The Hills Have Eyes: and you need to know that this film has a nasty streak to it!

Horror films are a staple of Hollywood but recently some of them have taken on quite a rough edge to them. These uber-gore fest seem to be more concerned with inventing new ways to realistically crack a skull rather than make the audience freak themselves out by pulling the camera away just as the monster approaches its victim. The Hills Have Eyes is certainly one film that did not hold back and wanted to show you every nasty little detail of its gruesome universe.

On their way out to California, a family takes an unknown desert road in order to save time and wind up fighting for their own survival against a group of grotesque hill dwellers who have devolved into blood-thirsty monsters.

If a gritty, no-holds-barred, gore-fest is what you’re in the mood for, then The Hills Have Eyes is for you. This re-imagining of the original low budget Wes Craven classic was so intense and unflinching when delivering its visceral ferocity that even the most harden horror film fanatic might have to turn away at points. The absolute beauty in which the film was shot only heightened the grisly nature of “The Hills”. The desert became something of an alien landscape, further hindering the family and aiding the hill dwellers. Unfortunately the film spoiled its opulent look by failing to capitalize upon it and tell an equally stunning story. These characters and the film's plot have been done to death (not only because it was a remake) by a million other directors and writers. It seems the only way to put a unique spin on a horror film anymore is to see how bloody you can make it, damning the characters and story to the background or sometimes dispensing with them all together. There was no grey area in the film, there were good guys (Bobby, Doug, Brenda, etc.) and bad guys (the hill dwellers), but to make an audience take a journey with those good guys it would have been worthwhile to make them believable and human instead of cardboard and clichéd. That didn’t happen here so when you get down to it, The Hills Have Eyes was nothing more than a faux snuff film that some of the ADD generation can watch over and over again in order to see their favorite death scenes.

Grade: C-