The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

Movie Info

There’s eyes in them there hills!!!

“Big Bob” Carter (Ted Levine) and Ethel (Kathleen Quinlan) are taking a family trip to California with their son Bobby (Dan Byrd), their daughters Brenda (Emilie de Ravin) and Lynn (Vinessa Shaw), Lynn’s husband Doug (Aaron Stanford), and Doug and Lynn’s new baby Catherine.  When they are intentionally led astray into a former nuclear test site, the survivors and descendants who still live there go after them…to rape, murder, and eat!  Now, caught in a fight for survival, the family finds themselves trapped in a nightmare forcing them to become animals themselves.

Hey, baby, why don’t you show Pluto some love?

Directed by Alexandre Aja, The Hills Have Eyes is a remake of the 1977 Wes Craven horror classic.  The movie received mixed reviews, but a big box office draw.

Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes was a classic.  It was one of those movies that you love title, check it out, and scare yourself with it.  Despite this, the remake did do a lot to “improve” on Craven’s format to present a horror film that is taunt and scary by itself.

Um…so are you like real good at math?

The story of The Hills Have Eyes has changed little.  A family is stranded in the desert by horrible mutants who attack and pick off their victims one-by-one.  This version focuses a bit more on the family and what the family are going through (a pacifist turns into a killer, a brother and sister team-up to take out her attacker).  The horror is fast and intense and the movie is loaded with jumps…with such a brutal film it is also nice to not be sure who will live.

In emphasizing the family, the movie employed better actors than the original.  Ted Levine is good as the gunweilding father and Kathleen Quinlan is nice as the mother…though they are quickly dispatched.  The primary stars of the film are Emilie de Ravin, Dan Byrd, and Aaron Stanford who hold their own as the blood flies and the horror increases.  Unfortunately, the family focused action loses the great distinctive mutants of the original movie which were much more developed.

I’m patriotic…and dead!

The Hills Have Eyes is bloody…very bloody. The film was originally rated NC-17 before it was cut down.  While the first film was known for being violent, this movie tops it…big time.  The mutants are creepy and gross, but they don’t meet the natural horror of the first films (which of course included Michael Berryman who claims to have twenty-six real birth defects).

The Hills Have Eyes is a decent remake and filled with some intense horror.  With all the blood, guts, and violence, it isn’t for everyone.  There has been some debate if this film classifies as “torture-porn”…I’d say no since this is more psychological than sexual in nature, but it still is a scary ride.  The Hills Have Eyes was followed by The Hills Have Eyes 2 in 2007.

Related Links:

The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1984)

The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007)