Not sure about this one

Rating: 6/10 (21 February 2009)

The Hills Have Eyes is not a complete waste of time but it is further confirmation that the horror film has become a wasteland of cheap shocks. There is always someone unexpectedly jumping into frame in this movie. This is almost always accompanied by a loud noise. Very little of these instances serve any purpose other than to try and get the audience to jump.
A vacationing family are directed onto an isolated desert road and trapped by a group of radioactive serial killers. Killings, burnings, guttings and rape ensues. That is the entire plot.
This film has some great stuff going for it. Alexandre Aja is a great director. He knows how to breath suspense into a scene. The desert settings are unsettling. The effects are well done.
Why didn't I love it then? The Hills Have Eyes goes wrong on several accounts. The biggest is the unnecessary rape sequences. I guess you could argue that they were tastefully filmed but they were still unnecessary. It seems that Aja didn't feel that radioactive, deformed, baby eating cannibals were shocking enough, so he had to make them sexual predators for good measure.