The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

From moviesonline, "Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of attending a Fox Searchlight screening of “The Hills Have Eyes” at the 20th Century Fox Studio here in Los Angeles. The film by French director Alexandre Aja (“High Tension”) is a highly entertaining, cutting edge reinterpretation of Wes Craven’s 1977 cult classic of the same name. This is one nasty, no holds barred, horror flick, and the filmmakers waste no time letting you know in a ferocious opening sequence that sets the brutal, unrelenting tone for the rest of the film. Aja and Gregory Levasseur, who share writing credit, have crafted a gut-wrenchingly violent horror film. Indeed, watching this film is a difficult, intense, white-knuckle journey into the heart of terror and an experience filled with ever escalating apprehension and suspense. With Craven serving as producer on the film, Aja and Levasseur have refashioned Craven’s chilling story so that it terrifies yet another generation of filmgoers.

Miles from civilization, a suburban family crosses the desert somewhere in the Southwest. Their trip goes terrifyingly awry when they take a shortcut and their camper breaks down in what appears to be a desolate, seemingly uninhabited wasteland. But appearances are deceiving. As day turns into night, they come to realize that even though they are trapped in the vast emptiness of the desert, they are not alone. Only a short distance from them are the haunting remnants of a 1950’s government atomic test site. And while the homes there are filled with the benign furnishings of a typical 1950’s lifestyle, right down to the test dummies that sit perfectly poised at the dining room table, this is no ordinary “town.” Its deformed inhabitants are starving, cannibalistic mutants who pick off the family one by one, shooting them, beating them to death, or barbecuing them alive, then absconding with their bodies and feasting on them. Miles from nowhere, with no help in sight, the family must fight for survival against these bloodthirsty subhumans who track, torment, and destroy their prey in the most vicious, grisly ways.

Aja’s direction is sharp and focused, and his casting choices are excellent. The film is well acted, tightly paced, and the imagery is brutal and unflinching. The actors all deliver strong, intense performances filled with raw emotion. The cast includes Aaron Stanford, Ted Levine, Kathleen Quinlan, Vinessa Shaw, Emilie de Ravin, Dan Byrd, and Robert Joy. Aja and Levasseur have constructed a solid script that hinges on numerous twists and turns with characters that are well developed and surprisingly three-dimensional for this genre. The story has a solid emotional core that genuinely resonates with an audience. The director takes time to build sympathy for his characters before the horror finally arrives. The action is convincingly staged to create an impending sense of dread well before anything bad happens. And when it does, the scenes are explicit, intense, and disturbing. We care about these characters, and their suffering is painfully vivid. When tragedy strikes, we share their terror and their loss.

“The Hills Have Eyes” was shot in Morocco, and the desert looks strangely familiar yet foreign, which serves the film well and enhances the unnerving vibe felt in each and every scene. Director of Photography Maxime Alexandre’s gritty cinematography, kinetic camerawork, and unique visual style support the director’s vision. He captures eloquently the sense of isolation and hopelessness that permeate the film. Through unexpected camera movement and skillful lighting, along with some exceptional work by the film’s editor, the filmmakers successfully establish an atmosphere of mounting dread and despair. DP Alexandre and Production Designer Joseph Nemec combine abrupt immediacy, stunning landscape imagery, and rich atmosphere to maximum effect. Through their collaboration, they create a compelling sense of place from the vast emptiness and stunning landscape of the desert to the atomic test village oddly frozen in time to the large, open crater filled with the abandoned belongings left behind by untold victims to the underground mine where the mutants have buried their family members.

The filmmakers employ an eerie, dissonant blend of score and sound to support the scary storytelling, create suspenseful buildups, and bring the characters emotionally to life. The innovative soundtrack by Tomandandy (Tom Hajdu and Andy Milburn) works on a variety of emotional levels and is both edgy and abstract. The dissonance in their score enhances the level of dread and unease in the film and mixes seamlessly with the sound design to the extent that we are never sure what is real and what isn’t. Especially effective is the incongruous placement of seemingly benign songs, such as “California Dreamin’” by The Mamas and the Papas, which lull us momentarily into a false sense of complacency. The odd juxtaposition heightens the suspense and anxiety because we know danger lurks just beyond, and we anticipate the impending violence and gore. The unsettling choice of tunes is also humorous, providing a welcome, if temporary, distraction from the intense experience of watching this film.

“The Hills Have Eyes” is extreme, bone chilling cinema that represents the future of the horror genre while paying homage to the raw intensity and nasty, savage spirit of 1970s horror classics. The film marks Aja and Levasseur’s fifth collaboration and reflects their attraction to horror films from the era in which they grew up. In a recent interview, Aja stated “Nowadays, most horror movies use irony to take a sardonic look at the genre while still using its tricks, as if people are afraid of making an out-and-out horror movie. We wanted to go back to the roots of the genre and give audiences a real ‘battle for survival,’ a real cinematic experience.” They have definitely succeeded in “The Hills Have Eyes.”

Aja is without a doubt one of the most promising of the next generation of horror meisters. He knows how to reduce the genre to its bare essentials, play on people’s most basic fears, tighten the screws of suspense, and build a narrative of escalating dread that culminates in a shockingly gruesome and violent climax. Whatever you do, don’t miss this entertaining remake of a classic horror film. Genre fans should find it very satisfying."