The Hills Have Eyes 2 (1985)

Simply wretched sequel made for the sole purpose so director Wes Craven could make a quick dollar; this one was so bad it was shelved for two years before finally seeing a release in 1985. The “story” picks up eight years after the first film, with the returning character of Bobby talking to a shrink about the nasty flashbacks he’s been having thanks to his previous trip out to the desert. Bobby’s now a hotshot dirt bike racer who’s getting all set to lead his team out to the desert for a motocross competition and show off his newly developed “super fuel”. However, since he’s still traumatized from the events of the first film, Bobby wusses out and decides he can’t go back into the desert, which leaves his girlfriend Katherine to step up and lead the team since she “knows the way”. What’s interesting here is that Katherine is really Ruby, the “good” cannibal girl from the first film that you just knew with a little bit of soap and water would clean up real good. Thanks to the “cannibal relocation program” Ruby is now fully civilized and heads off to lead Bobby’s annoying ass racing team into the desert.

Oh, and how annoying these racers are friends. You get a standard “good guy” type and his smoking hot blind and blond girlfriend, an overall wiseass/prankster, a nondescript girl that shows us her tits, and a jiving black couple that do nothing but, well, talk jive and stuff. Essentially their your typically clichéd slasher characters where you can pick out the heroine the minute you hear her speak, allowing you to spend the rest of the movie guessing how the rest of the assholes will die. Oh, did I forget to mention these nitwits brilliantly decide to take a “shortcut” through the desert, right around where the events of the first film took place...even though they are all aware of what happened to previous persons that strayed off the path? Assholes.

Eager to greet their new visitors is Michael Berryman returning as Pluto and, get this, Papa Jupiter’s big brother “The Reaper” who apparently must have been off on a cannibal cruise or something when the first film was made. So, to make this mercifully short, here’s what happens. Bus breaks down, characters wander off alone to either have sex or shower in irresistible dirty barns, cannibal mutants move in, people die, heroin fights cannibals which results in fiery explosion, credits roll. This one is so full of stupidity it really defies the imagination. In one scene Pluto takes off with a dirt bike with two other characters in hot pursuit. Even though their two friends have been gone for hours after pursuing a freaky bald maniac, in the middle of nowhere mind you, everyone acts as if this is perfectly normal and that their friends must be “playing a joke on us”. What the fuck? That’s the type of logic here friends. Gone is the sense of dread and “in your face” feel of the first film, replaced with what is essentially “Friday the 13th” in a desert padded with lots of needless flashbacks from the first film. Hope the money was real good Wes.