Immobile, Home, Alone:

Rating: 7/10 (15 March 2006)

The most recent version of Wes Craven's original succeeds, and fails, because of its excesses. Director Alexandre Aja dwells deep into grisly, jolting murders, methodically building tension that keeps one squirming uncomfortably in their theater seat. Augmenting his technique, similar to Mel Gibson in "The Passion" and Emeril Lagasse in the kitchen, he kicks his executions up a notch, and succeeds in frightening the living bejesus out of us.
But, "Hills..." ultimately fails because the story does not give us enough information detailing, or even sketching, why a group of mutated descendants is hell-bent on rape, evisceration, and cannibalism. Lacking much in the way of expository data concerning the habits of his mutants (all of whom are descendants of families effected by A-bomb experiments done, for the most part, in their backyard), Aja's depiction of a double-rape, a suicide, and the burning of one victim "at the stake" (which were preceded by shots of infant mutants during the roll of opening credits) seem positively, and shamelessly, gratuitous.
Oddly enough, that's too bad, because his method of building tension, and creating good and evil characters whose lives intrigued me, worked well. Up to a point, the movie engrossed me. But, after a point, specifically, the double-rape sequence, the movie grossed me out. By way of explaining why "Hills..." fails more than it succeeds.
I bring to point another horror film that I saw recently, "Final Destination 3." In each, the body count builds, as it should. After all, these are horror movies, and one expects heads to roll, be lopped off, or blown apart in a variety of ways. That's the nature of the genre: blood, guts, and gore. In "FD-3" the killings aren't any less graphic, the victims go down, one after the next, and we are not spared the "money shots." Yet, in "FD-3" the killings, in conjunction with the story, seemed comical, each one ascending in order of incredulity.
Also, their pursuers, unseen, and with the usual horror movie killer's motive: we died, so you too must die, did not appear to have other needs than seeing the victims succumb.
In "Hills.." we see the evil killers, a group of grossly disfigured rednecks, but we are never given good enough reason to empathize with their desire to avenge their mutated selves, and ancestors, by cannibalizing their randomly selected, or delivered, subjects. Hell, being born ugly ain't any reason to resort to rape, torture, and cannibalism. If that were the case, well, half the population on Planet Earth would qualify as potential homicidal maniacs. (Myself included!) This inauthentic story line is where I feel that "Hills..." disconnects from its viewers, and mutates its intention to add to the horror pantheon. In a few words, the movie is too evil-minded, without giving us enough reason to believe why its antagonists would act the way they do.
It's one thing to scare people with your production, but you overstep your intention when you scare them away.
"The Hills Have Eyes" will be one of those movies that people will watch and then instantly want to willingly forget. Unlike "Final Destination 3," a movie they might want to enjoy a second time for a cheap thrill.