In the annals of modern fear, few films have had as deep an impact as Wes Craven's 1977 cult classic The Hills Have Eyes. The landmark tale, reinterpreted in 2005 by sizzling hot filmmakers Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur, delighted and terrified a new generation of fans with its blood-soaked, horrifying update. With the public demanding more, film legend Wes Craven teamed up with his son Jonathan to bring us THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2. The pair wrote a gritty, ferocious, and relentlessly suspenseful tale of a very green National Guard unit which unwittingly ends up in mutant territory where their nastiest nightmares come terrifyingly true. The film is directed by cutting-edge filmmaker Martin Weisz, whose resent film Butterfly: A Grimm Love Story has both won acclaim and stirred up controversy for its graphic depiction of modern day cannibalism. Thus, the combined talents of Wes Craven and Martin Weisz create the ultimate horror experience not to be missed, and never to be forgotten.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TALENT BEHIND THE FILM
In a career spanning more than three decades, Wes Craven has become a worldwide cultural phenomenon in film, television and literature. He reinvented the youth horror genre in 1984 with the classic A Nightmare on Elm Street, which he wrote and directed, and in the next decade, he deconstructed the genre again with the mega-successful Scream trilogy. These two franchises alone have earned nearly a billion dollars and serve as a powerful demonstration of Craven¡¦s profound understanding of the often unconscious desires and fears roiling in the human psyche.
"He's a terrific storyteller, a compelling writer and a wonderful director," says THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2 producer Peter Locke, who produced, financed and distributed the original film in 1977. "He's the master of the horror genre because he had early success in it and he's figured it out probably better than anyone around."
Craven's success in probing the nature of fear began in 1972 with his first film, The Last House on the Left, and was taken to a whole new level of mastery with his second film, The Hills Have Eyes which quickly became part of the cultural zeitgeist with its unflinching tale of a mutant family preying on travelers in the New Mexican desert.
Because of the tremendous success of 2005's update of The Hills Have Eyes, it seemed inevitable that a sequel wouldn't be too far away. "The studio [Fox Atomic] said they were interested in a franchise and I thought it would be fun to do," says Wes Craven. Wes continues, "I said to the studio, my son Jonathan and I can write that [screenplay] in a month, and they said 'ok' and I said 'ok'."
Although Craven liked the idea of penning the screenplay with his son, he was also a bit apprehensive about how productive the collaboration would ultimately be.
"There always seemed a sense like I was off in this kind of world working all the time and Jonathan was writing for magazines and e-zines, and you know, we had seldom worked together. And suddenly there was this opportunity, but I didn't know how it would go. And you know what? It was really cool. [Jonathan] has this wild sense of humor. It's that dark, dark humor that seems to run in the Craven genes - so we just played off each other... The film came together in a way that I think surprised us both, and we wrote [the first draft] almost exactly in one month. It was just two guys in a room and it was like two adults, it wasn't dad and son so much. It was just two guys that had to get this thing done. It was a really nice bonding experience."
The producers of THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2 were delighted to have the two Cravens collaborating together. "When Wes decided he was gonna write it and do it with Jonathan, what could be better?," says Peter Locke. "I've known Jonathan since he was five years old, so it's a great thing that it's happened this way."

WRITING THE FIRST DRAFT IN ONE MONTH
Because of the short amount of time to write the screenplay, the two had to stick to a rigid schedule in order to get the first draft done.
"We outlined and /or wrote every day after that initial meeting," Jonathan Craven adds. "We started at his house bouncing ideas around and beating out an outline for the first two weeks. Then, we started working out of a hotel room for a month so we could work without being interrupted every five minutes by phone calls, and such. We'd write from about nine am to nine pm seven days a week until we had a first draft about a month later. We worked separately, together - with kids they call it parallel play, with two desks in two adjacent rooms, close enough so that we could see each other and talk without shouting, but with a sense of proximal autonomy as well. We'd each work on scenes alone and then shuffle them back and forth."
Wes Craven discusses how the story line for HILLS 2 came about: "Shortly after the first one came out, I proposed that we should do one where the girl from the family joins the National Guard to get over her fears, and ends up being sent back to the New Mexican desert. That didn't flow because Emilie was doing 'Lost' so she wasn't available."
Without their original HILLS character to build a story around, the Cravens were forced to seek a fresh approach for HILLS 2 - one that would somehow surpass the edge-of-your seat terror of the first.
The two decided to look no further then today's grizzly and tragic headlines for their subject matter.
"What is going on right now historically is so important; the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorism," explains Wes Craven. "You know, clashing cultures. With all these monumental things happening, I felt that it would be interesting to do something involving American kids in uniform who are encountering, fighting an enemy that is totally inexplicable. They train for one thing, but then [what they end up doing] is something totally different."
Jonathan Craven also found the soldier theme intriguing and worth exploring. "On some level, I needed to process all these stories and all this imagery about kids being sent into god-awful situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The horrors they face are 1,000 times worse than anything you could cook up for a horror movie. I also think its inherent in the HILLS mythology. The original HILLS takes place on a military base. I think we thought the military would have to be brought into the equation at some point."

FINDING A DIRECTOR
To direct the Craven's horrific tale of mutated mayhem, the producers knew they would need a true visual innovator. They started looking for someone with a distinct and original sense of both story and style; someone who could combine the powerhouse thrills of edge-of-your seat suspense with an artist's sensibility. Thus, the Craven production team kicked into high gear searching for the right candidate.
"We did a massive search for our THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2 director," explains co-producer Cody Zwieg. "Literally hundreds of people were considered. Our challenge was to find someone who knew how to set up tension and scares, but was also able to concentrate on the characters in the film. We interviewed around twenty different directors over a period of six weeks and then narrowed it down to three.¡¨ After an exhaustive interview process that continued for several weeks, German-born Martin Weisz came away with the directing duties."
Weisz comes from a commercial and music video background, having directed such artists as Puff Daddy, Brandy, Meatloaf and LL Cool J. After enjoying unprecedented success in the music and commercial industry, Weisz found himself inundated with feature film offers, especially in the horror genre.
"I think that because of my music video background, people always put me into this [horror] category," says Weisz. "I love suspense and horror. I just think it's a great genre, but unfortunately, its been turned into a popcorn genre to make it more commercial."
He caught the attention of the Craven production team when they heard about his provocative and controversial first film Butterfly: A Grimm Love Story. The movie, a psychological/horror thriller based on a true story, explores a cannibalistic date between two men who meet on the Internet. Screenings of the film made headlines thanks to audience members fainting and vomiting during the movie's more graphic scenes.
Butterfly: A Grimm Love Story was met with considerable critical success and went on to win the grand prize at the 2006 Luxembourg International Film Festival. Additionally, Weisz was named best director at the prestigious Catalonian International Film Festival in Sitges, Spain. Serendipitously, thirty years earlier at Sitges, Wes Craven won best director (as well as best film) for the original The Hills Have Eyes. Thus, Weisz seemed like the ideal candidate to captain a Wes Craven production.
"Weisz is a filmmaker that certainly is not afraid to do something controversial," explains Craven. "Grimm Love is about human cannibalism, with all sorts of sexual overtones and everything that just makes a lot of people twitch, so that told me he wasn't afraid of touchy material. He is [also] a filmmaker of great enthusiasm with a great sense of energy. He has done a lot of filmmaking in music videos and advertising which is tough and calls for a great visual imagination."
The offer to direct THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2 came as something of a surprise to Weisz.
"I was prepping another film and got a call from my agent who asked me to read this script," reveals the director. "So, I read it over the weekend. It's really the script that attracted me to the film. It was really well written, and it was just different from what I had expected. When I originally read it, I immediately thought of one of my all time favorite movies ever, Aliens. I thought, 'Wow! Soldiers, caves, mines, mutants!' I was immediately attracted."
In order to get the screenplay in shape, Weisz spent hours with the production team scrutinizing every aspect of the script. "I had meetings with Marianne, Wes, Peter and Jonathan about what I thought about the script; then we all had meetings with Fox, and brought all the notes together," tells Weisz. "Ninety percent of those notes went in the same direction, so we all came to the same conclusion."

MAKING THE GRADE: ENLISTING THE NATIONAL GUARD - CASTING
From the minute Weisz and the production team joined forces, they knew that the primary key to the entire production would be creating a palpable, real cast of National Guard characters. As they began to cast the film, they focused not only on finding the right actors for each role, but the right ensemble who could, together, reveal the unspoken conflicts that hide just beneath the surface of their disciplined, tightly controlled military facade.
"We knew that this was going to be more of an ensemble," reveals co-producer Cody Zwieg. "We definitely wanted actors who looked like real soldiers, who could play that age. You often see actors in films, in their late twenties and early thirties who are playing soldiers, yet we know that people who are being sent over to Iraq and Afghanistan are either college age or just out of high school. So we were looking for that kind of fresh face look."
The producers also wanted to be sure to mirror the U.S. military's multi-ethnic composition. "We wanted to represent an interracial cast which was very important because again, that's the reality, that's what we see on the news," says Zwieg.
For the role of Sarge, the leader of the unit, the producers needed an actor who could not only portray a gruff military commander but who could also project an undercurrent of fear and foreboding. They found such an actor with Flex Alexander. "I loved him in Snakes on a Plane," says Peter Locke. "When Flex auditioned for [THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2], he came in and was great, he felt like a guy who had just been made a sergeant - kind of between one of the guys and [an officer]."
Alexander knew that to land the role, he would have to make the part uniquely his own. "I wanted Sarge to have an ease, a peace. I didn't want Sarge to be robotic. I started out rocking and my acting coach said, 'be still and be centered'. I knew that with this role everybody would come in [to the audition] yelling, so I modulated it. If you are yelling and screaming, you are actually losing power. My grandmother is very centered, so I got it from her. She could just give me a look and I would be scared. I saw it growing up so I tap into it for my characters."
One of the hardest roles to cast was that of Napoleon, the scruffy peacenik of the bunch, whose character has to run the gamut of emotions from extreme pacifism to unbridled aggression. After auditioning dozens of actors for the pivotal role, the producers were greatly relieved when Michael McMillian (Saved) showed up. Producer Marianne Maddelena muses, "I was so depressed, because in LA most of the dang actors are really buff, even if they are kinda geeky, nerdy guys and underdogs, they all go to the gym! Michael walked in and he is tall and thin and all of a sudden I realized that Wes wrote Napoleon after himself when he himself was twenty, twenty-one. And suddenly I thought I get who this character is! Wes [came] from a working class family and was the first kid in his family to go to college. The character of Napoleon also comes from a working class family, is very intelligent and wants to go to college, and he joins the National Guard to get an education. So, when Michael walked in, it was so exciting because we'd finally found our Napoleon."
The role of Napoleon resonated with McMillian: "Napoleon and I have a lot of similarities," remarks McMillian,"We both have similar view points on the Bush administration. We are both pacifists. He's sort of the unlikely hero. It's no coincidence that THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2 is being produced at this time in our culture. Napoleon reflects current societies, preoccupation with becoming a soldier and a killer. It was cool to go to that dark place - there are certain primal instincts that may be called for in order for a person to step outside their comfort zone. I really like the idea of taking a character through a transformation."
For the role of the explosive Crank, the troublemaker of the National Guard unit, the producers needed an actor with intense charisma in order to maintain a semblance of sympathy from the audience. Having appeared in such films as Jarhead, Flight of the Phoenix, Traffic and Get Shorty, the production team delighted in casting veteran actor Jacob Vargas in the role.
Vargas describes his character: "Crank is kind of an ethnic action hero. There are a lot of physical scenes, from shooting weapons to running from mutants, to jumping over chasms, to sliding down mud. He starts out being hot-headed, quick to jump in and in the end he starts to lose his mind and break down. He's seen so much in this one day that it just breaks him down. It's a gradual decline. Everything is so big with Crank. He cusses all the time. He easily gets upset, it took a lot of energy, and I would leave the set exhausted."
After a string of serious dramatic films, Vargas enjoyed the opportunity to cut loose on this film. "THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2 is entertainment - it deals with soldiers being chased around by mutants. They are looking for us, and we are their lunch, man! It's fun; that's why I wanted to work on it."
Mirroring the new reality of women in the battlefield, the producers felt it was crucial to incorporate females within the ranks of the National Guard. As a result, much care went into casting the two female characters, Amber and Missy, with dozens of young actresses auditioning.
Actor Michael McMillian notes the astounding transformation the two female characters make in the film.
"Amber is kind of like Sigourney Weaver in Alien, the girl least likely to kick some ass. Missy is kind of a tough chick. It's cool to see these characters coming through. The girls in our film kick some ass. I think the audience will be surprised where the storyline with the women goes."
After reading the script, up-and-coming actress Jessica Stroup very much wanted to play Amber - a beautiful but naive nineteen year-old enlistee. She explains, "A lot of people never imagine a woman as someone who is strong and will go out and carry a gun to protect their nation in battle. With everything going on in Iraq right now, I haven't seen any movies lately about women in battle."
Stroup enjoyed getting the chance to work in an action film and was even more thrilled to work in the horror genre: "I was a huge tomboy growing up. I've done some horror movies in the past, but they have all been kind of borderline unbelievable. I wanted to do something slasher, [something] hardcore. There was this scene the other day where I had to use my bayonet to kill someone. I have never exerted so much energy, so much force in my entire life. You have to completely disconnect yourself and say  'I have to kill this guy.' I just wanted to go crazy psycho. It was the most intense thing I have ever done in my entire life, take after take."
For the other female lead, the producers cast talented young actress Daniella Alonso (One Tree Hill) as Missy - a relative loner who has a son back home. :"For Daniella's character, we wanted someone who had that gentle quality that also had that tough exterior," reveals Cody Zwieg. "Someone who could be a mother, someone you could believe had that maternal instinct, but who could also be a fighter which isn't always easy for an actor to pull off, especially for someone who is as beautiful as Daniella is. You don't think that a lot of actresses like that could have that range, but she was able to pull off that level of tough exterior and the softness whenever she is talking about her son. If Missy's character doesn't really work, and if the audience doesn't really feel for her as a mother as well as a soldier then we would be in trouble."
Alonso strove to find the emotional core of her character. "Missy has many levels," explains Alonso. "She is always watching and listening for people she can trust, it's a protective thing. She has had some bad experiences in her life, so she doesn't let anything in. She is tough, I get out of my face, I don't want to deal with you, and then something happens that completely breaks her. You start to see a very sensitive side of her."
Talented young actor Lee Thompson Young (Friday Night Lights) filled out the part of Delmar-the peacemaker of the group. Young relished the opportunity to sink his teeth into the meaty role. "There is definitely an arch to Delmar, but its very subtle. Delmar knows he's killed a man, so he knows what he is capable of more than the other characters. He's also willing to risk his own life to make sure everyone gets out safe from the mine. I can definitely see making the decisions that Delmar makes."
Comedian/actor Eric Edelstein nailed the role of Spitter, the thirty-something private with a speech impediment. At six-foot-three and over three hundred pounds, Edelstein demonstrates that National Guard soldiers come in all different shapes and sizes and walks of life.
The production cast Ben Crowley in the role of Stump. Crowley describes his character as "a little bit rowdy, a little bit rustic. Stump feels alone a lot of the time. He's rough around the edges, and that's a lot of fun to play."
For the part of Mickey, the affable hunk of the group, Australian newcomer Reshad Strik took home the acting duties. Says Strik. "I got the role within five months of moving to L.A. This role was in my five-year plan, not my five-month plan."
In order to make the military aspects of the film as authentic as possible, the actors playing National Guardsman went through thorough military training in preparation for their roles. The cast spent a good part of a week going through a military crash course, which included firearms instruction, as well as learning how to handle themselves in a battle zone. The actors went out to the backlot--taking turns firing both single and rapid-fire fully automatic weapons using live blanks. Because over 15,000 pounds of pyrotechnics were used in the filming, by law, three Royal Moroccan Gendarmes had to be on set guarding the weapons and explosives whenever they were on set.
The physical demands of making an action/horror movie under the scorching hot desert sun was unlike anything the actors had ever experienced before.
Working for weeks in remote desert mountain locations seemed to bring the group closer together, as they had to learn to rely on each other--mirroring their National Guard characters in the film. To strengthen those underlying bonds between each actor, the producers made sure time was set aside for the actors to spend time together off-camera.

MUTANTS TAKE THE MINES
While casting the National Guard soldiers was essential to the quality of THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2, equally careful consideration was taken with the hiring of their frightful nemeses: the mine dwelling mutants. Once again the filmmakers found themselves looking for actors who could meet a highly unusual set of criteria. "For the mutants, we needed to find actors who could not only perform the stunt work, handle the extensive makeup and perform in that makeup, but who could truly embody the fierce, primal nature of the mutants¡¦ way of life," says Cody Zwieg. "That's a tall order.¨
Because of the physical and artistic demands placed on actors wearing prosthetic makeup in the desert heat of Morocco, the producers and the special effects makeup team at K.N.B. EFX Group, Inc. decided to rely on performers who had years of background specializing with the difficult process. Thus, the filmmakers went to great lengths getting experienced actors to play the mutants. "From what we had learned shooting in Morocco last time, we knew the stunt people who were available over there to do make-up on," explains K.N.B.'s Gregory Nicotero. "We had Michael Bailey Smith (Papa Hades) and also Derek Mears, (Chameleon) so we had a good base of actors. Your make-up is only as good as the actor wearing it so we were really fortunate. Those actors really know how to bring the make-up and characters to life."
Horror veteran Michael Bailey Smith (Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child) has the distinction of being the only actor to appear in both The Hills Have Eyes and THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2, albeit in different roles. In the first film, Smith made horror history winning Fangoria's Chainsaw Award for best fight with his gruesomely depraved portrayal of the mentally-challenged Pluto. Smith relished playing the deformed badman, describing him as "incredibly vicious yet at the same time kind of childlike and innocent. One moment he's ripping off a leg and eating it like a drumstick and the next he's got these very gentle, childlike movements and bouts of laughter. It was a joy to play him.¡¨ This time around, the actor plays ¡§Hades,¡¨ the family patriarch of the clan, and perhaps the most sadistic of all the mutants.
Smith describes how the parts of Papa Hades and Pluto differ: "Hades is totally vicious and dominant, while Pluto had a childlike quality to him, he [Pluto] might have been a guy who turned out ok if it hadn't been for Papa Jupe. He was taken down the wrong path. Hades is the Silver-Back, he is the big gorilla, its cool."
Joining Papa Hades clan is Chameleon, the diabolically deformed mutant who seamlessly blends into the rocky desert terrain in wait for his hapless victims. Derek Mears, who played the werewolf in Wes Craven's Cursed, takes on the role. He explains, "My character doesn't have super powers, he has mutations that are dirty that look like rock, it looks fantastic! The blisters and boils are so bad, [they] are covered with dirt and mud and nastiness so it looks similar to rock so I can fool predators. Some of me is normal and some of me is covered with blisters."
Undoubtedly, the renowned K.N.B. special effects makeup team performed at the height of their creative powers transforming Mears into this monstrous apparition. "We are very proud of Chameleon," muses head K.N.B. prosthetic makeup artist Tami Lane. "The first day he stepped on set and actually hunched over into that rock, he just disappeared! And then all of the sudden, you just see something move. We were very pleased and everybody was ecstatic. And he's so cool because he's this big guy and he's muscle-y; he's definitely my favorite character."
Hansel, a grossly disfigured man/child who lives on the periphery of the bloodthirsty clan, is played by David Reynolds (having appeared in such gore-fests as Rob Zombie's House of 1,000 Corpses and Night of the Leben Tod) . "When I think of the mutants, he's the most sympathetic," says Reynolds. "I've had to live by my own wits. I've made my cave separate from the other mutants, my cave is a considerable distance from Chameleon and Hades. There is something about Hansel that allows Hansel to consider other people's pain. Hansel is emotionally eight or nine, but his biological age is around thirty-five or forty."
The actor/stunt men rounding out the mutant clan are Tyrell Kemlo as Stabber, Gasbar Szabo as Grabber and Jason Oettle as Letch.

THE VISUAL EFFECTS, MAKE UP AND COSTUMES

READ MORE ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS AND WRITERS

READ MORE ABOUT THE HILLS HAVE EYES

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