Updated: 3/24/2006 11:03:15 AM
Review by Josh West
Remake of Wes Craven?s 1977 ultra low-budget shocker about the thin line between civilization and savagery centered around a family road trip that goes horribly awry when the group is attacked by a cannibalistic clan of mutated freaks, survivors of government nuclear weapons testing in the Nevada desert. The family is hunted, taunted and repeatedly attacked by these scarred creatures and must resort to similarly extreme levels of sadistic brutality in order to survive.
The Carters are an average all-American family being led cross-country to their new home in California by their ex-detective father, Bob (Ted Levine). With Bob are his faithful wife Ethel (Kathleen Quinlan), their teenage son Bobby (Dan Byrd) and their daughter Brenda (Emilie de Ravin). Also along for the ride are Bob and Ethel?s oldest daughter, Lynne (Vinessa Shaw), her husband Doug (Aaron Stanford) and their infant baby girl.
The group suffers the long car ride and blistering heat, all the while complaining and irritating one another, until a stop at a secluded gas station changes all their lives forever. There they meet a suspicious attendant (Michael Bower) who points them toward a short cut that leads them straight into the clutches of a murderous group of Chernobyl-esque super-freaks, whose experience with nuclear weapons testing has left them with horrible deformities and a hefty grudge.
?The Hills Have Eyes? is an enjoyable genre piece that comes to us from rising horror hotshot director Alexandre Aja, whose work on last year?s ?High Tension? caught the attention of audiences and filmmakers alike, regardless of their opinion of the film itself.
Aja?s ?Hills,? while not great, becomes a serviceable entry into the slew of horror remakes that are currently descending on moviegoers. Aja is one of a handful of horror directors who have been steering the genre away from its 90s popularity with the ?Scream? and ?I Know What You Did Last Summer? series?, and more toward the gritty and extremely violent horror pictures of the 70s. ?The Hills Have Eyes? remake is no exception to the trend and expounds on the already disturbing original by including even more scenes of brutality, violence and murder, but at a price.
The original film?s message about how quickly we, as people, can devolve into our most primal survivalist instincts gets somewhat buried here by Aja?s push for more blood and gore, a loss that helps the film in some ways and harms it in others.
While the new ?Hills? may entertain more with its shocking violence and easy-to-hate villains, some of the social relevance is absent, diminishing the film?s credibility as anything more than a typical slasher film. Somewhere between the two films exists an interesting exploration on human nature; the original captures it at the expense of being a true horror film, but the remake forgoes it in favor of more graphic violence.
Perhaps the best method of viewing for ?The Hills Have Eyes? would be to visit, or revisit, the original and then head to the theatre to see the remake. A marginal recommendation. --JW
