A Superior Remake

Rating: 7/10 (3 April 2006)

Yes, you heard me, a SUPERIOR remake. The original movie, despite being a Friday Night video classic throughout the eighties, really wasn't a particularly good film. It always seemed like a cheap remake of 'Texas Chain Saw Massacre' in the desert, but without the atmosphere, the suspense, or the scares. The remade 'The Hills Have Eyes' manages to be surprisingly faithful to the original in story, while improving on it on almost every level. The characters are more believable, the performances more professional, the narrative is tighter, the suspense more masterfully built. The crazies here actually seem crazy, rather than the lumbering cavemen morons of the original, and the production design, especially when we arrive at the 1950's test village, is excellent.
That's not to say that it's a great movie. It's entertaining and enjoyable, but what you see is what you get and there's nothing beneath the surface that could ever warrant a second viewing. It's nice to see that the recent re-emergence of hard-R horror is restoring a little quality control to a genre that has been descending headlong into creative Armageddon the last few years. These movies, from the 'Texas Chain Saw' remake to 'Hostel' aren't BAD, but they have yet to produce a bona fide classic either. Not sucking is no longer an acceptable objective. Now we want to see something that is actually good.