The Hills Have Eyes (2006): Film Review
Big Budget Remake of Wes Craven's Legendary 1977 Slasher
Jan 27, 2009
Before terrifying audiences with the comparatively slick Nightmare on Elm Street series, Wes Craven cut his directorial teeth on a number of low budget shockers. While Last House on the Left remains the most controversial of these, it is the equally sadistic The Hills Have Eyes which is the most revered. In fact it has refused to budge from many horror fans’ Top Tens in over twenty years. Therefore the recent decision to film a 21st Century remake has been met with equal parts intrigue and venom.
Lo-Fi Violence
Even by 1970’s standards the original film’s storyline was far from groundbreaking. A wholesome American family breaks down in the middle of a desert and must fight for survival against a gruesome cast of deformed red-necks. What set it apart from other Texas Chainsaw imitators of the era was Craven’s chillingly effective knack of tapping into his audience’s most primitive fears. Before our eyes innocent women and children are burnt, raped, flayed and mutilated. It was exploitation at its most brutally exploitative.
The remake deviates little from the classic film’s limited plot. The God-fearing, Republican-voting protagonists are tricked into driving their Winnebago down the road less travelled before being horrifically picked off. It is then up to the unlikely survivors to turn the tables on their aggressors and execute a bloody revenge.
Special Effects
Each grisly set piece is lovingly recreated in stomach churning Technicolor, and the red-neck mutants are given a suitably macabre makeover using a plethora of techniques unavailable to the original’s special-effects team.
All of this adds up to a genuinely shocking and disturbing film which will have many people watching from behind the proverbial sofa. The only problem with it is the question that arises from all efforts such as this: what is the point? Was there something so fundamentally lacking from the original film that a remake was crying out to be made?
Frivolity
The answer is no, of course not. Sure, the effects in the new film are better and the death scenes more gory, but only at the expense of the original’s low budget realism. What’s more this technical wizardry doesn’t actually add anything to the film per se, it merely enhances the odd scene here and there.
If you watch films primarily to be terrified and repulsed then you could do a lot worse than The Hills Have Eyes. However for about half the price you could pick up a cheap copy of the original and see the film as Wes Craven intended.
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