One of the Better Horror Remakes in Recent Years

Rating: 7/10 (3 October 2014)

You'll find a lot of people in the horror community who are just absolute haters of remakes. No matter the quality of the movie, they will tell you it's a horrible waste of time, or even worse that it somehow destroys the integrity of the original which they hold so dear. I am not really in that camp, though I will certainly admit that the average horror remake doesn't generally come close to the original. Let's face it, you're presenting a movie and story that's been done before, so you've already lost out on "originality points", thus you have to create an even better movie. Aja's remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES is one of the few that I would put up there as an excellent horror film. Not as good as the original in my eyes, but good nonetheless.
It's very hard for me to rate the remake without comparing to the original. That may or may not be fair. In some ways, that's hypocritical of me. I'd be the first to tell you that movies shouldn't be compared to the source book (or comic in some cases). To me, though, that's because you're comparing different mediums and not, as in this case, comparing two movies to each other.
The basic plot of this movie is identical to Craven's excellent original, as are most of the key scenes, so that invites even more comparison.
I think that the mutants in this movie are a mixed bag when compared to the original. I like their origin story better in this remake. The idea of using them to explore themes of nuclear testing and the results on the people in those areas is inviting to a horror film like this. It, then, lends itself much better to explaining the mutations of this cannibal clan, far beyond just accepting that they are the ugly children of an ugly man, as the original wants you to swallow. That said, however, I much prefer the original clan. To me, they were more fully fleshed out characters. They had names and identities that were easy to remember. You "knew" who each character was and what their personality was. It then made them more complex. They weren't just blankly evil. They were a family, too, and that provided a better contrast to the vacationing family presented as our heroes. Here, in the remake, they want them to be more blank canvas villains that we naturally despise, rather than having any conflicting feelings about as viewers.
On the other hand, I think that Doug (the son-in-law) is much better in this movie. One of the main thematic points of the film is that a normal man, pushed to extreme limits, is capable of just as much violence as the cannibals. That wasn't emphasized as much in the original. Doug was only doing what was necessary to get his baby back. Here, he loses his humanity very clearly. Yes, he's defending himself and seeking to reclaim his child, but he's pushed to an absolute extreme of violence in which we know that this is not the same man that we were introduced to in the beginning and will probably never be the same man again.
I like the addition of the nuclear testing site and I like the "battles" between the characters better in this remake. There are some cheesy scenes in the original that amount to nothing more than Jupiter and Pluto running for minutes at a time, or other characters just running or jumping rocks. In the remake we are definitely treated to a much more amped up style of action and it does pay off better. On the other hand, Craven's original carries a better tone, in my opinion. It sets up the feeling of dread better by slowly building tension. Before we ever see a villain, we are frightened. This movie starts off with violence and a mutant killing government workers, so that the attention deficit audience is hooked from the beginning and gets their fix right away.
I guess the big question to ask is "had I never seen the original, would I like this movie" and the answer is definitely yes. It's not a top 100 horror film, but it's on the borderlines. It's very good and very entertaining. I do know that there is a superior original, though, with a story that was already told once before and that reduces my grade for this movie to some degree.