The Hills Have Eyes (Unrated Edition) (2006) Review

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(More customer reviews)This past weekend I saw film critic Roger Ebert and the other guy he does a show with talking about the worst films of 2006 (so far), and one of them on their list was The Hills Have Eyes (2006), which is actually a remake of a 1977 movie made by Wes Craven. Roger's biggest gripe seemed to be the film was too `by the numbers' (it is a remake), and he would have preferred more character development in the antagonists (Roger, they're radiated, grotesque, cannibalistic mutants...what else do you need to know?). Co-written and directed by Alexandre Aja (High Tension), the film features Dan Byrd (A Cinderella Story), Emilie de Ravin ("Roswell", "Lost"), Aaron Stanford (X-Men: The Last Stand), Kathleen Quinlan (Lawn Dogs), Ted Levine (Heat, "Monk"), and Vinessa Shaw (Corky Romano). Also appearing is Tom Bower (Die Hard 2), Robert Joy (Land of the Dead), Desmond Askew ("Roswell"), and Billy Drago (The Untouchables, Freeway).
The movie begins by telling us that between 1945 and 1962 the United States performed over three hundred atmospheric nuclear tests in the American southwest, and has yet to own up to the possibility of any negative genetic effects that may have resulted. Soon after we see some gooberment men in radiation suits performing various radiation checks in a desert in New Mexico, only to get seriously jacked by someone with a pickaxe. Following this bit of nastiness we see a large family traveling cross-country through the desert, stopping off at a dilapidated filling station in the middle of nowhere. There's Big Bob (Levine), his wife Ethel (Quinlan), their children Bobby (Byrd), Brenda (de Ravin), and Lynn (Shaw), her husband Doug (Stanford), their baby Catherine, two German Shepherds, two parakeets, and a partridge in a pear tree (a decent sized pool of potential victims is always appreciated)...anyhow, the old man (Bower), working the service station, lets Big Bob in on a shortcut, one that turns out to be anything but as Bob ends up crashing his Suburban into a giant rock after a mysterious blowout of all four tires. Big Bob and Doug try to go for help, each going in separate directions. Soon after Doug returns (he came up empty), the unpleasantness begins...you see, these here deserts are populated not only by snakes, coyotes, and scorpions, but also by hideously deformed, homicidal mutants with a hankering for fresh meat and a penchant for violence. Things get particularly nasty as Big Bob returns (sort of), comely Brenda makes some new friends, Bobby freaks out, some characters bow out of the production, and the mutants abscond with Catherine (babies are good eatin', I guess). As those remaining try to pull it together (the mutants said they'd be back), Doug, armed with a bitey dog and a baseball bat, goes off in search of Catherine and ends up finding a whole mess of trouble as he makes his way to mutant central...
Overall I thought this remake a very slick and intense entry in the survival horror genre, one that does get extremely messy at times, so if you can't stomach scene of extreme violence (the piercing of flesh with sharp implements, blood spurting, etc.), you might want to skip this movie (the unrated version has like two extra minutes of violence, bits originally cut to secure an `R' rating). One aspect I liked is the movie seemed to try and stay true to Craven's original, while adding a lot of extra material in terms of the mutants (here we get more of a back story as to who they were and how they came about). There were a couple of parts that did bug me though, the first being when Big Bob and Doug are preparing to go for help. Big Bob, a former police detective, gives Bobby a gun (supposedly Bobby's been trained in the use of firearms), and Bobby proceeds to joking point the gun at Doug. Now I've never handled a firearm, but I do know one thing...you never point a loaded weapon at someone unless you're willing to shoot them (I don't care if the safety is on). Not only that, but no one said anything, especially not Big Bob, who wasn't all that fond of Doug, but still...the other bit that annoyed me was when Big Bob got to the filling station and some stuff went down. At one point he begins firing blindly into the dark, which seemed really stupid and a waste of valuable ammunition, especially given he was supposed to be a hardened veteran of some police force...oh well...I did learn a number of things from this film including the following...
1.There are no shortcuts in the desert.
2.There's a real shortage of non-radiated, hot, young women out in the desert, making them extremely coveted.
3.Babies are juicy.
4.Desert mutants can imitate dog sounds really well.
5.Whiny cell phone salesmen are a lot tougher than I would have thought.
6.There are some serious economic opportunities to be had in opening a dentistry practice in the desert.
7.Dogs desire payback just as much as humans.
8.While years of exposure to atomic radiation can make you deformed and ugly as sin, it can also make you ridiculously strong and difficult to kill.
9.Bobby can't shoot for spit.
10.Doug, the guy who hates guns, wields that boomstick like a pro.
11.Nuclear test houses built by the military aren't all that solid.
12.Movie dogs will run off every chance they get.
13.Chevrolet Suburbans are quite roomy, enough so to store a few corpses.
14.Desert mutants are well organized.
15.Bobby might be able to run faster if he pulled his damn pants up.
16.Doug stole that `feigning helplessness and then jabbing a sharp implement in the foot of your attacker' bit from the movie True Romance (1993).
I thought all the performers did well, and I really liked how once things got going, the action rarely let up. I didn't really get too much into the amount of violence or many of the specifics within my review as not to spoil any of the shocks for those who haven't had a chance to watch the film, but know things do get nasty. I did see a few scenes taken from other films (besides the original film) scattered throughout, possibly indicating the writers influences, and perhaps they could have done a better job in not making their usage as obvious as it was, but then again the movie industry tends to be in the business of recycling, so it's probably best not to get too hung up on this aspect.
The picture quality, presented in widescreen (2.35:1) anamorphic looks very sharp and the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround audio comes through clearly (it's also available in Spanish Dolby Digital Surround 2.0). Included are English, Spanish, and French subtitles, a commentary track with co-writer/director Alexandre Aja, art director/co-writer Grégory Levasseur, and producer Marianne Maddalena, a second commentary track with producers Wes Craven and Peter Locke (both of whom behind the original film), a `making of' featurette titled `Surviving the Hills', production diaries, and a music video for the song `Leave the Broken Hearts', by The Finalist.
Cookieman108
By the way, I saw on the IMDb that Alexandre Aja is signed up to make a sequel to this movie, scheduled for a 2007 release...I hope it turns out better than the sequel for the original film.


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Based on the original film by fright master Wes Craven, The Hills Have Eyes is the story of a family road trip that goes terrifyingly awry when the travelers become stranded in a government atomic zone. Miles from nowhere, the Carter family soon realizes the seemingly uninhabited wasteland is actually the breeding ground of a blood-thirsty mutant family...and they are the prey.

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