Not since George A. Romero...

Rating: 7/10 (12 March 2006)

Not since George A. Romero has there been a director that is willing to take their movie to the next level in the horror genre. When Romero showed the living dead munching on the skin and bones of the actual living in 1968, people gasped in horror and disgusting, yet today, Night Of The Living Dead is a horror classic.
Alexandre Aja is the 21st century's answer to the zombie legend. Starting big with a cult-y very original ode to the 70's horror style "Haute Tension" to yet another horror remake: "The Hills Have Eyes" Many, many of the top film reviewers do not realize what decade they're living in. Roger Ebert, this is not the 1960's. Our society isn't keen on the horror "parlor tricks" of the 60's, showing people eating chicken although exclaiming they're chowing down on the flesh of humans. Our culture needs more visually shocking horror films to give us that sense of terror of the random people in the world being so villainous to commit these act of violence.
"The Hills Have Eyes" is that type of movie. As it gets going after the mandatory 45 minutes of character development, the movie's brutality does not stop. Throat-munching dogs, burnings (â la Joan of Arc), throat stabbings with the American flag, an over-sized nuclear-deformed cranium, explosions, a freezer full of dismembered limbs and torsos, visually stunning facial deconstruction with a shotgun, and (the most recognizable trademark of Aja) numerous axe shots to the back, head, fingers, and chest.
"The Hills" isn't meant to win big at the Acadamy Awards, another major aspect major movie critics forget. Horror movies are changing. The past five years have brought more visually-pleasing cinematography and more visually-stunning violence. This is where "The Hills" wins big on both accounts. Aja has an eye for beauty in human destruction, and will be around for a long time as one of the best horror director of this new generation of horrifying, thrilling, non-stop, brutal art.
(3.887 out of 4 stars)