THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2 LOOKS AT WAR

When writing The Hills Have Eyes 2, the father and son team of Wes and Jonathan Craven needed to look no further than the national headlines, the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorism. So the pair put their stars in uniform to fight the horrors that await them.

Wes Craven says The Hills Have Eyes 2 reflects the times we are living and discusses the parallels between the soldiers in the National Guard fighting the mutants and what American soldiers are faced with in Iraq.

“I think the sense that it’s about a military operation and in that sense it becomes in some ways reflecting the times that we’re in right now with so many American kids in the military. Kind of going into the military or going into a situation that you think is gonna be just relatively manageable and then when you get into it just gets really quickly unmanageable and you’re dealing with people that seem monstrous but they’re human and they’re smart and they’ve kind of got it all wired and figured out; that kind of scariness. Rather than have just a stupid monster, the mutant; we never thought of them as mutants so much as mutated human beings.”

To prepare for their war against mutants, Jonathan says the actors were put through a strenuous military workout.

“We had a military advisor on the set who marched them around for the first few weeks and made them do all kinds. They did climbing training and they climbed, scaled the mountains with ropes and drilled with guns and learned how to shoot all kinds of crazy stuff. We really put them to work poor guys. They thought Hollywood was glamorous and we dragged them through the mud.”

The unit of the National Guard in the film feature Snakes On a Plane actor Flex Alexander, Michael McMillian from TNT’s Saved, and newcomer Jessica Stroup adding the reality of women in the military.