the area following the Carters' horrific encounter with the mutants and that recently, surveillance equipment was ordered to be installed in the area for unknown reasons. After the line, "It was nearly in place...", the film transitions to the inside of the bunker with the security dummies, as Dr. Han, communicating with Wilson over a small walkie-talkie, prepares to run a test on the equipment. At first, not every dummy shows up on the infrared scan on Wilson's monitor outside but, after some tweaking, it works. As he widens up the range on the screen, Wilson briefly glimpses sort of signal in the connecting corridors to where Han is and, checking the entire length of its range, tells him that he's getting a good number of false readings indicating life in there. Telling him to stand by, he tries to check it, when the data feed goes dead and, telling Han this, he decides to go check the main junction. Walking into the corridors connected to the room he's in, Han opens a large blast door and enters one of the many mine tunnels constructed inside the mountain. Opening the junction box next to the door, he sees it let off a spark with a loud crackle when he lifts the lid, and upon opening it completely, he sees that the interior wires have been chewed through by a dead rat inside. He tells Wilson this, who says that he'll call the base and that they should get a backup there within an hour. Putting his walkie-talkie down on the table in irritation, Wilson is then visited by Col. Redding, who asks him where Dr. Foster is. He tells the colonel that Foster is calibrating the infrared sensor on the top of the mountain, and Redding is angry to hear that he's not up with there without an escort, which they're always supposed to have. Up top, Foster is indeed working with the sensor, when he tries to contact Wilson, only to receive no answer. Wilson has apparently disappeared from his tent down below, and, as he looks down on the camp below, Foster then tries to contact Han. He gets no answer from him either and we then see why, as Han has been cut in half below the waist, his entrails spilling on the floor.
Foster turns around and is about to head back down to the camp, when he comes across Hansel, as he's munching on a snake. Instead of being freaked out, Foster simply says, "Hi," and asks Hansel if he's lost, as he curiously approaches him. Foster backs up and slightly jumps when Hansel reaches for the bag around his waist but he seems docile enough as he chuckles at it. Laughing as well, Foster asks if he has a name and then, Hansel's smile fades and he slowly backs away, mumbling something. As Foster tries to figure out what he said, Hansel then yells, "Run away!", but before Foster can figure out what he means, Letch comes running up behind him and puts the blade of an axe into his head right as he turns around. Hansel screams in horror at this and, elsewhere, Redding, armed and hearing the scream, walks to the edge of the cliff he's on and yells for Foster. Looking around, he then says, "Come out of your holes. Come on you cocksucker, motherfucker, sons of bitches!" Turning around, he looks up at the steep cliff-face in front of him and again yells for Foster. He suddenly jerks and you hear the sound of flesh-ripping. Looking down, he sees a blade sticking out of the right side of his chest and, just as he processes it, he's flipped up into the air by Letch and sent down into the rocky gully below. Standing on the ledge, Letch then lets out a crazed, animal-like scream.
Elsewhere, in what appears to be an Afghan village that's been turned into a warzone, with a car burning under its hood, a squadron of National Guardsmen are under fire in an alley. They quickly run for it, one of them, Crank, turning back to fire on the enemy, and they run to take cover behind a wall of sandbags at the other end of an outside corridor. One of them, Spitter, loses his helmet when he runs there and actually goes back to get it, much to the irritation of his comrades, and as he heads back, an explosion blows him forward, behind the barrier. An assault rifle-wielding man shows up at the other end of the corridor and fires on them, riling Crank up when he defames America and prompting him to go in guns blazing, yelling, "America's number one, bitch!" He actually gets the guy to fall back and chases him until he ducks behind a door at the end of the small corridor he emerged from. Crank tells them to come on and Delmar, calling him a dumb motherfucker and telling him not to freak out, rushes to join him, as do the others, while being fired on. Reaching the spot, one of them, ignoring orders to get under cover, runs for the door and takes the pin out of a couple of grenades. He tells Napoleon to get the door but Napoleon can't understand what he's saying because of the noise. Someone else yells for him to get the door and, as the one guy panics at the two grenades in hands that are ready to go off, Amber comes running in, kicks the door open, and they quickly throw the grenades in. They all run for cover the other way, several of them getting knocked forward on their faces by the large explosion, a child's doll landing beside them. As they try to get their wits about them, an Afghan woman comes running out, yelling, "You killed my babies!" Napoleon, ignoring the others' warning to stay away from her, approaches, intending upon comforting her, when she opens the front of her clothes to reveal a number of grenades strapped to her underneath. She says, "Kaboom!" and laughs at him, telling him he's dead, as Amber angrily calls him an idiot. In the following scene, Sgt. Millstone is ripping them a new one for failing their training, describing it as, "A stunning display of individual and group stupidity! Seventeen civilians killed and yourselves. I'm in fucking awe!" He proceeds to admonish Spitter for going back to get his helmet, Amber for dropping her weapon to cover her ears, telling Crank, "Since you are not Rambo resurrected, do not charge while your head is securely up your ass. That's how innocent people get killed," and then lets Napoleon have it for getting them all "killed." He then reveals to the others that Napoleon is against the war, for which he receives ire from Crank, before telling them they're heading to a rifle range to where they can complete their "failure," adding that on the way, they're stopping in Sector 16 to deliver equipment to scientists working there. Telling them to get in the back of the truck, he blows his whistle and continues yelling as they march to it.
After a long drive through the desert, their transport vehicle arrives at the installation and, as soon as they get there, they notice that the place looks abandoned. Millstone yells "hello" but gets no response and watches the camp's generator run out of juice and shut off. Telling Crank and Stump to offload the crate in the back, Millstone tells Spitter to get him the base, as he takes a look at the generator. Spitter finds himself unable to get through to the base, saying that it's probably the hills, but Millstone tells him to keep trying. As he does so, they search the camp and, finding no sign of anyone, Millstone tells Crank to search for Col. Redding and to concentrate on the old bunker in the side of the mountain. He also tells Mickey to try to find some fuel. While Millstone admonishes Napoleon for attempting to use the portapotty there, Crank makes his way over to the bunker and slowly opens the large, rusty door. Peering inside the dark, empty hallway, he calls for Redding but the only response he gets is a bunch of bats that fly into face, causing him to stumble backwards in shock. At the camp, Mickey tells Millstone that he found no gas and hands him a smashed satellite-phone that he found, saying that they must have used it contact the base. Crank rejoins them and tells the sergeant that there was no one to be found in the bunker. They then hear the garbled voice of someone coming over a radio in an abandoned vehicle there and Millstone promptly answers it. When the person on the other end asks him to identify himself, he does so and asks who he is and what his position is. He responds but the signal gets so garbled that they're unable to understand what he's saying and hear his answer when asked if he's in distress. Millstone asks Spitter what the range is on those small radios and he says a couple of miles. Delmar then points Millstone's attention to something reflecting atop the nearby mountain, saying it looks like a signal mirror. He then declares that they're on a search and rescue mission, telling them to regroup in five minutes with weapons and gear for a climb and assault. While everyone gets ready, Napoleon makes the mistake of asking if it's a good idea to go investigate without first contacting headquarters and Millstone proceeds to order him to guard the portapotty while keeping his rifle raised above his head and standing on one leg. As everyone loads up with live ammo, Napoleon takes his position beside the portapotty, Millstone angrily reminding him to stand on one leg. Everyone else heads out, although Millstone tells Amber to remain behind to try to get through on the radio, since Spitter's going with them, telling her to try to get through to a medvac. She heads to the radio to do so and, with that, everyone heads out, singing a military song as they go. Amber sets her rifle beside the desk with the radio and attempts to contact a medvac. She hears what sounds like somebody responding at one point but, when she hears nothing else, she continues trying to reach someone.
On their way up the path to the top of the mountain, Millstone tells them that the people working at the base were simply doing "army business" and that even he doesn't know how many of them there are supposed. Mickey then takes a step and the ground falls out from underneath him, as he nearly plummets down a large hole. Grabbing onto the edge to keep from falling, he stays there until Millstone and the others help him out. Once he's safe, they decide to see how deep the hole is, with Millstone dropping a rock down, which they barely hear hit bottom. He suggests that it could a hundred feet deep or so, adding that they'd best be careful. Seeing Mickey grabbing his ankle, Millstone asks him how he is. He insists that he's fine and has the others help him up, but when he puts weight on his foot, he doubles over in pain. Millstone tells him that they can't afford to slow down but Mickey tries to prove he's okay, only to yell louder than before when he tries to walk. Seeing that, Millstone tells him to head back to base camp, which he does, reluctantly, gathering his dropped helmet and rifle and hobbling back down the hill, while everyone else keeps moving. At camp, Napoleon, glancing again at the portapotty, decides, "Screw it," and, setting his rifle down against it and taking off his helmet, prepares to use it. Ignoring Amber when she gets onto him for it, saying, "Duty calls," he steps inside, while she continues trying to get through to headquarters, all while someone is apparently watching from nearby. Sitting down on the toilet, preparing to do his business, Napoleon gets the shock of his life when he looks down and hand comes up between his legs. Jumping outside, with his pants around his legs, yelling crazily, Amber asks him what's wrong and he says, "There's a hand in the shitter!" She runs to join him, as he pulls his pants back up, and she then creeps along the side of the portapotty and swings the door open, only to be greeted by the "lovely" odors within. Seeing nothing, Amber clearly disbelieves him but Napoleon insists, pointing square at the toilet. Leaning forward for a look, and grimacing at the smell, Amber then recoils and screams when the arm shoots out again, running outside with Napoleon, as the person pulls himself out. Asking who that was, Napoleon answers her, "Shitman the Barbarian! I have no idea!" The man, Dr. Wilson, pleads for them to help as he climbs out of the latrine and the two soldiers, opening the door back up, proceed to do so.
Up in the hills, the group attempts to figure out exactly where they saw that "mirror signal" and once Millstone pinpoints, they realize that the only way up is to climb a very steep cliff-face. As daunting as looks, neither Delmar nor Stump are too concerned about, given that they're the ace climbers of the group. Back at camp, Napoleon and Amber have pulled Wilson out of the latrine and have laid the violently shivering man on a blanket on the ground, as they try to clean the crap off of him. Doing so, they see that he's covered in numerous cuts and Amber asks him who that to him. Wilson can only stammer, "They're... here," and when Amber, after exchanging glances with Napoleon, asks who "they" are, she sees that he's suddenly stopped shaking and has closed his eyes. Napoleon checks for a pulse and finds none. Amber is perplexed, since the cuts don't look deep enough to be fatal, but Napoleon says that he's died from a massive bacterial infection, adding that whoever did this to him wanted him to die a slow and painful death. As they wonder who would do such a thing, out in the hills, Delmar gets to show off his impressive rock-climbing skills by making his way up the side of the steep cliff-face, at one point jumping up to grab onto a makeshift handhold. He nearly slips at one point but manages to easily right himself and continue on up, making it to the top. Everyone is impressed and applauds him, with Millstone saying, "You are officially a bad motherfucker." While the others watch Delmar secure the climbing rope up to, Missy goes off by herself to watch a video of her young son on her cellphone, unaware that she herself is being watched. After the video ends, she hears some rocks tumbling nearby but sees nothing when she looks up there. Crank then about scares her to death when he comes up and puts his hand on her shoulder. She calls him an asshole for doing that and he tells her that Millstone says they're moving out. Looking behind her, she follows him back to the spot. At the camp, Napoleon cleans all of the crap from his hands and proceeds to try to get through on the radio, as Amber attempting to disinfect her hands. However, he's unsuccessful, and as he then tries to contact Millstone and the others, they hear some sort of small explosion and quickly realize their transport is engulfed in flames. Rushing to it and seeing how bad it is, Napoleon heads to the portapotty to grab his rifle, only to find that it's gone. He then asks Amber where hers is and, when they rush back to the front of the main tent, they see it's gone too. Napoleon again tries to contact the others but Amber suggests they just head up there and meet everybody. When he hesitates, she accuses him of being scared and reminds him of his failure at the training mission. She then reminds him of what Wilson told them but Napoleon resumes trying to reach someone, with Amber getting fed up and, grabbing her helmet, rushes towards the path leading up the hill.
On her way up, Amber stops dead when she believes she hears something on a ledge up above her. Walking up a little farther, she believes she hears more rustling and what sounds like some growling, followed by the definite sounds of rocks falling and gutteral growls. She yells at Napoleon but, before she can say more, the mutant Stabber rises up and grabs her from behind. Seeing this, Napoleon drops what he's doing and comes running. Amber manages to hit Stabber and make him fall to his knees but he's still able to pick her up, carry her a few feet, and slam her to the ground. She struggles to escape, kicking him in the face, and then tries to crawl away, bashing him in the head with a big rock when he tries to pull her back. With that, he takes out his meat cleaver and swings, barely missing her head, and just as he's about to come down with it again, he suddenly gets shot in the shoulder and falls to the ground. Looking up and seeing that the shooter was Mickey, still on his way back down from farther up the path, Stabber quickly ducks into a large hole in the rocks. Amber gets up and runs up the hill to meet Mickey, as he hobbles down, but before she can tell him what's going on, a hand lunges out of a hole in the rocks by his injured foot and grabs him. He gets pulled to the ground, dropping his rifle, and, seeing what's happening, struggles to crawl away, as Amber reaches him and tries to help. Realizing that he's being pulled into the hole, Amber grabs his vest and arm and tries to pull him out, but Mickey tells her to shoot the attacker. She grabs his rifle, as he tries to brace himself by putting his other leg on the outcropping above the hole, but when she aims, she can't even see the mutant that's grabbing him. Napoleon reaches them and tries to pull Mickey out as well but, try as he might, and with Amber unable to take a shot, Mickey is pulled until his leg breaks with a snap, blood spurting onto his chest, and is dragged in with his leg bent backwards across his front. Amber cries in horror at this, while Napoleon looks through the hole, aiming the rifle, and yelling for Mickey.
While the others continue climbing up the steep hill, Stump notices that Missy has stopped and is looking down, back towards the camp. He asks what she's doing and she says that she thought she heard a shot down there. She's worried about Amber but Stump assures her that she's fine, that she and Mickey are, by this point, probably doing a different kind of "training." He then notices another reflection up on the top of the hill, as have the others, who've made it up there. Millstone tells the two of them to get up there and they do, as the sergeant yells, "Hello!" a couple of times, but gets no response. Delmar then notices something up on a rock and finds that it's a red-and-white tennis shoe that's just sitting there. Spitter then yells for Millstone and he and the others come running to see the grisly sight of Dr. Foster's body lying in the shade of a large boulder, blood all around his head. Seeing something jammed in there, Millstone has Crank fish it out, which he reluctantly does, revealing it to be his wallet. Opening it up and reading off his I.D., learning that it's one of the missing scientists, Millstone tells everyone to lock and load. Everyone wonders how something like this could happen on an army base and Millstone reminds them that the base is the size of Rhode Island, meaning it's an ideal one for someone to go postal. He then tells Spitter to get Amber on the radio and everyone eyes the hills as he tries to get through, only to realize he can't because of the interference from the environment. Missy says that they should go back down but Millstone tells her that Amber is fine, as Mickey and Napoleon are with her. Hearing what sounds like another distress call, Millstone takes the radio and again tries to see if it's Col. Redding, only to get another garbled response that cuts off. Missy comments that it wasn't the same voice they heard before and Millstone says that it doesn't matter: if they're hurt, they're going to help, and if it's someone playing with them, they're going to find out who it is. He tells Crank and Spitter to stay with him on lead, while the others are to bring up the rear, and they head on up.
Up ahead, as they hear what sounds like a bird making calls, Millstone motions for Spitter and Crank to head down a fork in the path, while he checks the other route. Walking the route, unaware that the calls they're hearing are not coming for a bird at all, Crank tells Spitter to keep his eyes open. As soon as he says that, Letch drops down behind them and hits Spitter with a pickaxe, sending him falling to the ground and causing him to knock Crank down (his bag kept him from being skewered by the axe). Spitter quickly rises up and fires at Letch, who runs up along a ridge, and the others hear the shots, hiding up against the rocks. Letch clears a gap with a yell, and after Crank asks Spitter what happened, he appears on the ledge above him and hits him in the helmet with a large rock. Spitter leans back and again fires at Letch as he runs across the ledge, right when Millstone shows up at the end of the path to see what's going on. Spitter isn't able to stop and Millstone gets hit several times in the torso, going down instantly. Crank and especially Spitter are horrified at this, as the others, including Napoleon and Amber, come running. Reaching Spitter, Delmar asks him if he's hurt and he simply moans, "I didn't mean to do that." He sees what he means as the others gather around Millstone on the ground, who's badly hurt but still breathing. Stump asks Missy what they should do and he tells him to get the medipack, which asks Delmar to do. Napoleon and Amber then reach the spot to find Spitter crying and, seeing Millstone, the former asks what happened. Crank tells him about how they were attack, as Missy applies chest compresses to Millstone, trying to keep him breathing. However, he quickly stops breathing and Stump asks Missy what they need. She just shakes her head at him and then starts crying over their now clearly dead sergeant. Crank continues insisting that it was an accident and that their attackers are "fucking with us," that they're smart. With Spitter now more upset than ever, Stump then notices that Mickey isn't there, and when he asks where he is, Amber doesn't say anything. All Napoleon can do is just sit down with a rifle and contemplate what to do next.
They begin the arduous task of carrying Millstone's body back down the hill, with Amber telling them to watch between the rocks and to watch their feet. At one point, Delmar catches a glimpse of someone on a hill across the way and aims but, after several seconds of tension, they ask him what he sees and he says that it's nothing. He adds that they're almost there and motions for them to come on. Reaching a steep drop-off, Delmar tells them that they need to rig a line to get Millstone down. Spitter insists that he's going to be lowered with him but both Delmar and Stump say that they don't know how to rig one for two people. Napoleon says that he can do it and they proceed to tie the perfect knot for it before carrying Millstone's body to begin rigging him up. As they do it, Crank asks Napoleon if he knows what he's doing and he says that he was an Eagle Scout. Once Millstone is set, Spitter gets up in front of the body and they place him firmly on him before tying them together, Napoleon telling him that it's the only way to make sure Millstone doesn't fall out. Securing them, the others help Spitter as he walks backwards over the edge of the drop-off and begins climbing down, with Napoleon and Stump giving him instructions while the others feed the rope. Napoleon heads back there to help them, while Stump keeps an eye on Spitter, telling the others to keep it slow. Everything goes fine until suddenly, without warning, the tension gets released and those on the rope get thrown back. Spitter is head screaming, followed by the sound of a loud thud, and Delmar rushes to the edge of the drop. He and Stump see Spitter and Millstone lying atop a large rock in a heap and they realize that he's dead too. Crank demands to know what happened and he's told that Spitter is dead. As the others process it, and Delmar pulls the severed end of the rope up, Crank takes his anger out on Napoleon, shoving him to the ground and calling him a, "Lying faggot." Napoleon says that the rope must have broke but Delmar shows it to them and clarifies that it was cut. Hearing this, Crank grabs his rifle and, stomping to the edge of the drop, screams into the hills, "You motherfuckers are dead! You hear me?!" He fires some shots for emphasis and again yells, "Dead!", before looking down at Spitter's body. Napoleon then asks where the ropes are and Delmar points to where he put them. He tells them that they're gone and Amber stands up and says aloud, "We can't get down without the ropes." Delmar tells them that their attackers now figure they don't have a chance but they're going to get out together. Amber asks how they're going to get down and Missy says, "They got up here. We'll take the same way down."
With Delmar leading the way, they walk a narrow ledge along the side of the mountain, Crank almost losing his footing at one point and sending a bunch of rocks tumbling down. Everybody then makes it across, only to find that it led them to a dead-end, with nothing but another sharp drop-off in front of them. Delmar says that they'll just go back and try to find another way, when they hear a sound nearby. He slowly approaches the corner beyond which the sound came from, followed by everyone else, but when he peeks around it, he sees the bloodied, shivering form of a man lying up against a rock. Setting their guns down, they rush to help him, not hearing him when he tells them to go ahead and shoot him. Walking up to close to him, Crank sees on the front of his uniform that he's Col. Redding and tells him that they're going to get him out. Redding asks where their commanding officer is and Delmar tells him that they lost him. Missy approaches him with first aid, when he suddenly yells, "You don't have a fucking clue!", and then smiles and chuckles madly. They then hear the sound of Letch screaming nearby and quickly grab their guns and aim in that direction. Delmar tells Redding, "Sir, if you know something we should know, now's the time," and he answers, "I just needed a little proof," and they turn to see him on his feet, holding a handgun. Aiming at him, they demand he tell them what he knows and he reveals that the knew about the mutants, saying, "They thought they got rid of them but I knew they didn't." He also adds that, given another couple of nights, he could have blown them away. Crank asks him how they get out and Redding answers, "You could go down through the mines, except they'd kill you for sure." Looking at Amber and Missy, he says, "They'll keep you alive for breeding, trying to get their numbers back up," and laughs at that. Crank again asks, "How do we get down this hill?" and Redding says, "Simple," before pointing his gun at his head and shooting right through it, his body then falling over the edge. They barely have time to register what happened, when they again hear Letch yelling nearby. They aim their rifles in all directions but are unable to get a bead on where he is. Missy and Amber look at each other and appear to both realize what they need to do.
In the next scene, the two of them are sitting by themselves, having opened and, in Amber's case, removed the tops of their uniforms, and appear to be waiting. Amber says that she doesn't think she can take much more and that she's really scared, with Missy trying to comfort her, saying they will make it out, adding that she has to, since she's the only family her young son, Clyde, has. As Stabber lurks in the rocks behind them, the two of them talk about Clyde, Missy explaining why she never talked about him before, and then shows Amber the cellphone video he made for her. With their appearing focused on the video, Stabber creeps in for the kill, when Missy suddenly yells, "Now!" and the two of them run for it. Stabber charges at them, only for the others to pop up from behind some nearby rocks and fire with everything they've got. He's hit in the head, the left shoulder, and the gut, and finally goes down with a moan, with Crank yelling, "Yeah! Bi-atch!" Everyone comes in for a close look, with Amber identifying Stabber as the one who attacked her back at the camp and that he might have killed Mickey too. Crank kicks the cleaver away from Stabber's hand and shoves him to make sure he's dead, which he is. Delmar, Crank, and Stumps respectively remark, "Damn. He's fucking ugly," "He fucking stinks," and, "He's fucking big, man." Napoleon, trying to diffuse Crank and Stump's cocky attitude about easily taking Stabber down, says, "Yeah, well, it's just one. How many are left?", but Crank confidently says, "Hey, bring 'em on, man," patting his rifle. Delmar tells Amber that she and Missy did good, while the latter goes off by herself to relieve herself. As she squats down and does her business, Chameleon rises up from the rock behind her and grabs her before she has a chance to defend herself. Back at the group, Amber looks around and asks where Missy is, and they then hear her yelling. They rush towards the sound and round a corner in time to see Chameleon disappear through a mineshaft opening underneath a big, natural awning with Missy. Running towards the entrance, they creep in, their rifles at the ready, and yell for her. A bit of the ceiling falls down, startling them, and Delmar motions for them to come on, only for Stump to stop him and say that the two of them should climb down, since they can do it without ropes. He says that if they can get down there, they'll bring back some help for the rest of them, but Delmar says that they need to stick together. Stump, however, isn't having it, saying he'll take his chances and again promises to bring back help. Crank tells him what he's doing is stupid but Stump points down the shaft and says, "That is fucking stupid, man." With that, he ducks back outside, much to everyone's chagrin, and Delmar asks the remaining three of they're ready. They all make it clear that they are and proceed into the depths of the place.
As they head down, following the only path, they have no clue that Grabber is nearby, behind some boards in the wall. Delmar is surprised when they reach a dead end but Napoleon finds Missy's cellphone on the ground and pulls back a section of tin paneling against the wall to reveal a narrow chute of it that leads down. Since they can't see anything down there, Delmar says that he'll check it out and tells them to wait for his signal. He slides down the chute but it's not long before he comes to a blockage near the bottom. Kicking it, he manages to knock it loose and slides the rest of the way down, ending up on another level of the place. Checking and seeing no mutants around, he declares it clear and Crank slides down, followed by Amber, who goes more slowly and carefully. Stopping herself, she panics when a big spider crawls up her right arm and ends up stumbling down the rest of the way. Napoleon follows her, coming down roughly and tumbling out down below. Delmar tells him they're in the next level down when he asks. Outside, Stump finds a spot that he figures is suitable to climb down and makes his way towards it, when he hears someone in the hills behind him. Swinging around, aiming his rifle, he sees rocks tumbling down from a ledge and quickly turns when Letch throws one at him from elsewhere. Hearing the mutant yell, he makes his way down a wash, aiming at the hills, saying, "I'm not gonna let you bastards get me. Not me. Not today. This is not gonna happen." Back in the mine, Amber tells the others that she feels a breeze blowing through a connecting passage and they follow it, seeing a hole that opens up into daylight up ahead. Pushing away a bush that blocks it, Delmar and Crank then see that it's just a hole in the side of the mountain, and when Delmar sees Spitter and Millstone's bodies down below, he realizes that this is where the mutant who cut the rope was hiding. Amber says that they can't leave them down but Delmar tells her that all they can do is find Missy and get out. Crank says that Missy is probably dead too and Napoleon tells him, "You're not doing anybody any good talking like that." They all then slip back inside. On another part of the mountain, Stump reaches the spot where he intends to climb down and, slinging his rifle over his shoulder, begins making his way down. Despite obviously being nervous and tense on the prospect of falling, as he feels around for footholds, he considers himself lucky when he drops down on the ledge of an opening (the same one the others were just at) and stops to compose himself. He calls for Delmar but gets no response and decides to start heading back down. He gets over the edge of the ledge and is gripping onto it, when Letch appears, grabs his left hand, and lifts him up by his arm. Within an instant, he slices his arm off with a large blade, Stump screaming in shock and pain as he grips with his other hand as blood sprays out of where his left arm was cut. Letch mockingly waves at him with his severed hand, as Stump loses his grip and falls to his death, splattering his brains on the ground.
In the mine, the group comes across a passage with standing water in the center of it. Testing how deep it is, Delmar finds that it comes up to their ankles and proceeds through the passage, the others following close behind. Amber asks Napoleon how many he thinks there are and he just says, "Who knows? Too many." Hearing her gun clicking, he turns to see her take out one shell and place it in her pocket, saying that she's saving it for herself; Napoleon, in turn, tries to make her remember that, "Dead is never better," and that they're going to get out. He starts to head on, when Amber is suddenly pulled down, as the floor beneath her gives way. Napoleon runs and grabs her hand, only to be pulled through as well, the two of them hitting the ground roughly down below, while Delmar and Crank end up on the ground up above, as the water rushes past them. Realizing what happened, they run to the hole and look down at them, asking if they're okay. They get no response at first but, yelling at them again, it becomes clear they were just unconscious, as they then come to and push the pieces of debris off of them. Telling Delmar and Crank that they are fine, Delmar says that they're going to find a way to get down there to them and head on through the path up above. Hearing something in the passage connecting to where they are, Napoleon takes a few steps down, searching the darkness with his rifle's light. He just barely misses catching sight of Chameleon, who ducks down behind some rubble up ahead, but when he becomes satisfied that there's nothing there, he rejoins Amber, unaware that the mutant is not only there but that he still has Missy. Up top, Delmar and Crank run into a huge gap in their path, with the level down below possibly being where Napoleon and Amber are. Delmar points out a beam angled down the length of the pit, telling him that they can slide down that if they make it across. Taking off his camouflage coat, Crank says he thinks he can make the jump and, ignoring Delmar warning him not to, backs up a bit and goes for it. He makes it across the gap but is unable to clear the edge of the other side and slips when he tries to pull himself up. Now hanging by one hand, it seems like it's over for Crank, when Delmar easily jumps to the other side and pulls him up by his one arm. After he thanks him, Delmar tells him to keep it moving and they climb down the rickety, creaking beam to the level below, proceeding to then head down the tunnel there.
Elsewhere in the mutants' lair, in a dingy room filled with various objects, including some television sets with static on their screens, Chameleon carries Missy in and flings her down on the floor. Looking around, he then advances on her, reaching for her and mumbling, "Mama. Pretty," when she spits in his face. Angered at this, he grabs her by the front of her shirt, slams her onto a table, and attempts to position himself between her legs as she struggles. He whacks her across the face, stunning her, and leans over onto her, circling his finger around inside her mouth, licking it, and saying, "So sweet." He then lets out his long, nasty tongue and licks her across her cheek and across her face, muffling her when she attempts to scream in disgust by sticking it deep down in her mouth. As much as ecstasy as he's in, he quickly changes his tone when she bites his tongue and, as he pulls back, she rips the tip of it off and spits it out. As Chameleon yells in pain, Missy kicks him in the balls and runs for the door, only for it to sling open, as he comes face-to-face with Papa Hades, who promptly backhands her into a weak section of the wall. He turns his attention on Chameleon, who stammers trying to explain himself but gets punched to the floor and quickly scrambles out of the room. Hades slams Missy on another table, begins ripping at her clothing, and, liking what he sees, looms over her and tells her to give him a baby, as his thick saliva runs down on her (I'm not kidding, I literally just got a couple of chills after seeing that moment again). In another part of the place, Delmar and Crank hear Missy screaming as they head down their passage, while Hades slams Missy to try to make her be quiet. He hears Crank yells and, walking to the doorway, yells as he slams it shut to keep them from hearing Missy's cries for help. Down where they are, Napoleon and Amber get a glimpse of Chameleon running around in the darkness up ahead and walk slowly and carefully forward. Amber sees something on the ground and picks it up to reveal it as Stump's headband, meaning they got him too, and Chameleon emphasizes the point by throwing his severed arm, which they can tell is his from the tattoo, at their feet. While Amber sobs at this, Napoleon is now thoroughly enraged and, seeing Chameleon run to another hiding place, stomps toward him, his rifle drawn. Looking for him, Amber points him out and Napoleon takes a shot but misses. She points him out again but, again, Napoleon misses. He moves forward and takes more shots, trying to draw him out, hearing Chameleon yell when he scores a hit. The mutant reveals himself and Napoleon prepares to finish him off, when his rifle clicks empty. Chameleon charges him and throws him to the ground, then grabs Amber and lifts her up. She slaps him in the face and manages to gouge out his left eye but he puts both hands around her neck and attempts to strangle her. That's when Napoleon bashes him with a large rock, making him drop her as he falls back, and proceeds to smash his head again and again until it's just a mess of blood and brain matter, a sight that horrifies Amber, as well as Napoleon when he finally gets his wits about him.
As if that weren't enough, Amber hears another mutant, Grabber, coming and has to basically drag the stunned Napoleon backwards with her. Watching Grabber, his blindness becomes apparent as he sniffs the air and bares down on Chameleon's corpse, only to recognize him by scent and become enraged upon knowing someone killed him. Sniffing and trying to find his killers, he charges at the wall and starts making his way down it, getting closer to Napoleon and Amber as they continue scooting back across the floor. He's nearly on top of them when Amber falls through a wooden hatch in the wall behind her, followed by Napoleon, and they promptly close it before Grabber can follow. They're both startled and quickly back way when they see Hansel, while up top, Grabber hears Delmar and Crank approaching and just happens to find Napoleon's rifle. Napoleon pulls out a large bayonet for protection against Hansel but the mutant tells the two of them that they're safe. On the upper level, Delmar and Crank round a corner and find Chameleon's corpse, the state of which shocks them. As Delmar wonders what happened, he's hit by gunfire and knocked against the wall. Grabber fires wildly down the corridor, with Crank having duck back behind the corner, and when the mutant stops to try to figure out exactly how it works, he gets several shots in the torso. Instead of killing him, it simply prompts him to charge forward and Crank unloads, finally managing to put him down after a bunch of shots. Crank boasts aloud, yelling, "It's all about volume!", and Napoleon and Amber hear him below. He then checks on Delmar, who tells him that he just received a low-range shoulder wound. Crank helps him up and he insists that he's good. Crank then proceeds to kick Grabber's body, yelling, "Who you fucking with, huh?!", when Delmar asks him if he has any ammo left. Checking his clip, he sees that it's empty, and Delmar tells him that he's out as well. They continue down the tunnel, Crank pulling out his bayonet, when Napoleon peeks up through the hatch and tells them to come down there. Helping them get down, Napoleon asks Delmar if he's okay and he, again, says that he's fine. Hansel appears and Crank quickly aims his rifle, shining its light in his face, but Napoleon and Amber tell him that the mutant is okay. Hansel says, "No fear," and follows that up with, "You come. Follow me." He beckons them to follow him and they begin to do what he says, albeit cautiously. Elsewhere, Papa Hades manages to hideously rape Missy (as you can see, you actually get to see his cum-face, as if he weren't disgusting enough already).
Hansel leads the group through a passage, with Crank again noticing that Delmar seems to be more hurt than he's letting on, and when he again says that he's fine, Crank argues with Napoleon about how they can save Missy without any ammo. Delmar tells him to shut up but Crank then asks whether or not they trust Hansel. Napoleon and Amber tell him that he didn't give them up but Crank still isn't convinced, saying, "God knows where he's taking us," to which Delmar responds, "To be honest with you, I'm not sure God knows anything about this place." Hansel opens up a metal, sliding door and leads them through the room, which is full of clothes, shoes, and other gear from the mutants' past victims. The sight of this prompts Napoleon to take out his bayonet. But, as creepy as that is, it's nothing compared to what lies in the next room, which is a horrific butcher shop filled to the brim with pieces of the victims, everything from heads to fingers and other extremities in a refrigerator, flesh in a meat grinder, legs on a chopping block with intestines spilling out at the waist, and arms hanging from hooks on the ceiling. Everyone gags at the sight and smell of this horrific scene, with Amber screaming upon seeing Mickey's severed head and torso on a table. Napoleon shields her from this and Crank, seeing it, yells at Hansel, calling him sick and saying he should kill him. Delmar taps Crank, who admonishes him for always trying to shut him down, and tells him what he said before: "Don't freak out." However, he's gasping and he starts vomiting up blood as he says it, and slowly collapses to the floor, everyone rushing to brace his fall. Noticing he has his hand on his front, Crank sees blood and realizes that Delmar got shot there as well. He asks Delmar why he didn't say anything and, seeing that he's fading, tells him, "Don't do this, man. Don't do this! Don't leave me, man. Don't fucking leave me." But, Delmar expires and Crank asks for a medipack from Napoleon. Napoleon shakes his head, telling him without words that Delmar's gone, but Crank says he's not leaving him. He then screams at Hansel, whom himself is crying, saying he's not going to have him. Napoleon tells Hansel to get them out.
Hansel leads them down another tunnel and motions them around a corner, to a spot where a small ladder heads into a sort of storeroom (the one that connects to the old bunker). Resting Delmar's body, which they've been dragging, down on the platform, Crank climbs down with the others and, spotting the blast door, runs to it. He tries with all his might to turn the handle but Napoleon tells him he's never going to get it open, prompting Crank slam it repeatedly with his fists and yell and curse. Storming at Hansel, shoving him, and calling him a retard, he demands to know how to get out, as Amber reminds him about Missy. Half-crazed and desperate to escape, Crank says that Missy is dead, like everyone else and just like they're going to be if they don't get out. Amber tells him that they're not leaving without her but Crank calls her stupid and again, tries to make Hansel show him another way out. Seeing a spot that's half boarded up, he runs to it and looks through the slats. Amber goes back for Missy, ignoring Napoleon's calls, while Crank tries to get them to see what's behind the boards. He says that it's everything they need and starts ripping the boards down but Napoleon simply runs back after Amber. Hansel runs away as well, repeatedly saying, "No touch!" Napoleon catches up to Amber and tries to make her stop but she tells him that she'd go back for him and continues on, him reluctantly following. Crank smashes the rest of the boards, uncovering one of several crates that he opens to see sticks of dynamite inside. Elated, he picks up the one crate and carries it out into the room, telling Delmar's corpse that they're getting out, unaware of the line that's tied to it until it catches. Pulling on it, he yanks something off another that throws off a spark, causing a huge explosion that literally blows him away, with Napoleon and Amber diving to the ground in the tunnel to avoid the debris that falls; in his room, Papa Hades hears it as well. Napoleon helps Amber up and they both run back to the room, finding no sign of Crank but seeing that the way out has been blown open.
Hades then attacks Missy again, smacking her in the face as she screams, and Napoleon and Amber hear her, revealing that the room she's in is beyond the now blown open entrance (I don't know how that makes sense, some stuff that happened earlier). The two of them head through the corridor and enter the bunker's main room with the security dummies sitting around the table, Napoleon again taking out his bayonet for protection. They skirt around the dummies, with one appearing to have fallen over on another, only for that "dummy" to rise up and attack Napoleon, as it's really Letch wearing one of the uniforms. He slams Napoleon up against the wall, drops him in a corner, and proceeds to try to stomp him to death, before charging at Amber slamming her against the table. Napoleon, however, gets up, slices Letch's Achilles tendon before he can hit Amber again, causing him to fall to his knees, and stabs him in the back of the neck, sending him down to the floor on his back. Then, for good measure, Amber grabs a rifle and stabs him repeatedly in the chest with the barrel, finally killing him. Hearing some rustling in the next room, Amber says, "Let's do it," and head down there, with their weapons drawn. Walking through the angled corridor, past some static-covered security monitors, they come to the slatted wall of the room where Hades has Missy and see them inside. Amber asks Napoleon if he still has Missy's cellphone and he gives it to her. She tells him to wait and heads back down the corridor, Napoleon keeping watch on Hades through the slats. In another part of the lair, Amber starts playing a series of recordings on the cellphone, which gets Hades' attention and draws him out through another door in the room. Amber rejoins Napoleon and the two of them walk inside, finding Missy, who's strapped to a cot and disoriented from what she's been through. They start untying her, telling her that they've got her, while out in the other corridor, Hades, wielding a knife, stomps through it, preparing to attack anyone he sees. He then hears the recording of Clyde singing Itsy, Bitsy Spider and, putting his knife away, rounds a corner and grabs the cellphone from where it sits. Realizing he's been tricked, he crushes the phone in his hand and smashes it through some wood.
Missy begs her friends to get her out and not to let Hades touch her again, as they finish untying her and help her to her feet. They're just about to leave when Napoleon stops and says that he doesn't hear Hades anymore. He creeps towards the door he went out and peeks around it but Amber stops him, telling him they don't have time... and then, Hades comes crashing through the slats beside the door. He knocks Napoleon to the floor, goes after Missy as she crawls away, under a table, which he flips over, and then chases and catches her as she scuttles along the floor; Amber, seeing this, fumbles to load the one shell she removed earlier back into her rifle. Hades grabs Missy by the back of her shirt and slams her up and down on the floor, telling her to die as he does so, calling her a bitch. Once he's satisfied, he turns and faces Amber, who loads the shell and shoots him on the side of his big, misshapen head, splatting a beam of wood behind him with flesh and blood. Rather than putting him down, it only causes him pain, as he feels the wound and a splotch of blood falls on his shoes. Enraged, he stumbles back a bit, reeling a bit from the shot, as Napoleon comes to and gets up. Hades charges them and Napoleon tries to defend himself but gets grabbed and slammed through the wooden wall. Hades then grabs Amber by the neck, lifts her up, and puts her up against the wall, slowly choking her. Seeing this, Napoleon gets up, grabs a metal rod, and stabs Hades through the back, the end of it coming out his front, forcing Amber to move her legs. As he's stunned, Amber puts her fingers into his head wound and digs around in their roughly, making him scream and continuing to do so until he stops attacking. Napoleon pulls the rod out of him and he falls to the floor, releasing Amber. She joins Napoleon and the two of them help Missy up and are about to leave, when Missy decides Hades hasn't suffered enough. She kicks his body, screaming and cursing at him, as the others try to make her stop. Hades awakens and grabs her leg, pulling her down to the floor, and starts reaching for his knife, which he dropped on the floor. Amber yells for Napoleon not to let him get it and he promptly grabs a pickaxe and stabs Hades in his left arm with it. He then forces Hades to let go of Missy's leg and holds his arm down, with Amber helping him, as Missy grabs a sledgehammer and brings it down right on Hades' crotch. She hits him there again and again until it bursts and he stops attacking. Napoleon grabs Amber's rifle and stabs the barrel right into Hades' mouth, finally putting him down for good. Exhausted, the three of them help each other help and head back down the corridor, towards the exit into daylight.
As they go out, captions come onscreen again, saying that the disappearance of the trainees and Sgt. Millstone was never explained to their families and that they were officially listed as AWOL. It also says that Sector 16, much like Area 51, is not acknowledge to exist. And when the three of them make it outside the bunker, one last transition shows that they're being monitored on one of the installed infrared sensors by another mutant, who closes the laptop and forms a fist on top of it. The movie ends on this sequel-bait, just like the remake, but thankfully, despite rumblings from Wes Craven himself that there was possibly going to be another one, it never happened. (Probably wouldn't have mattered, seeing as how this movie itself didn't follow-up on the remake's actual ending anyway.)
It seems like this movie takes everything that the remake did, both the good and the bad, and does it even worse, as the music is another example. I may not have loved the remake's score but it did have its moments, something that the score to the sequel, composed by Trevor Morris, never has. This music is the definition of generic, with nothing about it being memorable or leaving any sort of impact, save for the, "dun, dun, dun," sound that comes from the remake's score. Often, even if a score is not 100% memorable, I can still say that the music written for certain types of scenes, be it action, horror, or emotional, did manage to get the feeling across, regardless of whether or not I can hum it, but I can't say that about this score either. It's really a nothing score, really, and it's small wonder why, save for Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen, Morris' movie scoring work isn't much to write home about (some of his other credits include a lot of those direct-to-video sequels that no one asked for, like The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption, Death Race 3: Inferno, The Marine 2, and Hard Target 2).
As for the soundtrack, there are only a couple of songs that are actually heard in the movie, both over the ending credits. One is Our Own Little World, by Celldweller, which is a typical heavy metal song that doesn't do anything for me, as I'm not a fan of that kind of music at all. The other is a song by the group, Loudlion, actually called The Hills Have Eyes, and you want to talk something I was not expecting. Over the last part of the ending credits, you get this rather upbeat, rock song describing the mutants, with lyrics like, "They kill you dead, they're gonna eat your head, they'll make you scream, it's so obscene," and, "Get outta town, you're gonna go to hell, you better get to your cave to tell, run away, but you can never hide, you'll never see 'em, 'cause they eat you alive." On top of that, you have a couple of sections where this guy, talking in a 1950's-style narrator voice, repeats the caption from the beginning of the remake about the nuclear tests and how the government still denies their effects, and also recites this: "Nuked by the army, chased by the cops, they'll never give up, it's all they've got. Hunted, confronted, they hid underground, killing and eating, all who come 'round." And let's not forget the memorable chorus: "The hills have eyes, they'll eat you alive, a dark surprise, the hills have eyes, you're gonna die." Yeah. As much as it doesn't fit the tone that either of these movies goes for, I have to admit that this song is pretty catchy and probably one of the few aspects of this movie that I can say I really liked. Be warned, though: this is the kind of song that, once you hear it, it will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment