Expectations are set low in the case of a sequel to a remake, but this no-nonsense mutant movie (co-written by franchise creator Wes Craven) delivers enough unambitious nastiness to scrape
by. It doesn’t replay the family-under-siege premise of the earlier Hills films, preferring to play ‘Southern Comfort down a mine’ as a platoon of inexperienced National Guardsmen venture into ‘Area 16’, the nearly disused army nuclear testing facility where the mutants live, and get into a rumpus with those degenerate cannibal rapist ghouls.
German director Martin Weisz (Grimm Love) stages the action competently, and there are solidly repulsive gore effects throughout.