THE HILLS HAVE EYES (2006)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
RATING: One star and a half
Like most recent remakes, "The Hills Have Eyes" has no real reason for
its existence other than to annoy and frustrate. I love the original
film for its starkness and grittiness (a reason some of the 70's low-
budget shockers worked so well). This redux of the Wes Craven classic
has some shock value and some gore, but it lacks the punch to the gut
the original delivered.
The film begins with a cliched opening credits montage where we see
authentic photos of deformed babies frantically cut with blood imagery
and real atomic blasts, all set to the tune of Web Pierce's "More and
More." The remake of "Dawn of the Dead" had something similar in
crosscutting newsreel footage with faux news reportage but it felt
more inspired - in this film, it is nothing short of uninspired.
Nevertheless, it sets the tone for the rest of the film. The Carter
family is on a trip by stationwagon and trailer to California when
they stop by a New Mexico gas station and are tended to by a grizzled
attendant (played by the great character actor Tom Bower), who insists
there is a faster way to get to the highway. Of course, this detour is
actually a deathtrap where cannibals live in the hills and are ready
for a massacre. There will be a couple of survivors and the rest will
die, begging the question why nobody thought the gas station attendant
might have been a little too creepy (especially keeping a purse in his
little home).
The Carter family is comprised of the patriarch (Ted Levine), a former
cop aching to be a security guard; the matriarch (Kathleen Quinlan,
obviously in for the easy paycheck and a visit to Morocco, which is
where this film was shot); the eldest daughter (Vinessa Shaw) who has
a new beau in her life, a Democrat wuss (Aaron Stanford); a younger,
teenage daughter (Emilie de Ravin) who loves her iPod; and their son
(Dan Byrd) who has no qualms about picking up a gun (thanks to Papa
Carter). Naturally, when trouble starts brewing, cell phones don't
work (hey, they are in the desert near an atomic testing site) but CB
radios work like a charm. And there are those typical family
squabbles, such as Republican Papa Carter disapproving of a wussy,
pussy like his daughter's husband.
In terms of blood and gore, it is piled on excessively. For the first
forty-five minutes (excepting the pre-credit sequence), there is no
gore until we get a rape scene, shots to the head, a dog is killed in
a manner not unlike the opening of "Cabin Fever," another character
delivers a shotgun blast to his own head, another one is burned alive,
and so on. You've seen it all before, though never quite as nasty in
its execution, pardon the pun. When the movie is over, you'll remember
the violence and nothing more. Granted, the original "Hills Have Eyes"
was not especially different but it had urgency and you felt these
cannibals and their victims were not automatons (Remember Michael
Berryman, whose visage was so scary that it become the selling point
of the film). Here, one bloody, visceral thrill with bloody entrails
every few minutes doesn't equal suspense or any real scares. And if I
have to hear another person scaring someone else with that
accompanying and grating musical cue of crashing cymbals, I will gag.
The cinematography by Maxime Alexandre is quite amazing, especially
the wide, high-angle shot of the crater with abandoned vechicles. To
be fair, the final ten minutes has some shock value (including seeing
a cannibal with a John Merrick-sized head). The actors, though, seem
to exist in a vacuum of vacuousness. Unlike the original film with its
Manson-style murders and memorable final freeze-frame that implied the
victims are no different than the monsters, this remake will have you
running for the hills all right, without anything to latch onto. At
least, it is better than Wes Craven's abonimable "The Hills Have Eyes
Part II."
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