The most intense horror film in years

Rating: 7/10 (16 May 2006)

Yes sire, we have a winner here folks! The Hills Have Eyes is the best horror remake since 2004's Dawn of the Dead, and I doubt you'll see a better horror flick all year long. It's brutal, gory and insanely intense; a really well done, fleshed out nightmare, that pulls no punches and takes no prisoners. The movie is a remake of a Wes Craven film from the 70's about a family driving through the New Mexico desert on a cross country road trip when their truck is wrecked and they are left stranded in the middle of nowhere. Their cell phones are out of range to pick up any signals, and their truck is smashed up beyond any kind of repair. Their options are limited, and none of them are good. As it turns out the part of the desert they happen to be in was once a nuclear testing ground used by the government. A group of miners were ordered to leave their homes and seek refugee from the nuclear fallout, but they didn't leave, and in turn were left deformed, mutated and extremely deranged.
I've always found that the best horror films are the ones that really allow you to care and sympathize with the characters, because being able to put your heart into the characters really is what keeps you on the edge of your seat, and most horror movies do a poor or terrible job at doing that. It's only once you're emotionally invested in the people that you can really root for them and hope that they all make it out alive in the end. If not, then your just watching people who you don't care for getting endlessly slaughtered, and it's not engaging or interesting as a movie going experience. The Hills Have Eyes does manage to do this, and does it quite well. We spend the first twenty or thirty minutes learning about this seemingly average American family on what would seem like a completely normal road trip. I was actually quite surprised at how much time the film burns just allowing us to grow closer to this family before plunging them head first into a hellishly intense nightmare in the middle of nowhere. Once we've become attached to these characters it hurts us to see them in such jeopardy or even killed off, but that's the reality of the film; it's survival of the fittest in the grittiest of ways.
The first scene in which the family is terrorized by the mutants from the hills is quite a tremendously disturbing scene. So much so that I did notice several people get up and walkout, so this movie clearly isn't for everyone. The scene in which two of the mutants torment the women of the family in the trailer is pretty sick, and is made only more horrifying because there's also a little baby, whose life is also in jeopardy. It's a risky scene, very real, but also very risky. Once the sequence is over you're left shocked, repulsed and immediately you hate these mutants, and you can't wait until these guys get it in the end. The mutants in the film are monstrously primitive and relentless, and it helps that they're also cannibals, which puts them over the top on the creepy scale.
You watch this normal average everyday American family being victimized and tormented and then there's the aftermath; what are they gonna do about it? The mutants have killed members of their family (including one of their dogs) and have kidnapped their baby. From this point on the entire film is in straight up smackdown, in-your-face horror splatter mode, with plenty of nasty gore, slow, but gradual building suspense and a wickedly vicious score filled with raging guitars. The remaining members of this poor family aren't just gonna sit back and let themselves be terrorized again; they take action, holding down the fort (which in this case is the family trailer), and go after these freaks, kicking ass and taking names. Heck, even the family's dog kicks a little mutant ass! At that point you'll be screaming "Hell yeah!" The Hills Have Eyes is an intense horror film; shocking, horrifying, gory, and unpredictable. It just might be too much for some people, but for hardcore horror fans, THIS is the film you've been waiting for, and it certainly delivers the goods! It's an unapologetic exercise in visceral horror, so raw it just might fry your nerves.