As you might remember "The Hills Have Eyes" was released earlier this year. The film, which was a remake of a Wes Craven movie from 1977, didn't add much to the original. But it was well acted, looked good and managed to maintain most of the creepiness and scares of it's source material. Overall, a good horror movie.

It also made a decent amount of money. So, as it is always the case with those things, a sequel was rushed into production and that movie, simply named The Hills Have Eyes 2, will be released in march of 2007. That leaves us with a question: have they completely ruined the series already?

It's too soon to tell, but consider these points:

• The story revolves around a group of National Guard trainees who get attacked by mutants while in a training mission in the New Mexico desert. Since in the first film the mutants attack a simple family and, well, lose, one would expect the National Guard people to be able to kick some mutant ass easily. Apparently not.
• The movie was written by Craven himself, with some help from son Jonathan. Now, that might look like a good thing, but Craven hasn't written anything decent in a while, and his latest contribution in this arena was the screenplay for Pulse.
• The movie will be directed by Martin Weisz, who apparently is a famous video director without any actual films to his name.
• We now have a teaser trailer from the movie. Not much material in there, but it gives a general idea of the mood and visuals they are going for.

I have to say that I'm actually cautiously optimistic about the movie after seeing the trailer. Still don't think it will be anything really special, considering everything, but it just might be a decent flick.

I am, however, not optimistic at all about Hannibal Rising, and the new teaser trailer does nothing for me. Love Silence of the Lambs, love the character. But I really don't need to see the young Lecter. And when they make the inevitable Hannibal: In The Womb, I won't need to see that either.

In a more original vein we have the trailer for indie horror pic "Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon". The movie follows the enterprising Leslie Vernon, who intends to be the next great American serial killer. And he is so sure he has what it takes he even invites a documentary film maker to document his upcoming rein of terror. Behind the Mask has been generating some pretty positive reactions from the people who have seen it, and it will get a small theatrical release in February before heading for the DVD. Keep you eyes open for this one.