A sick little puppy.

Rating: 7/10 (3 February 2010)

In this remake of Wes Craven's 1977 cult hit, a family stops for petrol in a remote New Mexico desert, only to discover that the road less traveled is best left that way, but then we wouldn't have a film.
From the opening minute, its clear young French wunderkind, Alexandre Aja (Haute Tension) has this journey under his control, and what a sick, twisted little trek it is. It's very violent, perhaps unnecessarily so, though it does add to the tension and increases the payoff. Sometimes the characters act so stupidly you think that they deserve what they get, but this wouldn't be a horror film if the players acted with sense. It's almost as though the Darwinian theory is at work here, but then it doesn't go the way you expect, which is part of the reason it works so well. The writing team of Aja and his usual cohort, Grégory Levasseur provide plenty of suspense and a solid back-story for their desert loving maniacs. They also throw Middle America into the mix by assembling a family that is Republican and religious; there's even a newborn in tow, something you don't see in the average horror flick, and this certainly isn't one of those.
Hills ranks as one of the very few worthy remakes in recent times; I found myself enjoying it in spite of myself. This plays at many emotional levels, and questions our propensity for revenge. Exactly how far would you need to be pushed before you react with violence, no matter what your political leanings and beliefs? A smart, slick, but sick little puppy.