THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART 2 (1984)

 

(a.ka. THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART II; director/ screenwriter: Wes Craven)

 

Review

Seven years after the events of Wes Craven’s 1977 film, two survivors from the previous movie are co-owners of a motocross team: Ruby, now called Rachel, who betrayed her cannibal family to help the Carters in the first film; and Bobby Carter, Rachel’s boyfriend, who’s seeing a psychiatrist to try and shake off his HILLS-related trauma. A racing event is set to take place in the desert area where Rachel’s tunnel-dwelling family attacked the Carters, and Robert, still traumatized, refuses to go. Rachel goes in his place, riding in a bus with the late-adolescent, horny and feckless motorcyclists.

The bus breaks down, stranding the Rachel and her team near the site of the original massacre. Surviving members of Rachel’s family─some of whom weren’t seen in the 1977 flick─assault and slay many of teenage riders, the remainder of whom (along with Rachel) fight to stay alive.

Released in 1985, HILLS PART 2 is a bad, choppy-edit film, more a desert-set-FRIDAY-THE-13^th knock-off than a follow-up to its potent-themed prequel. This is borne out by this sequel’s heavy, shoehorn-recycling of original-film footage and its FRIDAY-esque stalk-and-kill scenes as well as composer Harry Manfredini’s recycling of his iconic FRIDAY (1980) soundtrack here. What makes HILLS PART 2 worse is that none of the young characters, aside from Rachel, are worth rooting for. They’re obnoxious, begging to be taken out.

There are also inconsistencies with the second film.

One of them is the presence of the unscarred Pluto (Michael Berryman, reprising his iconic role)─in HILLS, Pluto appeared to be killed; even if he survived, he would’ve been horribly scarred. A further franchise contradiction is the presence of The Reaper (John Bloom, not Joe Bob Briggs), Jupiter’s brother and current head of Ruby’s inbred kin. In HILLS, it was stated by a reliable source that Jupiter (James Whitworth) only had a sister, who was killed in a house fire started by Jupiter. (It’s also worth noting that The Reaper’s voice was dubbed by Nicholas Worth.)

Shot before Wes Craven’s A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984), Craven, who later disavowed HILLS PART 2, said he was two-thirds through making HILLS PART 2 when the studio halted its production because of its cost. Craven went on to make NIGHTMARE, and when it was a huge hit, the studio (Hills Two Corporation VTC) wanted Craven to finish HILLS PART 2 (which Craven already wasn’t a fan of), crafting it with only its existing footage─the legendary filmmaker was forced to use many of the scenes from HILLS to make it long enough to qualify as a feature-length work.

Michael Berryman was not the only returning HILLS actor. Janus Blythe came back to play Ruby (now Rachel). Robert Houston, seen briefly at the film’s start, reprised his role of Bobby Carter. Also, the canine character Beast (one of the two German Shepherds seen in HILLS) appears in the second film.

Kevin Spirtas (billed as Kevin Blair, FRIDAY THE 13^th PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD, 1988) played Roy. Williard E. Pugh (ROBOCOP 2, 1990) played Foster. Peter Frechette (GREASE 2, 1982) played Harry. Penny Johnson Jerald (billed as Penny Johnson, FREDDY’S NIGHTMARES, TV series, 1990 episode) played Sue.

HILLS PART 2 is far from the worst film I’ve seen. Its behind-the-scenes crew did a good job with its technical aspects, a few of the scenes jump scare-worthy. Otherwise, it feels like a bland, disembodied-from-its-source-film-FRIDAY-THE-13^th-structured work, one you can skip without missing much. Recommended for HILLS completists or super die-hard fans of any of its players.

BODY COUNT (1986)

 

(a.k.a. BODYCOUNT; director: Ruggero Deodato. Screenwriters: Alessandro Capone [billed as Alex Capone], Luca D’Alisera, Sheila Goldberg, an uncredited Tommaso Mottola, and Dardano Sacchetti [billed as David Parker, Jr.].)

Storyline

Fifteen years after murders where a campground killer was never caught, a campsite becomes the location for a new spate of murders.

 

Review

An eight-year-old boy (Ben Ritchie) sees a couple murdered on the campgrounds owned by his parents (Robert and Julia Ritchie)─the murderer is not caught. Fifteen years pass, and Ben (Nicola Farron) still lives there. When a group of fun-loving young people come up to party and hike, a fresh round of killing begins.

Set in Chicago but filmed in Italy, BODY COUNT is an intermittently entertaining and oddball film. It mixes the ribald humor of PORKY’S (1981), the stalk-and-slay focus of FRIDAY THE 13^th (1980), marital drama, and the dreamlike intensity of a giallo. As a slasher work, it’s solid in parts, intertwined with scenes where the campers run around the campsite enjoying nature, in and out of their clothes. Their oblivious-to-danger behavior drives Robert Ritchie (played with loopy relish by David Hess) closer to a violent breakdown─Robert is haunted by the escaped murderer fifteen years prior. He lays traps in the woods and walks around with a gun, ready to shoot the killer should he show himself again.

Robert is not the only one affected by the murders. His wife, Julia (Mimsy Farmer, THE BLACK CAT, 1981), tired of dealing with Robert’s moodiness, is having an affair with Charlie, a quirky, bad-ass deputy (played by Charles Napier, BODY BAGS, 1993). Of course, Ben, who witnessed the murders, is strange─he is a nerd with rage issues, made worse by his parents’ problems.

Following the start of the new brutal murders, a few of them taking place in the campsite’s bathroom/shower house (convenient for multiple female nude scenes), the killer hides their corpses. The other characters do frivolous things.

Eventually the bodies are discovered. Robert and Julia’s marriage comes to a death-struggle end. Charlie the Deputy shows up for the big killing show, after running around the campground, checking out one clue or another.

BODY runs considerably longer than it needs to, with odd tonal shifts and sometimes bad editing (e.g., two characters, start to kiss in daylight─seconds later, when their lips touch, it’s nighttime). 

The characters, aside from the older adults, are disposable and unmemorable (though Nicola Farron’s Ben is unintentionally hilarious when he emotes). Much of the blame for these issues might lie in having a written-by-committee screenplay and a few instances where the film blatantly adheres to FRIDAY THE 13^th tropes: several scenes in BODY are lifted straight from FRIDAY flicks, e.g. a body thrown through a window, and some of its soundtrack sounds like a direct rip-off of Harry Manfredini’s FRIDAY THE 13^th PART 3 (1982) scoring─while these elements are effective and nerve-jangling, they also distract from what’s going on in BODY.

What BODY gets right is noteworthy, too. When Claudio Simonetti, composer extraordinaire and keyboardist for the prog-rock band Goblin, creates original music, it’s effective and often subtle. Emilio Loffredo’s cinematography, murky during daytime scenes, lends a dreamlike vibe to BODY. The neurotic older characters are straight out of a giallo, furthering the flick’s weirdness.

It helps that the older cast members are standout players. David Hess (THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, 1972), a prolific and successful musician and actor, was known for imbuing his often-raw characters with unexpected sensitivity. Ivan Rassimov (THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH, 1971), a veteran player in action and gialli, has a brief role in BODY, but he makes his character, Deputy Sheriff Ted, interesting. Mimsy Farmer is palpably distressed (and later unhinged) in her portrayal of Julia. Charles Napier’s Charlie the Deputy has a good-‘ole-boy-but-heartfelt-about-Julia vibe.

Its sequel-inviting end-scenes are not shocking but appropriately offbeat.

The above elements make BODY a mostly mundane and sometimes badly edited flick with a few instances of standout acting and entertaining bits thrown into it. While I’m glad I saw it, it won’t be a film I revisit any time soon. It’s worth your time if you're really into slashers/gialli and keep your expectations low.