Nicely done remake

Rating: 8/10 (6 March 2006)

THE HILLS HAVE EYES (2006)
directed by: Alexandre Aja
starring: Aaron Stanford, Vinessa Shaw, Emilie de Ravin, and Dan Byrd
plot: A suburban American family have their car and trailer break down in the middle of a nuclear bomb test village in the desert, which is occupied by mutated, murderous, possibly cannibal rapists, and you know the drill.
my thoughts: I was just as excited to see the remake at the Palace Theatre as I was to see the original. I knew that it's directed by Alexandre Aja and produced by Wes Craven, where can you go wrong with that?
After the opening murder, this film didn't impress me too much. It did have a very good atmosphere, as in the original. But I didn't like how almost everything was exactly the way it was in the original since I was watching them back-to-back.
But then, once the violence began, I realized this is a fun, gory remake.
The deaths are almost the same but shown with more blood and guts, we have Doug (this time played by Aaron Stanford) taking the lead while in the original he wasn't too developed.
The suspense was also great here. You never know how many things can happen to an infant. And half this movie has Doug trying to keep his baby from biting the dust.
Emilie de Ravin and Dan Byrd take the characters of Brenda and Bobby to a different level, having Ravin show more of a naughty side and Byrd show more of a bad ass side.
The only thing that really bothered me from that point on was the ending, it just didn't do it for me. At least it left it open for a sequel, which could be pretty good.