The Hills Have Eyes (2006) Review

The Hills Have Eyes (2006) Review

 

In the 2000s, studios jumped on the bandwagon of remaking all the major horror classics from the 70’s and 80’s. The Hills Have Eyes would be what I’d call a B-tier horror classic: scary for the time, revered by many, but certainly not untouchable, in terms of remake potential. When I watched the original, I was actually a little let down by it, finding it inconsistently scary, with some goofy aspects and few standouts beyond the face of the film, Michael Berryman as Pluto. So, I was open to the idea of a modernized interpretation, and actually find the remake preferable, which is one of the only times I’ve ever said that about a remake of a 70’s horror movie.

In case you don’t know the plot of the original, I’ll give a brief summary. An all-American family is on a road trip, and they stop in at a sketchy gas station, then take some directions that get them lost in the desert. They drive over spikes laid out on the road and end up stranded. There’s a husband and wife, their three kids, one daughter’s husband and their granddaughter, and two German Shepherds named Beauty and Beast. The eyes in the hills are a family of deranged cannibals, which stalk them, attack them, and kidnap their baby as a special meal. The surviving family members strike out to reclaim the baby, get revenge, and try to survive.

Wes Craven, writer/director of the original, didn’t want his movie remade into a piece of forgettable trash, so when he noticed all the classics were getting remade, he produced it himself and picked the up-and-coming horror director Alexandre Aja to direct and co-write with Grégory Levasseur. Aja has since gone on to have a pretty successful career in the genre, and this was his English-language debut. It is certainly a remake in the sense of being largely faithful to the original; the first half is surprisingly restrained, and retells the same major events as the original, but then it takes a turn halfway through and becomes something far more brutal, visceral, and gory. It does away with any goofiness and plays it all incredibly serious, which works in its favour most of the time, but if you aren’t prepared for a mean-spirited, deeply sick violation of an innocent family in the desert, this movie will probably be either too sickening or too shallow, depending on your scary movie preferences.

The Hills Have Eyes remake makes one major change early on to differentiate it from the 70’s version: these cannibals are mutants, resulting from atomic testing in the New Mexico desert from the 50’s and 60’s. The original was kind of like a pre-Mad Max, and the post-apocalyptic desert landscape of the remake (visually distinct from the original, always interesting and creepy to look at despite being a desert) feels like a pre-Mad Max world, only even more brutal and unforgiving, and without any cool vehicles. It certainly follows a similar vein of revenge as Mad Max (and the original, of course), but sometimes I find revenge movies can feel very one-note, or have a familiarity to them. For this being a remake, it surprisingly avoids that pretty well. Even one of the dogs gets to tag along for the revenge mission, which is even more satisfying than the humans getting revenge.

The only big name in the cast is Ted Levine, most well known for playing the serial killer Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, but here he plays a good guy—well, good-ish guy—and does a great job as the patriarch of the family. The rest of the cast is pretty good, too. Even though there is a typical range of character archetypes (high-strung mother, cocky teenage boy, hot teenage girl, nerdy guy) none of them are too annoying. A lot of the emotional burden falls on the younger cast members in the second half, and they actually do quite an effective job of selling the incomprehensible horror they experience.

The pre-credits opening is a bit cheesy and feels very 2000s, as do many moments early on, but it builds the tension well, and the second half goes for it with unhinged violence and revulsion. There’s a part when a character is locked up in a freezer with a bunch of dead body parts, and it’s a disgusting scene that feels familiar in concept yet original in execution. There are a few too many jump scares and false scares, and the mutant cannibals are hidden or obscured in kind of lame ways in the first half, but once they start making appearances in full daylight, they remain scary, thanks to great makeup effects by K.N.B EFX. I appreciate that they never tried to duplicate the look of Michael Berryman for any of the mutants; these ones all have a uniquely disturbing look, and there’s a variety of fright in their appearances.

My biggest criticism, though, and I don’t know if this is just a me thing, but I found the music exceedingly excessive. Nothing was ever allowed to be scary just because of what was on screen, there was always music playing! Whether it was a scene of tension, or terror, or even just the family talking when nothing scary was happening yet, there was constant music. Some of it sounds creative and interesting, some of it is cliché, but there is just way too much of it throughout the whole runtime. I just wanted one scene without the original soundtrack playing, just sound effects and scary visuals. For the most part, the music by tomandandy just distracted me more as the movie went on, and didn’t always make scenes scarier.

In summary, The Hills Have Eyes holds up better than the majority of horror remakes from the 2000s, and in my eyes, stands as one of the few examples that was worth the effort to make. Like the original, there was a sequel, The Hills Have Eyes 2, but it’s not considered a remake of the sequel to the original, The Hills Have Eyes Part II. It cannot be said about the Scream franchise any longer, but as of writing this review, every Hills Have Eyes movie, including this remake and its sequel, all had the involvement of original creator Wes Craven, and much like how Sam Raimi cherrypicked the creative force behind the remake of Evil Dead, I have no doubt The Hills Have Eyes turned out to be as frightening and well crafted as it did thanks to his eyes being on it.