Thursday 24 April 2014

Review: The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

The Hills Have Eyes
IMDB rate: 6,4
Genre: Slasher, Survival

I think that my opinion about this movie won't be appreciated a whole lot, but I really like this movie. I haven't seen the original movie yet, I own it on DVD but I still didn't watch it. Honestly, a LONG time ago I bought The Hills Have Eyes on DVD and when watching it I realized that I bought the original one instead of the remake, and well.. the beginning looked kinda crappy so I didn't bother to watch it any further. I will watch it one day though. 
Anyway, I love the remake. I think it's an excellent movie, but again, I can't compare it (yet) with the original movie so I really have no idea how the original movie is. 

Wes Craven produces this remake of his 1977 classic of the same name, about the Carters, an idyllic American family traveling through the great American southwest. But their trip takes a detour into an area closed off from the public, but more importantly from society. An area originally used by the U.S. Government for nuclear testing that was intended to be empty... or so they thought? When the Carter's car breaks down at the old site, they're stranded... The Carters soon realize that what seemed like a car casually breaking down, might actually be a trap. This trap might be perpetrated by the inhabitants of the site who aren't pulling a prank, but are out to set up a gruesome massacre. 

Beginning with the intro of the movie, I think it's awesome. It reminds me a lot of the intro of American Horror Story, which is also awesome. According to IMDB the pictures of the mutated children and infants are real, but they were affected by Agent Orange.


The biggest thing that I dislike about this movie is the dead dog scene. It's incredibly sad, especially when the other German Shepard sees that his buddy is dead. His revenge is incredible though, really badass. 

The acting in this movie is incredible. I was especially impressed by Aaron Stanford, I knew him from X-Men as Pyro. He really was an annoying kid in that movie, but in The Hills Have Eyes he was much more mature. Also, I loved how he switched from a pussy to a bad ass, to save his kid.
Dan Byrd was amazing as well. Wasn't too crazy about Emilie de Ravin though, I thought she was a bit annoying at some moments. But most impressing were of course the mutated people, their make-up was incredibly real looking and they were actually pretty scary. 

Things that are a bit annoying in this movie is the amount of bullets that is being wasted. Shooting around without paying attention to what they are shooting. Especially when you know that you're in a dangerous situation, you just have to be more careful with your bullets. 

I know that remakes are often not appreciated, but I really like this movie. Again, I have no idea how the original is, but I just think this is a good horror movie. It's pretty tensive at times, amazing acting, good make-up effects and the locations are pretty cool. 

My personal rate: 8/10

2 comments:

  1. I think aside from Carpenter's "The Thing" and Cronenberg's "The Fly" that this is the greatest remake to date. "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (2003) is close too. I think that although people crap on them because they like the originals so much, that they're worthy remakes because they have something to say, something new to add and improve on. Unlike the recent "Carrie" remake, where it's only purpose is to cash in on old cash from fans of the first film. Hills was a serious movie and it deserves far more credit than given. I'd give it a 9 out of 10 straight up. It actually made sense to remake it, as opposed to just rebooting it for the sake of cashing in.

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