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Review #61 of 365
Film: The Hills Have Eyes (2006) [R] 105 minutes
WIP: $4.00
When 1st Seen: 12 March 2006
Where Viewed: United Artists Denver Pavillions Stadium 15, Denver, CO
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Dedicated to: Stephen C. of Rice Lake, WI
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DVD | soundtrack |
Two days in a row, I need to give a history lesson, and here I was a bio/chem. double major in college, who knew? In any case, if either the plot or the title of this film sounds familiar, it is for a good reason. Master of horror films, Wes ‘Nightmare on Elm Street / Scream’ Craven directed this scary flick, The Hills Have Eyes, back in 1977. Parental ratings trouble earned the film bad press, and it quickly fled to the home video market where it earned acclaim among intense horror film fans for extreme gore, etc. So, 2006 rolls around; and, apparently, we are due for an update (making this two updates in the same weekend...this and The Shaggy Dog). I did not see the original film, however, and I probably wouldn’t have seen it even if I were on the movieEVERYday.com regimen. You see, back then, I was very afraid to see scary movies. I saw Nightmare on Elm Street 2, and I couldn’t sleep for weeks. Believe it or not, I was a big fraidy-cat. Actually, I am still not that keen on horror films as I often find them excessively gory and senseless; and, to this day, I prefer to see them during the daylight hours in a very crowded theatre—though that sometimes gives obnoxious people the sense that they should make scary noises and do stuff to freak people out as if the movie weren’t able to do that on its own. So, here we are in 2006 with this update directed and re-written by French Director, Alexandre Aja. I cannot say if this film is an improvement over the original. All I do know is that it received an [R] rating instead of an [X] this time around; and, hence, you can find it at your neighborhood cinema. By the way, this film would not qualify as a nice, Sunday-afternoon-at-the-movies-with-the-family variety even though I saw in on a Sunday afternoon. No, rather, this is a film to be ‘enjoyed’ among either a trio of close friends, or a couple who anticipates that one member of the pair will be getting closer to the other as the dramatic tension increases.
So, the hills have eyes do they? Well, in New Mexico, where the opening frames reveal over 300 above ground nuclear tests were conducted by the US government, apparently, they do. I wonder what the below ground testing has caused the hills to have? Maybe we shouldn't go there. Now, many years after the testing, we have the Carter-Bukowski family traveling through this same New Mexico desert in the middle of summer on the way to San Diego, CA in a truck and towed Airstream to celebrate the Carters’s wedding anniversary. Hey, there’s a great way to celebrate being married a really long time. Makes you want to go right out and get married in anticipation of such a memorable opportunity right? Actually, I’m only half kidding. Have you ever been in an Airstream? Wow, two days in a row, I’m also feeling generous, here’s a free plug for Airstream which just so happens to be celebrating its 75th anniversary. And, if you haven’t checked out the new Airstream Basecamp, you don’t know what you are missing. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Bob (Ted ‘Did you see him in Monk’ Levine) and Ethel (Kathleen ‘school teacher segment 3 in Twilight Zone: The Movie which was my personal favorite segment’ Quinlan) and their brood have the misfortune on this trip—is it misfortune or just plain stupidity if you make an idiotic decision to follow the directions of a creepy gas station owner in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle of the New Mexico desert and take a dirt road which is already off the beaten path and miles from the nearest major road let alone highway because he tells you it’s a short cut—to find themselves and their family--daughters Lynne (Vinessa Shaw) and Brenda (Emilie ‘already spent a lot of time in “Roswell”, New Mexico and “Lost”’ de Ravin), son-in-law Doug (Aaron ‘Pyro guy from X-men 2’ Stanford) and son Bobby (Dan Byrd)—stranded in the middle of no where with blood thirsty, radioactive, deformed, mutant, cannibals? I’ll let you be the judge on that one. So, I don’t feel that gave away too much of the plot because that all happens in the first 10-15 minutes or so of the movie. The rest of the film will test the courage and mettle of Doug and Bobby—two previously totally unlikable and unremarkable guys—as they must attempt to keep their family alive amidst the horror of this highly organized band of desert-dwelling, homicidal humanoids. You know, I feel like it’s kind of a cheap stunt when authors of horror stories use poor environmental decisions by the US government or scientists as their vehicle for advancing their plot lines. You know, giant alligator chomps victims all over NYC after being exposed to toxic waste, or radioactive gas from a nuclear plant causes giant wasps to take over South Dakota, etc. This time, however, the writer went just too far. Ok, we get the message, we should not allow any more above ground nuclear tests to be conducted in New Mexico because we really don’t want poor way-faring families to have to go through what these people went through. And only if they had listened to their snotty middle child and stayed on the highway. Boiling it down we have a very scary and gory fright fest with the appearance of a low-budget horror film of the 1970s. We have B-rated acting, a predictable script, and an ending so obviously screaming ‘sequel’ and more mayhem to come as to really make many viewers quite mad enough to stand up in the theatre and yell "We are mad as ---- and we are not going to take it any more!"—nothing cool is resolved after the credits so don’t bother sticking around expecting that (I did it for you to save you time). I’d say that is a recipe straight for a $4 W.I.P. I’m not saying this film wasn’t scary. No, way. It was horrific. But, for all of the possibilities for making a great horror film without needless gross stuff, etc., I’d recommend going back to some of the scariest movies of all time like Psycho and Poltergeist and notice the difference. You don’t have to constantly gross people out and use buckets and buckets of fake blood to make a great horror film. In fact, doing so just desensitizes audiences to the point of not really feeling anything when horrific things are going on. Quite frankly, one of the biggest downfalls of this and other not-so-great horror films is that we have practically no reason at all to care if any of the ‘nice’ people make it out alive, and this family doesn't seem particularly nice in the first place. In this case, the only one we care about is the baby—oops, forgot to mention the baby. Well, Doug and Lynne have brought their new baby on the voyage, and the baby causes an endless series of problems for his parents. Still, other than the baby, the characters are so cardboard and stock that it’s a real challenge to root for their survival—which, incidentally, can promote the opposite of the desired effect and have the audience cheering the villains. Yikes, I almost forgot and would be remiss if I didn’t pay homage to Tom Bower (a Denver, Colorado native) who plays the creepy gas station attendant and ‘father’ to the mutants. [P.S. email if you can figure out why the mutants give him the spoils of their hunting? Does he pawn it and give them the cash? If so, what do they need the cash for? If not, does he get to keep the cash? Is it in exchange for sending them prey?]
Finally, one of the things that amazes me most today is that people don’t pay attention to the movie ratings. This is an [R] rated movie for a very good reason. Don’t take your kids to see this. There is violent murder and mayhem, sick and nasty scenes of decapitation and gun violence, and just general stuff that no one would want a kid to see. Instead, take your kid to see Doogal or Aquamarine. Don’t take them to a film called The Hills Have Eyes. Isn’t the title a big enough clue? Don’t take kids to see a film where normally inanimate objects suddenly have eyes. Stay away from The Lawn Mowers Have Eyes, The Hurricanes Have Eyes, The Kitchen Knives Have Eyes, The Chesterfields Have Eyes, The Bisquick® Box Has Eyes. See what I mean? If it’s not supposed to have eyes, and it suddenly has eyes, well that stuff is just too scary for kids.
Now Available for Purchase on DVD
The Hills Have Eyes (Unrated Version) [DVD](2006) DVD
The Hills Have Eyes [DVD](2006) DVD
The Hills Have Eyes, Part II [DVD](1985) DVD
The Hills Have Eyes [DVD](1977) DVD
The Hills Have Eyes [DVD](1977) DVD
The Hills Have Eyes (UMD For PlayStation Portable)(1977)
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