The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

HBO On Demand, Seattle, WA

January 11, 2008

* / ****

by Scott Muoio

Beyond stupid, beyond cliché, and beyond anything remotely redeeming or entertaining, Alexandre Aja’s remake of Wes Craven’s 1977 cult flick The Hills Have Eyes isn’t bad to the bone; it’s just plain bad. Cannibal jokes aside, The Hills Have Eyes takes the horror film staple of a vacationing family broken down in a desert setting in the middle of nowhere and battling an enclave of crazed killers and turns it into a boring imitation of the most mindless horror flicks. Haven’t seen this story before? Oh, sure you have, and done much, much better.

Let’s set aside all the typical clichés the movie runs through (slashing knife sounds, rustling villains crossing camera view just enough so we can’t make them out, people chasing their dogs into parts unknown, false alarm scares, monsters who exist solely to maul people, and high contrast, tight zoom fight scenes, to name a few) and focus on what this film sorely lacks: creativity. Take the ending, for example, with its stereotypical “it’s over… or is it!?” moment. Sure, that requisite final shot is as cliché as they come, but how about instead of pulling back to show that the hills indeed still have eyes (shot from the perspective of binoculars), why not have two hundred mad, blood thirsty cannibals come racing out of the desert and descend upon the helpless survivors? Give us something different and we’ll leave your film satisfied. Shove the same old dreck down our throats as if we’ve never seen it before and you’re merely insulting our intelligence. The horror crowd may not be the savviest moviegoers around, but they can smell shit when it’s right in front of their face better than anyone.

You want to go blood porn, then GO BLOOD PORN! That means twitching limbs, girls losing their tops, interesting victims, complex killers, and a little bit of fun amongst the slasherific beheadings, not dudes getting shot ten times in the gut and then jumping back to life two minutes later for one last scare. The budget is here, so why not go all out and get creative? Come on, guys, just because a film’s subject matter is crap doesn’t mean the film, itself must be stupid, too.

Quite simply, The Hills Have Eyes is dumb, cliché, and as moronic as it is a suitable cure for insomnia. Blech!