A Horrific, Grotesque, Intense & Above All Fun Ride Through These Hills.

Rating: 8/10 (12 July 2006)

In this remake, we see the family trip take a horrible turn as a mutated family living in the hills in a remote desert take a family hostage. The mutants are bent on revenge and will stop at nothing for blood and carnage.
I've yet to see Craven's original, so I can't really compare this remake to it. Although, from what I've heard this remake is far better. If I had seen the original, I would probably agree. Alexandre Aja, who brought us a little french film called "High Tension" is at the blood and guts genre again. This time he has more people to slaughter and a great team behind him to bring these horrific mutants to life. What we as an audience get is a sick, twisted, no holds barred horror film that isn't afraid to smack the viewer in the face. With so many horror films playing it "safe" in the recent years, Hills Have Eyes is a nice breath of fresh air in the horrors of the horror genre.
Alexandre Aja and co manage to create such a creepy and isolated atmosphere, that if there were no mutants at all I would still get the creeps. The hills play characters themselves, as the home to these creatures, they too are frightening. The cinematography is too scare people and it does a pretty decent job at that. How is this film different from other horror films out there today? Well, instead of having a guy kill a bunch of teenagers, we have disfigured mutants kills and raping a family. Yup, a family.
Yes, there is a rape scene, and while it's not as horrific as some may have it seem be, you still have that uncomfortable feeling when it starts to play out. With the girl getting beaten by her attacker, then raped. While this may seem tame compared to the women beating of "Ichi The Killer", this film if more mainstream, so you can sense of surprised face when I saw it.
There are two scenes that are the highlights of Hills, one is when the mutants first attack the family, which is where the rape takes place. The second is when one of the family members goes to the mutants "home" and is basically a killing machine. I can watch the most horrific thing happen to a human being, but when an animal gets hurt, that's when it hits me. Yes, a dog dies in this film, but the other dog makes up for it by kicking some major ass.
The blood and gore? Plenty. One to keep the gore hounds happy. Hills showcases a mix of CGI and prop deaths. Along with the effects from the brilliant minds of KNB (oldschool Evil Dead, I love these guys). Seeing the mutants is fun too, even if you can't remember the names of any of them. They are cool to look at and all, but not very memorable.
Throughout the film I got a vibe from The Dawn of the Dead remake...mostly from the opening credits, and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the films look and feel. Hills is one of the better remakes to come out of the bag in recent years. With other films like The Fog and The Omen appearing, Hills Have Eyes can stand proud to be the best of the bunch. I can see good things from Alexandre Aja in the future of horror.
Hills is an excellent horror experience, it has the right amount of creepy scares and more then enough uncomfortable gore. I found the performances to be surprisingly well done for a horror film, that is about mutated cannibals. This film is a horrific, grotesque, intense & above all fun ride through these hills.