Parents picking the radio station, siblings quibbling over who hit whom first, minimal bathroom breaks — oh, the horror of family road trips. Yet as painful as they may seem, after viewing "The Hills Have Eyes," the next family expedition will seem bland in comparison — not to mention a lot less bloody.
A remake of Wes Craven's 1977 cult classic, it begins with the Carter family crossing the vast expanse of the New Mexico desert en route to San Diego. Bob (Ted Levine, "Memoirs of a Geisha") and Ethel (Kathleen Quinlan, "The Dead Will Tell") are celebrating their anniversary. As with most horror films, the more family members present, the more potential victims, so the couple has decided to drag everyone along with them on vacation. The group includes their daughter, Brenda (Emilie de Ravin, ABC's "Lost"); their son, Bobby (Dan Byrd, "Mortuary"); their eldest daughter, Lynne (Vinessa Shaw, "Melinda & Melinda"); her yuppie husband, Doug (Aaron Stanford, "X-Men 2"); and their baby daughter, Catherine, as well as the family dogs, Beauty and Beast.
The set-up is standard — a number of routine faux pas result in stranding the family in quite the formidable predicament. Their first mistake is stopping at a desolate, rundown gas station in the middle of nowhere. Secondly, they choose to listen to the daft owner's advice about a dirt path that is supposedly a shortcut through the hills. Needless to say, miles down the forsaken road, their tires are blown out and the family is left miles from civilization. And, wouldn't you know it, no cell phone reception.
It is not long before the Carters make their next fatal mistake by splitting up, which is always the telltale sign that someone is going to bite the dust really soon. Before long, night falls and finally they start to realize that they are not alone.
Deep in the hills of the desert live a mutated family of cannibals. During the '50s, miners inhabited the area and refused to leave when the government decided to test nuclear explosives. Opting instead to hide in the mines, the radiation resulted in severely disfigured offspring, who are now forced to prey on innocent victims as a means of survival.
Up until this moment in the film, "The Hills Have Eyes" fulfills almost every low expectation put forth by recent craptastic horror remakes, such as "House of Wax" and "The Fog." Clichéd circumstances and sub-par acting interspersed with cheap, fake-out scares prepare the audience to roll their eyes throughout the rest of the film.
But once the first attack commences, chaos ensues and the suspense is ceaseless. The opening night onslaught is by far the most intense and horrifying scene and solidifies the completely unnerving tone for which "The Hills Have Eyes" is aiming. Whether it is simply gawking at the grisly mutants, witnessing their bloodcurdling deeds or trying to anticipate what might possibly be next, the feeling of exhaustive disgust does not leave viewers' guts until the credits start rolling.
No doubt, it is because director Alexandre Aja knows what he is doing. Hand-selected by Craven to do the remake, the relatively young director was put on the map last year with his smash hit "High Tension." The French slasher flick, which chronicles two college students and the havoc created by a mysterious killer in the secluded French countryside, struck a chord among viewers by turning up the gore factor while still adhering to classic horror style. Opting to forego the current trend of computer imaging, "High Tension" consists of traditional make-up effects, which garnered a lot respect from die-hard horror aficionados.
Aja successfully transfers this intermingling of new-school and old-school to "The Hills Have Eyes." Not just with its superior make-up work, but also with maintaining the important substance of the original's plot — namely, the family surviving by fighting back.
It is this retaliation that makes the characters stand apart from other wimpy horror protagonists. Sure Neve Campbell, Jennifer Love Hewitt and all the other teen scream queens end up killing the bad guys in the end, but it is never fully satisfying. Nothing ever changes from the first hour and half when they were all stupid and helpless. In "The Hills Have Eyes," instead of waiting to see what happens next, the heroes decide to make the next move. Finally, some characters in a horror film with balls.
Then Aja polishes everything with special touches. The addition of thumping bass during moments of heightened suspense mimics the palpitating heartbeats of the audience. The rugged camerawork and cinematography during fight scenes intensifies the panic.
Whether the viewer simply wants to be sufficiently creeped out, see some good gore or perhaps analyze the duality of the two mirrored families, all the elements of "The Hills Have Eyes" combine together into something that will scare the bejesus out of more than just a few.
Rating: 4 out of 5
