Ten Movies in Two Days

 I just finished watching "The Hills Have Eyes Part II" (1984) with my daughter, and I'm just spent. She expected me to be more engaging, to talk to her more as we watched it (I mentioned before, she is Autistic and really is a Chatty Cathy, so I'm often "encouraged" to engage constantly with her, haha). I want to say I have written a review on the blog of that first viewing we had of this sequel and adding some thoughts on my Letterboxd account, I just had a few paragraphs. I watched nine Friday films over the week, including six on Friday, a repeat of "...Takes Manhattan" today. And HHE II is basically another Friday film, except Jason is replaced by The Reaper and Pluto and the setting is the desert rocky hills of Bronson Caves instead of Crystal Lake. But I'm just brain dead. 

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I felt really bad when my daughter looked over at me and said, "Why were you so quiet? You barely talked to me" while watching this film. We had fun together watching this on a Saturday last year. I guess after this being the tenth film in two days I was just spent. Still, she loves to watch these with me and I wish I was more engaging.

I guess if you ask me, what are the very bad movies that seem to be your guilty pleasures, one of those is Craven's disowned Hills sequel during the popularity of his Nightmare on Elm Street. When my daughter and I viewed this last, it was early Saturday and I didn't watch much of anything the week before. The very Friday the 13th Manfredini score and the slasher violence feeling so much like a Friday the 13th sequel, except in the Bronson Caves and other California locations set up for mostly desert, I did have that feeling of déjà vu.

It was such a relief that Craven didn't include Beast, the heroic dog, in the sequel just to kill him off. That would have been such a bullshit slasher trope-y thing to do. I do enjoy the whole mine shaft outpost setting surrounded by the rocky boulder hills. The horror of the first film is more or less replaced by slasher attacks...all punched by Manfredini's quick melodic jabs. I always thought it was interesting that Craven brought Bobby back just for the opening to provide us a follow-up to the character and how traumatized he is...and it allows for extra footage from the first film.

But I think the greatest sin is Ruby's rather lackluster departure...I thought she was a cool, kickass heroine wasted. I get they wanted the Wait Until Dark blind heroine in the pretty, very likable Cass, and having a Friday alum in Blair (later in the 88 The New Blood), as motorbiker Roy, aren't terrible, in my opinion; I just really liked the idea of Ruby returning "home" to make sure no more psycho cannibals could harm anyone else. Instead, she hits her head on a rock.