Aja's version threw out one point that Craven's had.

Rating: 9/10 (12 March 2006)

Wes Craven's 1977 The Hills Have Eyes was focused on two families, the Carter family and the inbred cannibal family.
Alexandre Aja's new version of The Hills Have Eyes is focused on just the Carter family and their survival out in the desert. The now, atomic radiation deformed people are the enemy. But that's all they really are, is an enemy. there isn't any depth to them like in the original.
The original's main point was seeing two families, both being down to their bare essentials(the carter's were stripped of everything they had), the civilized versus the non-civilized, the carter family trying to survive by not being killed, and the cannibal family trying to survive by killing to eat and not being killed in defense from the carters. By the end, the cannibal family makes the carter family just as merciless as they were. excellent concept but put to the side in Aja's remake.
The remake is mainly for entertainment and visuals. It did have great scares and suspense, surpassing the original in those factors. If you weren't to compare this to the original, then this movie is one of the best horror movies to come out in a while. But what made the 1977 a cult classic, is missing from the remake.
9/10