Aja defies , and conquers !

Rating: 8/10 (26 March 2007)

Being the craze at the moment that is with Hollywood (prequels,remakes and sequels)it was just a matter of time before they went ahead and remade this. However people should be glad to know that the man in the directors seat this time was Alexander Aja and if you have seen his french horror master-piece High tension your headed for a good time! Aja's take was different from Wes Craven's in the sense that this time round he shows us a travelling family on vacation going through the New Mexico desert where the U.S. government had secretly been conducting atomic energy blast and this is vividly explained all in the opening credits not leaving much to the imagination however the survivors of these nuclear explosion show us what did not kill them , only made them more insane! There is no time wasting in this one as we dive straight into the action and waste little time with things like character development (hey they all gonna die after all). The camera angels and cinematography is used in a brilliant way to show the vastness of the mountains and really giving the viewer that they truly are stuck in the middle of nowhere but then also shows a close up focus of how the horrors and consequences caused by radiation. Gorehounds and horror fans shall be pleased by the levels of blood , and body count and not to mention body parts flying about! and Aja also manages to weave our heroic dog into as homage and respect to Wes Cravens original. Another great thing was the cynical tone it had with the family members which made it all the more realistic.
To conclude , very rarely a remake can over take an original and especially one like The Hills have Eyes which has a devoted cult following but again , it shows that if you go away and do homework then you can inject something new fresh and make it worth while checking out. I recommend this to fans of the original and horror/gore fans or maybe people who are just in need of some entertainment during a boring summer day. I would not be at all surprised if this one started developing a following or people saying they prefer this to the original hopefully a remake of part two will make up for the original shambled part 2.
THE HILLS HAVE EYES - 8.9 OUT OF 10
THE LUCKY ONES DIED FIRST!