David O'ConnellThe Hills Have Eyes
October 6th 2010 04:25
In the wake of Alexandre Aja’s recent gory retread of Piranha, I thought it was about time to finally take a bite of his first American feature – another remake, in this case Wes Craven’s rough-around-the-edges The Hills Have Eyes (2006). This familiar tale of an average American family stumbling into the lair of a bunch of relentless killers has been done to death in the years since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In this case the murderers are a bunch of mutant cannibals playing with a marked home ground advantage that leaves the doomed folk vulnerable to attacks from all sides.
A couple on their wedding anniversary, Bob and Ethel Carter (Ted Levine and Kathleen Quinlan), have brought along their reluctant family in their mobile home, including three children, Lynn (Vinessa Shaw), Brenda (Emilie de Ravin), Bobby (Dan Byrd) and Lynn’s partner Doug (Aaron Stanford). Add an innocent baby and German Shephards Beauty and Beast, and you have the usual assortment of whining ingrates and thrill-kill fodder, participating in the road trip mostly to humour the old folks and determined to stay out of one another’s way.
Pulling up for gas at a desolate station in the middle of the New Mexico desert they’re offered a kind word of advice from the sleazy attendant (Tom Bower). Take a shortcut through the hills and it’s bound to subtract a couple of hours off your trip to California. Naturally they heed this advice, thus falling into the blood-encrusted mitts of one very hungry family used to surviving on the offerings diverted their way by the guilt-ridden attendant.
Aja somewhat beefs up the back-story of these mutants who apparently refused to budge from their desert homes when the government bulldozed their way into town in the late 40's and '50's, turning the place into a nuclear test site. Into the underground mines these people scampered only to emerge with a host of repulsive deformities and a taste for retribution on their filthy, contorted lips.
The performances are all respectable and in the case of Byrd and Stanford, excellent, rising to the challenge once Aja ratchets up the intensity to a disturbing sonic pitch. De Ravin makes for a pretty damn good Scream Queen too. The most impressive set-piece is when a couple of the mutants use a Wicker Man-like diversion to launch their first attack on the mobile home and claim a couple more victims. There’s gut-wrenching, sickening violence here – not exactly to all tastes but it gets the job done, and with the additional element of a baby-in-peril added to the toxic mix, the horror quickly escalates to the unsubtle electronic poundings of Tomandandy’s score.
There are inherent shortcomings for Aja to overcome, mostly related to the undeniably B-grade narrative which he and writing partner Gregory Levasseur are indebted to retain. Craven’s original, like most of his early films, was undeniably shoddy and simply hasn’t stood the test of time, though to be fair he was probably working with about one-fiftieth of the budget afforded his successor.
Things get a bit messy down the stretch too when logic is necessarily tossed out the window to facilitate the final confrontation, but Aja is a classy exponent of horror-fueled action as he more than ably demonstrated with the terrifyingly proficient Haute Tension (2003), his last film in France. So, unnecessary remake this may be, but at the very least you could argue that any reworking - encouraged and approved by Craven - of the original was going to be an improvement over his creaky 1977 work. Thankfully it exceeds the original in every way and has only improved my estimation of Aja as one sick puppy with a long future in horror cinema ahead of him.
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Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Matt Shea
Comment by David O'Connell
20/20 Filmsight
Screen Fanatic
All 3 films certainly have some very tasty moments of gore, no denying that. God we love it.
He really is Matt, he's done a great job with both remakes - not a bad strike rate at all! If you're in the mood for some mutant-killer carnage on a rainy night make this your go-to DVD!
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
Great review mate!
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by David O'Connell
20/20 Filmsight
Screen Fanatic
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
I wrote this one off as one of those foreign director goes Hollywood and looses his teeth type projects.
Bryn sang it praises which had me intrigued and I am one of the few who liked the original, flaws and all. (I even like Craven's Last House on the Left. Elm Street is naturally his masterpiece. And Scream is the one that annoys me the most.)
Funnily enough I did try to watch the remake sequel (Directed by Martin Weiz or something like that) and it was atrociously bad. Nothing good can be said about it.
May give this a chance at some stage.