The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

There's not much difference between this remake and the 1977 original. A family of campers have decided to drive across America. Unfortunately for them, this includes the desert, wherein the 1950's the army carried out a series of nuclear tests. After stopping for gas, and inadvertently offending the station attendant, he tells the group of a shortcut through a valley in the hills... Just as it starts to dawn on them that the shortcut is turning out to be a long drive, their tyres blow out... This is a 50th wedding anniversary they'll remember until they die... which won't be long...This may sound disrespectful of Wes Craven, but the best thing about this film, by far, is the direction. Alexandre Aja, who had only previously directed the acclaimed, magnificent, and one of my favourite films, Haute Tension, does the story proud. His eye for panoramic shots and the ability to create an atmosphere of aloneness with them, and then his use of the nuclear-blasted "Little America", complete with creepy mannequins, creates a really uneasy eeriness that's exactly what the story needed.Also opting to get rid of the dreadful electronic soundtrack was a bonus. This was a major hindrance to the original. Without it, the excitement is created in different ways; camera shots, angles, lighting, acting, and sound effects.The other nice thing was the cast... though a cameo by Michael Berryman wouldn't have gone amiss. There are a more than a few solid actors in the film. Ted Levine as Big Bob the ex-policeman and father of the group. He gives a solid reliable performance in a supporting role, though he's yet to come across a role as meaty as his Buffalo Bill Silence Of The Lambs character. His wife, Ethel, is played by the beautiful and talented Kathleen Quinlan. Though the stand out characters is Tom Bower as the gas station attendant, Robert Joy as Lizard - he really does appear to enjoy this role, Dan Byrd as Bobby, and Emilie De Ravin as Brenda.Also, the special effects have moved on a long way from 1977... instead of the bright red blood which flowed copiously back then, we have a more realistic crimson, which gets slashed, gouged, and blasted insanely all over the place. Not only do the hills have eyes, they also run red...This is how a remake should be made. It was brave of Aja not to change the story but to bring it up-to-date, not just in the story but also with the filming techniques. Aja, just adds his skill into the mix and the outcome is beautiful, brilliant, and spooky as hell enjoyment. Because of this, I would recommend every horror fan or wannabe to check this out rather than the original 1977 film.

My husband and I watch a horror movie every night of October..."scary movie month"...a thing we copied from my sister-in-law. This was our selection last night, and it made me absolutely sick to my stomach. Instead of putting effort into developing the characters and providing some connection through which the viewer can empathize at least a little with the family of "mutants", a back-pocket cop-out like rape is used. For all the boundaries most horror movies push, most rape survivors don't expect to suddenly be plunged into the horror of our very worst life moment during a flick. I get weary of the use of rape as a cinematic tool to spice up or fill in where writers can't or won't make the effort to do something better, more complex, or that apparently requires more work, and this time...an underage girl....it was absolutely reprehensible. And no, I'm not a "snowflake" and don't walk around being "triggered" by anything and everything in life, but judging from the other reviews here, not many people were appreciative of this scene either. Ruined what could have been a good horror film.

It always begins with the Wrong Gas Station. In real life, as I pointed out in my review of a previous Wrong Gas Station movie, most gas stations are clean, well-lighted places, where you can buy not only gasoline but groceries, clothes, electronic devices, Jeff Foxworthy CDs and a full line of Harley merchandise. In horror movies, however, the only gas station in the world is located on a desolate road in a godforsaken backwater. It is staffed by a degenerate who shuffles out in his coveralls and runs through a disgusting repertory of scratches, splittings, chewing, twitching and leering, while thoughtfully shifting mucus up and down his throat.The clean-cut heroes of the movie, be they a family on vacation, newlyweds, college students or backpackers, all have one thing in common. They believe everything this man tells them, especially when he suggests they turn left on the unpaved road for a shortcut. Does it ever occur to them that in this desolate wasteland with only one main road, it must be the road to stay on if they ever again want to use their cell phones?No. It does not. They take the fatal detour, and find themselves the prey of demented mutant incestuous cannibalistic gnashing slobbers, who carry pickaxes the way other people carry umbrellas. They occupy junkyards, towns made entirely of wax, nuclear waste zones and Motel Hell ("It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent's fritters"). That is the destiny that befalls a vacationing family in "The Hills Have Eyes," which is a very loose remake of Wes Craven's 1977 movie of the same name.The Carter family is on vacation. Dad (Ted Levine) is a retired detective who plans to become a security guard. Mom is sane, lovable Kathleen Quinlan. A daughter and son in law (Vinessa Shaw and Aaron Stanford) have a newborn babe. There are also two other Carter children (Dan Byrd and Emilie DE Ravin), and two dogs, named Beauty and Beast. They have hitched up an Airstream and are on a jolly family vacation through the test zones where 331 atmospheric nuclear tests took place in the 1950s and 1960s.After the Carters turn down the wrong road, they're fair game for the people who are the eyes of the hills. These are descendants of miners who refused to leave their homes when the government ordered them away from the testing grounds. They hid in mines, drank radioactive water, reproduced with their damaged DNA, and brought forth mutants, who live by eating trapped tourists. There is an old bomb crater filled with the abandoned cars and trucks of their countless victims. It is curiously touching, in the middle of this polluted wasteland, to see a car that was towing a boat that still has its outboard motor attached. No one has explained what the boat was seeking at that altitude.The plot is easily guessed. Ominous events occur. The family makes the fatal mistake of splitting up; dad walks back to the Wrong Gas Station, while the dogs bark like crazy and run away, and young Bobby chases them into the hills. Meanwhile, the mutants entertain themselves by passing in front of the camera so quickly you can't really see them, while we hear a loud sound, halfway between a swatch and a swatch, on the soundtrack. Just as a knife in a slasher movie can make a sharpening sound just because it exists, so do mutants make swatches and swatches when they run in front of cameras.I received some appalled feedback when I praised Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects" (2005), but I admired two things about it: (1) It desired to entertain and not merely to sicken, and (2) its depraved killers were individuals with personalities, histories and motives. "The Hills Have Eyes" finds an intriguing setting in "typical" fake towns built by the government, populated by mannequins and intended to be destroyed by nuclear blasts. But its mutants are simply engines of destruction. There is a misshapen creature who coordinates attacks with a walkies-talkie; I would have liked to know more about him, but no luck.Nobody in this movie has ever seen a Dead Teenager Movie, and so they don't know (1) you never go off alone, (2) you especially never go off alone at night, and (3) you never follow your dog when it races off barking insanely, because you have more sense than the dog. It is also possibly not a good idea to walk back to the Wrong Gas Station to get help from the degenerate who sent you on the detour in the first place.It is not faulty logic that derails "The Hills have Eyes," however, but faulty drama. The movie is a one-trick pony. We have the eaters and the ea-tees, and they will follow their destinies until some kind of desperate denouement, possibly followed by a final shot showing that It's Not Really Over, and there will be a "The Hills Have Eyes II." Of course, there was already "The Hills Have Eyes II" (1985), but then again there was "The Hills Have Eyes" (1977) and that didn't stop them. Maybe this will. Isn't it pretty to think so.

Saw this on a DVD in 2006. Had seen the original on a VHS in the late 80s. Bought the dvds of the remakes. Felt like reviewing the remake as its much better than the original. Alexander Aja (High Tension) did a terrifc job in remaking Wes Cravens 1977 cult movie. Aja managed to greatly improve upon the flawed original in more ways than can be counted. This one is scarier, intense, a visceral experience n more technically improved remake coz of the larger budget and major studio backing. This movie is like a shotgun to your senses. The mood, atmosphere, and music add the perfect touch of edge of your seat creepiness. This is an extremely rare occurrence when a remake is far superior to the original. Cinematographer Maxime Alexandre allows Aja to use the desert to its fullest to create a foreboding landscape. The hills and desert in bright yellows and subdued reds. The Moroccan locations that double for New Mexico r captured perfectly as a waste land totally isolated and foreboding at the same time.