The Hills Have Eyes Review
by Clint Morris
If the hills did have eyes,
they’d no
doubt be wondering why the mesh screen below – be it the
centrepiece of a multiplex, outdoor theatre or
drive-in – was showing
something that seemed awfully familiar, say something they’d
seen
some twenty years before. Yet, no doubt
déjà vu is a
feeling said hills would have experienced a lot of lately, what with
the mass of horror remakes of the past few years – some
simply
straight up dupes of the original – ostensibly resembling a
decade-wide '70s film marathon. Fortunately for the
verdant mountains, they don’t have eyes (only the
people living in them do, as we’re again reminded
here) so
they haven’t had to endure the inferior redo’s of
such
genre gems as Psycho, When
a Stranger Calls, The Fog, The
Grudge and The Ring, like we
have. Fact
of the matter is the novelty of the horror remake is really starting to
ware. Like microwaving a pot roast that was served and freshly cooked
the
night before, second’s are never as tasty. The
redo of Wes Craven’s breakthrough '70s hit The
Hills Have Eyes
makes a good run for it though, mostly thanks to it’s
director,
who seems to have a real woody for the balls-to-the-wall horror jaunt.
Alexandra Aja – whose breakthrough horror hit High
Tension
was one of the best-reviewed horror films in years, not to mention one
of the most spine tingling – tries outstandingly hard to hang
some real balls from this. With his awesome
visuals, effective cuts and
pot-boiling pace, he mostly succeeds too – only let down by a
script that needed a bit of a contemporary polish, in order to help it
play a little less dated (a look at his first cut, before FOX took
some scissors to it, would also be interesting – I'm betting
it was a
lot edgier). The remake – which Craven
executive produces
– is the same deal as the B-horror original: An extended
family,
travelling in their van, get on the wrong road and find themselves
stranded in the desert, the same desert that harbours some
peckish
mutated cannibals (made so by a nuclear blast several years prior). One
by one, the frenzied humans are picked off, and the ones that
aren’t? They find the strength to take the ferals head-on
with
whatever camping tools are laying about. As with
the original, this isn’t a horror film that’ll
appeal to the same crowds who liked, say, Urban Legend
or Scream 3,
where the biggest scare in the film is usually a ‘cat jumping
out
from a closet’. This yarn is as disturbing as watching a
moggie
being torn apart by wild hyenas in a park. It revels in pushing the
limits. It mightn’t be
necessarily suspenseful or spine-tingling,
but it’s definitely in your face, and as gory, and as
unrestrained as, say, well, Fernando Arrabel . Most of
today’s
filmgoers are conditioned to such graphic violence on screen, but
there’s still going to be the one or two – probably
those
that find the Last Summer films to be
‘absolutely
terrifying’ – that’ll have to
cut back on the popcorn until
film’s end so they don’t choke on it. In
the '70s, Eyes
was a doozie, if only because it was the first of those
‘folks
get off the beaten track and are ambushed by killers’ movies.
Since then though, the story has been done time and time again
(everything from the Jeepers Creepers
to Wrong Turn,
which also fixed on cannibalistic enemies, used the template), and as a
consequence, the remake seems a little less affective. Still, thanks to
some impressive visuals, a bit of political subtext, a capable cast and
some genuinely tense sequences, seconds this time are actually pretty
entertaining and effective – if still, rather unnecessary.
No, scratch that. Totally unnecessary. I can
understand where
the studios are coming from; it’s safer with a
‘sure
thing’, and if it made some cabbage the first time, it most
likely will again. But doesn’t it get boring for them too? I
myself used to eat nothing but ham and cheese sandwiches up until a few
years ago, but then, discovered that a few new ingredients - like
tomato, lettuce and pineapple - makes for a much tastier
lunch. It
might be time to pick something else off the menu too, guys. 3 out
of 5
The Hills Have Eyes
Australian release: 20th
April, 2006
Cast:Aaron
Stanford, Ted Levine, Kathleen Quinlan, Vinessa Shaw, Emilie De Ravin
Director: Alexandre
Aje
Website:
Click
here.
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