dizzying suspense with the grittily satisfying payoff of bile-bubbling gore

Rating: 7/10 (11 March 2006)

The Hills Have Eyes
reviewed by Sam Osborn of www.samseescinema.com
rating: 2.5 out of 4
Oh the humanity. Or lack thereof. In Alexandre Aja's remake of the 1977 Wes Craven mutant-fest, characters rip, shoot, tear, bite, axe, swing, kick, detonate, jump, and dismember each other to the bitter, very bloody end. Clearly reminiscent of Aja's last picture (the cult fave/box office sinker High Tension) The Hills Have Eyes has its sights, so to speak, directly on the same horror exploitation genre of the 1970's, where the make-up artist played as much a role as the director. And for the most part, Aja's style rings as true as it did with High Tension. But often Hills asks Aja to branch out into the realm of psychological horror; and here, Aja's direction stalls.
A family of seven (a smaller family apparently wouldn't produce enough body bags) is well into a cross-country road trip, tugging a streamline trailer through the barren, hilly deserts of New Mexico. They're given a tip by a scruffy gas station attendee that there's a shortcut up the road; a shortcut that will cut hours off the trip. Lo and behold, the family's car is sabotaged eight miles into the desert and they're hunted by a band of mutant miners. No, the premise isn't rolling heads with its originality. But this is a remake, after all. And a Wes Craven remake at that. But before we discount the film, take into account that High Tension's premise was even less inventive, instead making great advantage of the plot's simplicity. And, for once, isn't it nice not to work out the mucky, ghost-girl-in-the-bathtub mystery we've rehashed a dozen times over by now with the recent tsunami wave of Japanese Psych. Horror?
"Character Arc" apparently isn't a term Aja has learned in his young film-making career. But its exclusion here is another refreshing breath amongst the continual spray of blood. His characters are plopped straight into the film fully constructed, not asked by the screenplay to develop and evolve throughout the film, but instead simply react to the situation. The method works to sidestep dialogue segments and long teary monologues that would otherwise slow the plot. Aja keeps the pace sprinting throughout, eager not to let his audience slouch in their seat in what would usually be a lull in the action for other, more conventional, horror films. The contradiction to this method, however, is that the screenplay asks for a lot of screen-time before the killing starts. Aja deals with these segments poorly, often depending on shadowy figures suddenly crossing frame to keep audiences twitchy. These tricks are cheap and without thrill. They rely on jump factor instead of true terror, letting Aja's trademark pacing stumble early on. They also make idiots out of the mutants. The things just look damned silly at times, chomping on the stump of a dog's leg and groaning like a sing-song caveman.
But when the heads start rolling, The Hills Have Eyes finally shifts into gear. The first scene of terror (the first attack on the trailer) is a multi-layered set piece of gratuitous violence. It mixes bloody, horrible tragedy with white-knuckled, unsettling suspense. The scene screams at us with a bloody breath, shouting to us that no character is safe and that visceral is only a euphemism for what Aja intends to throw at us throughout. Alexandre Aja is, after all, the master of modern suspense. And from there the film continues strongly, stumbling only on the occasional silliness of the mutant characters and the laughably overwrought orchestral score. Aja sticks to his old tricks, mounting dizzying suspense with the grittily satisfying payoff of bile-bubbling gore. His thrills are a whirlwind of intensity, dropping us directly into the scenes of violence and giving them a reality that only heightens the cringe of the inevitable. And Aja spares us no gore. There are no cut-aways here. We see every shocking, bloody moment. But after films like Saw II and Hostel, we're a tad desensitized to such gore, calmly swirling and sipping our slurpees as fingers roll about on splintered floors.
The Hills Have Eyes was the obvious progression for Alexandre Aja, stepping from cult indie hit to mainstream remake. But Hills isn't a sell-out film, as indie snobs are keen to point out. Aja keeps to his guns with style here. This is the same gritty director from High Tension, just with a worse script and some silly mutants hanging cross-eyed on his back.
-www.samseescinema.com