Friday, March 4, 2011

Lock Me Up!: Hillside Cannibals

You aren't even trying, are you?  I mean, how much effort did this one take to come up with?  You were just in a meeting and said 'That Hills Have Eyes movie looks profitable, so how can we rip it off?'  'Well, it is set in a hillside area and has cannibals, so...let's just go with that.'  Like a lot of these Asylum films, this is a David Micheal Latt film.  On the bright side, it could be a C. Thomas Howell film!  So who is the star that could have once done better' this time around?  Well...there isn't one.  Yes, this one is devoid of even a 'name' talent behind it.  You continue to find new ways to be sad, don't you?  So what is the plot?  People go to the desert and get attacked by cannibals.  That's about it, really.  Since I have to fill out three more paragraphs, I'll just have to find more to say.  Get out your hillside Soylent Green as we go to meet the...
To the film's credit, they don't waste a lot of time in set-up.  No interviews a la Monster and no vacation planning a la H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds.  Of course, the film also does nothing to set up these characters in any way.  I find it hard to classify this idea as 'good.'  Basically, a quintet of people (two couples and one single lady) go to the desert for a camping trip.  Most of these actors I don't recognize, but one of them is the 'American helper' from Monster and the Random Republican Guy from The 9/11 Commission Report.  He gets around...to shitty movies!  We get a few minutes of them hanging out and interacting before night falls.  Come night, the cannibals come out and attack!  The group had split up a bit, so they are attacked separately.  The single gal is attacked while out for a smoke and cut in half.  This act is done off-camera, however, and we just see the parts dragged- lazy!  Monster-guy and his girlfriend (yeah, that's plausible) are attacked next by the power of hyper-editing and flash cuts.  The final group are attacked, but the guy is tough enough to buy them some time.  The girl is nearly grabbed, but one cannibal lets her go.  Later that night, we see the cannibals interacting in the cave.  There are a few females, young males and the old Alpha Male.  Through some grunting exposition (how often do I get to write that), we learn that he's Sawny Bean.  You'd be very, very old and in the wrong country if that were true!
I hope you like grunting!  The bulk of this part of the movie is focused on the cannibals, since introducing new characters would just be too much work!  'Sawny' is the guy in charge and gets all the inbred, cannibal tale in the cave.  The younger female of the group takes a liking to the boyfriend- who reminds a lot of The Miz- and begins to rub herself all over him.  It's not really creepy- it's just gross, really.  Since this whole bit gets redundant after the first couple minutes, it also becomes boring!  Yes, cannibals attacking hikers from their cave lair has become boring!  We see our heroine wandering around for a bit until she runs across the Sheriff. He takes her back to the site, but the place is clean.  Yes, these guys can't clean their own cave, but they can hide all of the evidence of their attack!  Not dismayed, our heroine sneaks into the cave and frees 'Miz.'  However, he was wounded and can't make it all the way.  He stays behind in a nearby cave and is almost instantly captured, rendering this whole sequence: entirely pointless.  She goes away further to seek help, while 'Miz' is tortured some more.  Turmoil occurs that night as 'Sawny' dies during the night of a heart attack, leading the next-in-line to take over.  Things are about to get real!
In a completely unnecessary scene, a trio of people are attacked and killed in a van.  Who were they?  Who cares- we need to raise the body count!  While being chased by one of the lesser cannibals, our heroine is saved by a hunter.  He lost his wife and son to the creatures and he's been preparing to get his revenge.  So you just stole the human hunter from your film Alien vs. Hunter, huh?  That's...not surprising.  The pair go to sneak in and rescue 'Miz'...again, but things don't get too well this time either.  The new 'Sawny' is killed instantly- good-bye, drama- but the hunter is killed too.  Our heroine is now in the clutches of the cannibals and their new leader...the quiet one from before.  I guess this is supposed to show his character growth or something.  Of course, I don't care.  Our heroine manages to escape and wound him, but 'Miz' dies from his wounds.  She escapes the cave and runs to the Sheriff...who takes her back the cannibals.  I probably should have mentioned that scene from earlier that showed he was working with them, huh?  In the Epilogue, we see the new, new 'Sawny' having sex with our heroine, only for it to actually be the cannibal girl wearing her face as a mask.  That was gross in Wrong Turn 2 and it is here too.  The End.
Killing, killing and more killing.  The plot of this movie is...well, a joke.  People go to a cave for no clear reason and die quickly.  One of them wanders around, while her boyfriend is stuck in the cave.  More stuff happens and then the movie ends.  It should take more than three sentences to sum up a movie, right?  This is just a shallow, shallow attempt to make money without putting much effort into it.  Speaking of which, this movies sucks.  See it or don't see it- whatever.
Next up, we get a Will Smith rip-off here for the first time ever.  This one features an Hawaiian Indian battling zombies in Los Angeles.  Stay tuned...
  

2 comments:

  1. Is there even enough gore to make it through the runtime?

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  2. ...no. You get a bunch at the beginning and a little bit before the end.

    That one scene with the van is almost like them going 'oh shit- we forgot to have more gore!'

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