Decent Remake

Rating: Null/10 (29 February 2008)

Hills Have Eyes, The (2006)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Alexandre Aja's remake of Wes Craven's 1977 shocker about a family who gets stranded in the dessert just in time to become dinner for some mutants. Craven's film is one of the greatest of the genre and remains a high point in the director's career as well as the horror genre overall. It's also a personal favorite of mine so I was interesting in seeing what Aja did with him version. Just like Haunte Tension, the director pulls out some great stuff but also some weak stuff. You can tell Aja has a very good directing style and this is clear during the first attack on the campsite. The biggest problem I had with the film, as well as the director's first movie, was the violence. I don't think I'm becoming sensitive because I a true, 100% gorehound but the secret behind most slashers is that the violence in never mean spirited. The violence and gore here is just downright cruel, vicious and at time too disturbing to actually enjoy. Craven's film didn't have any gore and instead went for scares and got them. That film, with humans and not mutants like this one, is a masterpiece of suspense and that's why I love it so much. With this film, every time Aja gets the suspense going he throws it out the window with the violence. It was a pleasure to see Ted Levine as the father since he's one of my favorite character actors. Kathleen Quinlan seemed out of place but oh well. The rest of the cast were decent but no better or worse than what we usually get. While the "humans" were changed to "mutants" this time around, the basic storyline and how things happened all stayed the same down to who gets it and how. I thought a few of the scenes got laughs when they weren't suppose to and the political stuff thrown in was also qutie cheap. I think Aja is going to be very good for the genre but he needs to cut back some.