The Hills Have Eyes (2006) — movie review
Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (review) is one of my favorite horror films. Maybe because Kris and I are avid road trippers, or maybe because I saw it at an impressionable age, Craven’s film has found a permanent home in my collection. The tale of a non-violent family pushed to acts of savage violence in the wake of relentless attack by desert cannibals may seem comically absurd, but in execution proves raw and affecting long after the final frame. As with many of the horror remakes of late I was apprehensive with news of the production. Alexandre Aja’s helming the project both intrigued and worried me. His Switchblade Romance (aka: High Tension) was wonderful until the ridiculous ending ruined the whole film. News that Craven had financed the project made me more interested, though the thought of a Michael Berryman-less, special effects laden Hills seemed at odds with the original. Alas, my worries yet again proved ill founded. In fact this has to be one of the best, most honorific remakes I’ve seen in years.
Aja’s story follows that of Craven’s original for the most part, treating it with a respect more commonly reserved for literary classics. As such, near everything is represented, including the social subtext Craven so skillfully wove into the first film. The family members from the original are all here, though with minor name changes and career modernizations. For example, Doug and Lynn Wood have become Doug and Lynn Bukowski, played by Aaron Stanford (X2) and Vinessa Shaw (40 Days and 40 Nights) respectively. This time Doug is a technologically inept cell-phone salesman, labeled a “Democrat”, a derisive comment on his passivity, by Lynn’s family. Lynn remains the supportive wife. The dogs, Beauty and Beast, are present, as well as the majority of the cannibals; only this time they are full-fledged mutants, the result of years of military desert nuke testing.
As with the original, the first third allows you to get to know the family, the second deals with the assault on the trailer and the baby-napping, but the final third is brand new. Relentlessly dark, brutal, chaotic, and ugly, it is truly Aja’s baby. While the cannibal family of the original resided on a rocky campsite, this one lives in a military blast-site test-village. Thus Doug’s quest to retrieve his lost son leads not just to a rocky campground, but to a veritable charnel house worthy of Bluebeard, himself. Thanks to Aja’s direction and Baxter’s fluid, near transparent editing, the dangers encountered are so visceral and so harrowing, they border on traumatic experience rather than ordinary, passively witnessed horrors.
Aja’s reworking of the cannibals is exemplary, and the results are near-nightmare inducing. Pluto, Michael Berryman’s character from the original, is no longer just a strange looking guy with a funky set of clothes, but a grossly deformed, super strong, axe-wielding maniac. The feral girl has been transformed into a disfigured little red-riding hood. Lizard, filling in for Mercury, proves far more menacing, and freakily perverted, than his original counterpart. There are also a plethora of new cannibals, ranging from a wheelchair bound hydro-cephalic wonder to cannibal children. Only Jupiter, who had a rather large presence in the original, is largely left by the wayside, though I must admit he wasn’t that interesting in the original anyway.
Also worthy of note are Tomandandy’s score which adapts bits of the original for a fantastically eerie, moody soundtrack. It’s forceful when need be, and reserved when visuals need take precedence. The modern genre staple of stupid, quickly dated, hard rock doesn’t make an appearance until the second half of the end credits, the first half being cheery early 20th century radio-fair similar to that of the original.
If anything I would complain about the ending. Opting for a sequel teaser rather than the abrupt stop of the first, some of the punch is lost. Also, once the ordeal is finally over, the family members seem oddly well adjusted given the horrors they have just endured. Though this is not a failure on the scale of Switchblade Romance, it is nevertheless disappointing.
When compared to the original, I wouldn’t necessarily say Aja’s Hills is any better, nor would I say it is any worse. I will always have a fondness for the original Hills, but this makes quite the nice companion piece. It certainly makes up for Switchblade Romance.
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