Director Aja shows great potential...

Rating: 7/10 (23 April 2006)

...especially on the heels of 2003's thriller, "High Tension," which played with similar themes of savagery and blood vengeance. His approach to horror cinema is uncompromisingly brutal and appropriately cathartic, and will delight hardcore fans everywhere. Others may not be so pleased, as the comments on this board amply indicate. Of course, why these "others" would ever bother to watch a film like "The Hills Have Eyes" (in either incarnation) is pretty much a mystery, but I digress.
Well-lensed by Maxime Alexandre (who also DP'ed Aja's "High Tension") and tightly edited by Baxter (ditto), this post-millennial retelling of the Wes Craven classic strikes its audience right in the face with its bloody allegory of America's xenophobic nightmares, Mexico and Iraq. I'm surprised that other commentators haven't seen this yet, or perhaps they have and I just haven't caught up with them. Seemed pretty blatant to me, though. Representative white-bread conservative family unit (with one black sheep) marooned in the remote desolation of New Mexico that turns out to be a restricted atom bomb test site (read: U.S. military flexing its muscle) is beset upon by a family of homicidal subhumans (ostensibly created through the mutating influence of radioactive fallout) who live troll-like in the equally abandoned gold and silver mines of their forefathers. Mayhem ensues. Survivors become as much via rapid descent to the animal level of their assailants. The ol' red savagery of tooth and claw, or in this case, pickaxes, baseball bats, and German Shepards.
Or maybe I'm insane. At any rate, Aja slowly ratchets up the suspense in his first act, building character and filling in back story, then smacks you in the head with a gobbet of wet flesh in the second, and serves up an even bloodier catharsis of vengeance in the third. The two biggest names in the cast, the aptly-cast Ted "Silence of the Lambs" Levine and Kathleen "Breakdown" Quinlan, are dispatched first, quickly followed by the beautiful Vinessa "Eyes Wide Shut" Shaw. The parents' kids, Dan "I'm a lot older than I play in this movie" Byrd and Emilie "Lost" de Ravin and the babe's hubby, played by Aaron "X2" Stanford, turn in bravura performances as they battle the brood of mutant cannibals (read: Ay-rabs and Messicans) trying to kill them. The baddies sport a fair number of character actors, including Robert "Land of the Dead" Joy, Billy "I haven't done anything notable since 'The Untouchables' but I sure get work" Drago, and Tom "You've seen me in all kinds of stuff even if you can't remember my name" Bower. The gore is copious and unflinching, courtesy of the genius of Greg Nicotero and Co., whose work seems to be everywhere these days.
Aja, along with co-screenwriter, Gregory Levasseur (anyone beginning to see a highly tense pattern here?) keeps the stakes high as well. The family dog, Beauty, isn't just killed, she's eviscerated graphically. The father isn't just killed in front of his family, he gets burned alive so realistically you'd swear you could toast marshmallows by the scene. Next thing you know, Sis and Mom are dead or dying, younger Sis has been raped and traumatized, and things are looking pretty bad. They only get worse. I won't bore you with any further recap, but will say that although the grand guignol finale sadly slips into Hollywood overkill (Robert Joy, lie down! Yer dead!), it's still far more effective delivering orgasms of sanguine catharsis than 2005's "Hostel," a darkly-minded pretender to the "Straw Dogs" throne.
Upshot of this meandering comment: this one's a keeper, especially when the director's untrimmed cut is released on DVD. It has its flaws (can anyone say, "bad CGI birds? I knew you could! How about, "twist ending obviously designed to set up a sequel?" Sure you can!), but far fewer than either of Rob Zombie's cinematic visions or the overrated Aussie contender, "Wolf Creek." Definitely not for weak stomachs or those who cringe at the very idea of threatening helpless women and babies, let alone grown men.
I'll be looking forward to Aja's future efforts, disturbing as that concept may be.