Ambitious movie, but Aja missed his point

Rating: 6/10 (29 June 2006)

The scariest part of the movie may be its opening, which makes me dreamed of a remake of "Hills have eyes", somewhere between Tod Browning's "Freaks" - for the deformed characters - and Tobe Hooper's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" - for the rotten atmosphere.
Helas, Alexandre Aja rapidly chooses another direction : more fun and distantiation. Of course, the film is gore (a lot more than the other recent 70's horror movies remakes) and could be somehow shocking (I agree with that for the rape scene), but it can't really traumatize the public. It doesn't go to far in pure horror because of the monsters, who are shown without any humanity left (exept for the little girl). They're like carnival's figure or clowns, a grotesque caricature of the normal family, which makes them unreal and untruth.
This treatment of the evil characters - all in exaggeration - undo the fear they could have deeply inspired, for an immediate but not durable thrill. And that's quite disappointing from the director of one of the most inspired, terrifying and clever horror movie of this last years : "Haute Tension".