huh.( Maybe spoilers?)

Rating: 5/10 (8 March 2006)

I think my expectations are getting too high. Half the time I see a horror flick anymore, I'm way disappointed, as I was tonight. From the opening credits on, "Hills" was predictable and completely unoriginal. I've gotten to the point where, while I still dig some good old gore and blood (and yeah, "The Hills Have Eyes" has plenty of that) I kinda want some kind of plot and believable character development. I really didn't see much of either here. I didn't give a f@#% about any of the characters, be they victims or psycho inbreds. It seemed like it followed the "Scary Movie" stereotyping rules to the tee...don't go wandering off alone, don't turn your back on the killer, etc. It also felt like the producers and director had watched the "Dawn Of The Dead' and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" re-makes Way too much. From the washed out sepia tones, jerky camera movement and clever camera angles, I felt like I was watching a re-tread. Even the opening credits copied "Dawn", with interspersed back-story scenes and a trendy old country song playing. I LOVED the "Dawn" and "Texas" re-makes. They took the original material and payed tribute- they didn't try to re-do the original scene by scene, a-la "Psycho" and "Night Of The Living Dead". "Hills" made the mistake of merely modernizing the original script, with no iota of originality added. In all, a decent popcorn flick, no surprises here. While it's nowhere NEAR as bad as "Alien Vs Predator" or "House Of The Dead", it's also not in the neighborhood of "The Devils Rejects" or "High Tension", both of which f#$king rocked. Overall, a C grade.