The Hills Have Eyes (2006) Official Reaction Thread

[DefJeff]

I love it when people try to play the innocent role. "Who ME? all I did was play by the rules nicely." It's like the male version of Tawny.

I'd say dumb, naive, ignorant and shallow are all accurate descriptions. But hey, that's just my opinion.

Originally Posted by baggio

Its a bad silly flick.

No, it's not. And that is my opinion.

I respect your opinion, of course, even if I don't agree with it. But to say that every bad film needs to be remade is just ludicrous because not everyone will agree on which films are bad and which are not.

And as far as your responses to DefJeff's and Rhett's posts go, I'm sorry, but you seem to have zero reading comprehension skills.

With Aja behind the camera, this was the only new remake I cared to see.

The acting was fine, Ted Levine being the standout. No surprise there. Stanford also impressed me quite a bit in the Doug role, while Emilie de Ravin does fine herself, and her sunbathing scene is one of the higlights of the film. The kid playing Bobby was pretty annoying though, and his facial expressions cracked me up.

The acting on the mutant side of the equation is pretty much what you'd expect I suppose. Lizard and Big Brain are well acted, but Billy Drago's Jupiter is more amusing than anything. I liked the hulking Pluto. Definitely a menacing figure, though I thought the scene of him throwing Doug through a window by the leg was too much. The gas station guy was weak, especially compared to John Steadman in the original, whose emotional explanation of Jupiter to Big Bob made for one of the original's best scenes.

I loved the look of the picture. Aja captured that really well. The gore is nice and brutal as well, and for the most part, the mood is appropriate. The addition of the test town was a nice touch, and I loved the nuke crater.

I had to laugh at some of the ridiculous character logic. One of my favorites was when

Spoiler: Bobby marches, gun in hand, after the mutant that took his mom's body, only to find Jupiter chowing down. Instead of shooting him, he tucks tail and runs, firing randomly behind him.

One that was more annoying than funny was how the mutants

Spoiler: conveniently left Doug's bat on top of the meat freezer they put him in.

The over the top music at the end cracked me up too.

One of my favorite aspects of the original was how Craven had Beast become the hero of the film. In the remake, Beast is a little less utilized, which was slightly disappointing. Doug's butchering of the mutants was very enjoyable though.

In the end, it is in no way a match for Craven's classic or Aja's Haute Tension. Despite it's flaws though, it was an entertaining popcorn horror film, which is more than I can say for 99.9% of remakes these days.

[shift]

ok boyz.... Shift's going out to watch it 2night. Wish me luck!!

[aoiookami]

I'm not sure what to think of it. To best describe it I just felt empty when leaving the theater; no real moments that made me excited, scared, I didnt laugh or feel sad; for me it was just a demonstration of gore effects and nice cinematography. The mutant designs were rather underwhelming and kind of boring, and the big one reminded me of Sloth from Goonies if anything.

I also found I couldnt enjoy much of the second half because

Spoiler: the amount of what Doug went through and still kept going was way beyond the realm of possibility to the point of being rediculous. I know its a horror movie and everything....but c'mon; you walk through the desert with little water in your body after seeing your familiy masacred, get thrown through walls and windows, get the end of a bat to the head, get your fingers chopped off, get knocked out, get stuck in a freezer with rotting body parts, run through the desert some more with no water, get slashed by spikes, get your head bashed into the ground multiple times, then go on to the walk through the desert again carrying a baby and holding onto a dog's leash. Please. It was just too much.

Also the ending was very, very underwhelming and cliche. As well,

Spoiler: so it ends with 'another' mutant watching them; are we to assume they are gonna be killed? So what? They're still in the middle of the desert with no water and one guy is half dead, its not like there was any indication they were gonna get out anyways for the 'oh no, they're still in troule!' ending to work...

Good gore, and it looked great, but there wasnt enough filler for me to make it ultimately satisfying. Dissapointing for me.

edit; oh, and 'Big Brain' (I'm assuming, the one with huge head) looked like Rubber Johnny. :P

[DrHerbertWest]

Originally Posted by aoiookami

edit; oh, and 'Big Brain' (I'm assuming, the one with huge head) looked like Rubber Johnny. :P

Word.

[killit]

It wasn't very good in my opinion. Kind of a joke, maybe it would make a good blockbuster night.

[ZoSo]

I enjoyed the flick quite a bit... I really dug the way it started... with the brutal pick-axe slaughter and then the dragging of the bodies... great start. Had some other uneasy scenes that were hard to watch also... the burning scene (especially when Doug pulled the body down and it slammed on the ground, and the smoke came out of it's mouth...ow), the rape scene (even though it wasn't too graphic, it was very believable, due to the young girl's acting. Very convincing fear)

The shotgun suicide was great. Reminded me of Maniac. The nuclear test town, and the crater of abandoned vehicles were nice touches. The town gave me a little reminder of Tourist Trap, with all the mannequinns.

The few things I didn't like have pretty much already been touched on... I didn't like some of the actions of the characters... Big Bob shooting into the darkness at the gas station (granted, he just saw a fucked up suicide, but he was a cop his whole life and knows how to handle situations...) Bobby determined to find who stole mom's body.... and when he finds Papa Jupe, he runs like a little bitch firing the gun every which way (like father like son?)... the mutants leaving Doug's bat right there... I also didn't like the obvious 'Lizard's not dead, DUH' part... I also thought the ending was a little too happy.. the music really killed it for me too... the ending had corny triumphant type music, and it seemed very out of place... like it would fit better in a gladiator type movie like Gladiator (duh) or Troy, etc... The binocular ending was kind of lame also. Just let it end.

Overall though I really liked it... It did justice for a remake. Much better than my last theatre experience (The Fog UGH).

I will definitely be picking up the DVD!

It seems to be popular as I've been hearing a lot of good things about this one in school. And when the girls tell me it is "too gory" that is also a good thing. Hopefully I can see this tonight.

[slinker]

I thought it was very good and i enjoyed it more than the original
few things i would have done differently but then thats my vision.

[Paul0889]

has anyone noticed that the movie has pretty much stopped being advertised? i haven't seen any tv spots since march 10th for it at all. it's as if fox searchlight doesn't have any hope for the movie anymore or either didn't spend enough on advertising or something. look at the when a stranger calls remake. i saw probably hundreds of tv spots for that even a week after it was released.

[BloodMan]

I don't know why they'd not think there is hope for it... it has to date made 28 million dollars... almost double its budget. I'd be happy.

[DrHerbertWest]

Now that I think about it, I saw a LOT of promotion right before opening weekend and then it did kind of drop off. However, it might be because of how well it's doing. I don't know what spot it's in with the rankings, but I'd assume it's doing fairly well, like Bloodman said.

Just got back from seeing this. Here are my thoughts, but this post contains spoilers. If you haven't seen the film yet, needless to say, you shouldn't read on:

Aside from a few scenes near the end, it was almost exactly the same as the original. Same structure, same characters. They even went so far as to make the actors resemble the ones in the original film, not just how they look physically, but how they act as well, which is a touch that I truly enjoyed. But that could also be because the script is pretty much ripped from the '77 version. However, the last twenty minutes or so were too MTV-style for my taste. High Tension didn't have any of these moments, what happened? Is Aja copping out by including these quick-cut shots to try and "scare" the audience? Those didn't work for me. Another thing that didn't work were the deformed psychos. Yes, they were creepy but for the most part they looked ridiculous and kind of took me out of the film for a bit. I swear one of them resembled Jason Voorhees without his hockey mask.

The Hills Have Eyes was blessed with great cinematography and great locations. High Tension wasn't a fluke; Aja really knows what he wants to do with the camera and how he wants his film to look, and he has a very distinct style. The music is also noteworthy, as it is one of the best scores for a horror movie in quite a while.

The best thing in this film-- which is, in fact, also the best thing about the original film-- is the main rape/attack sequence inside the trailer. It is much gorier and brutal this time around, and I think it hit me harder than the same scene in the '77 version did. When the young mother had her brains blown out and blood splattered against the trailer walls, my jaw about hit the floor. Earlier on in the film, I noticed a group of girls sitting in the theater with me, giggling in the rather squirrelly way that young girls do. They laughed at any old thing in the film that tickled their fancy, but when this scene came up, they promptly shut up for the remainder of the movie. It's a very sad, emotional, and nervewracking sequence that seems to work no matter what decade the film is made in.

The changes that were made to the script made sense, and were better executed than in the original. However, I still find myself preferring Craven's version over this one. The actors in his version were better, the grittiness of the desert was on much better display, and the very end of the movie was better. Lost in this version is the whole "sinking to their level" philosophy; in the original, Doug observes what he has done and realizes that he is no better than they are, but in the new version Doug simply kills the final cannibal and moves on to meet with the remaining members of his family. To me, it cheapens the film.

Another aspect that cheapens the film are the scenes added in solely to instill an "oogey" feeling into the audience, like the scene with Doug trapped in the freezer with the dead bodies-- scenes meant to cater to our own personal fears, but don't quite work. Sure, it's gross, but nothing more than that.

Overall, it was a well-executed horror film that retains most of what made the original so successful, but also loses some very important aspects that could have aided in making the film more powerful. I wouldn't call it disappointing, because for 3/4 of the movie I could have sworn I was watching the original-- it's that close. The ending is what it always was, yet the film veers off in a somewhat different direction to make it there. But when faced with a decision in the future on whether or not to watch the original or the remake, I would most definitely go with the original.

[Grim]

Personally I thought the acting in the remake was leaps and bounds ahead of the original. I usually don't hold bad acting against a lower budgeted film, which I won't for the original Hills, but most of the actor's talents in the original were kind of lacking, especially the mothers of both families. The remake had such greats as Ted Levine (who I think should've won something for Silence of the Lambs) and Kathleen Quinlan, and new rising talents like Aaron Stanford, and then some good B/character actors like Billy Drago (however underused he was) and Robert Joy. Just my opinion though, to each their own.