Over the Hills and Far Away........as far as you can get!

Rating: 5/10 (14 November 2007)

Yeesh! Where do I start with this one? I suppose I should point out that, apparently, horror means gore in modern movies. If so, then Hills is a "real" horror movie alright. There's gore by the bucketloads. In fact, there is so much of it that it rapidly becomes meaningless as a means to shock the viewer.
In fact, let's be honest, the sorts of people that like these kind of movies like them for precisely that....the gore factor. Horror does not enter into it.
So how does this movie stack up in terms of entertainment value, let alone horror? Well...not good. Although I do recall watching the original many years ago, about all I remember is the basic plot. And this remake seems to me to follow that pretty soundly. So, an actual remake, rather than a reimagining. And thats probably why it doesn't work so well. If they'd put a little more thought into the story rather than writing scenes as feeble excuses to depict senseless violence and gore then the film might have had more value.
As it is, however, they didn't and the film, as a result, is extremely predictable and formulaic. The "good guys" are a somewhat dysfunctional extended family that learns to work together....eventually. Throughout most of the film, though, they all do their own thing and perform such retarded actions that its impossible to feel much sympathy for any of them, let alone root for them. In fact the only characters that you have any kind of feeling for are the dogs and the infant baby. None of the others seem worth a damn.
So, having established the inherently unlikeable family it actually becomes quite pleasant watching them slowly get picked off for their idiocy. I know its a staple of horror movies that characters do stupid things, but here its just ridiculously overdone. Any family that dense deserves whatever it gets, quite frankly.
Another thing, horror movies shouldn't make you snort with laughter or derision during them. Hills does that more than a few times. I think its mostly the absurdity of what went was happening on screen more than anything really funny that caused it. But whatever it was, I chuckled several times.
Is it intelligent cinema.......hell no! Would I recommend it to horror fans.........no.
Would I recommend it to gore fans.....yes.
But I'd qualify the last by referring to the first comment above. Don't expect anything remotely like smarts to be shown by any of the characters.
Summary: Gore factor: 8/10 Plot: 2/10 Snore factor: 8/10