The Hills Have Eyes
by Alexandre Aja
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dan Byrd, Emilie de Ravin, Kathleen Quinlan, Michael Bailey Smith, Ted LevineDirector: Alexandre Aja
Brand: Fox
Writer: Alexandre Aja
Producer: Cody Zwieg
Producer: Frank Hildebrand
Producer: Inigo Lezzi
Producer: Marianne Maddalena
Writer: Grégory Levasseur
Writer: Wes Craven
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); English (Dubbed); French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 107 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-06-20
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of The Hills Have Eyes
Movie Review: Thank You Alexandre Aja
Summary: 5 Stars
Title: The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
Director: Alexandre Aja
Cast: Aaron Stanford, Ted Levine, Kathleen Quinlan, Vinessa Shaw, Emilie De Ravin, Dan Byrd, Robert Joy
Plot Summary: A family on a road trip takes a wrong turn...no no, don't stop watching, really! It's good, I promise! Anyway, they find themselves stranded when a group of vicious mutant hillbillies attack...I SAID, don't leave! You'll be glad you stayed, really! And they have to fight for each other and for survival...What? Yeah, I KNOW you've seen it before...but you'll STILL like it, that's why it's so GOOD...
Review and Comments: It doesn't take a lot for me to like a movie. It doesn't even take a lot for me to love a movie, especially a horror movie. Ever since I was a little kid, I remember enjoying the feeling of jumping at the "jump" scares when the music stays quiet then suddenly gets loud at a surprise in the movie. It's a cheap trick, but it's fun for me, and I like the feeling of being surprised and scared at the same time. I also get a thrill from watching gory kill scenes (this dates back to my childhood, too, as I wasn't allowed to watch horror movies so there was an air of forbidden pleasure to them when my brother and I stayed up all night to watch the edited-for-television versions of cheesy 80s slasher flicks). When I decided to return to my hobby of watching horror movies as a college student, I was pleased to find the same enjoyment from my childhood, the same thrill, the same titillation at the nudity, the same camaraderie of joining with other fans to yell at the stupid people who go outside at night to investigate suspicious noises. Horror movies are fun, I have fun with them, and I don't apologize for loving even those movies that lots of critics hate because they're what I love, even in spite of their flaws. So really, it's nothing for me to say I love a horror movie because I love the genre as a whole. But it's one thing for me to love a movie and it's quite another for me to find a horror movie that makes me proud to be a horror fan, a movie that I discuss openly with people who aren't fellow horror fans because it's an example of what makes horror movies worth watching. Believe me, that doesn't happen very often.
The Hills Have Eyes is an example of what makes horror movies worth watching.
The opening credits do Wes Craven proud, because before he became a respected horror director, he loved screwing with people's minds and playing joyful music over a backdrop of disturbing images just because he CAN. He's forgotten some of what made that technique work, but the opening credits work here because unlike some other recent horror movies where the opening credit sequences give backstory with cheesy "scary" music, these opening credits are set to a backdrop of music from the era depicted in the newspaper headlines delivering the exposition. It's happy music with some stomach-turning and sad pictures, and that mix of emotions is unsettling enough to work. The family introduced at the beginning of the film is annoying without being cliché, and unlike some other annoying killer-fodder of late, they actually seem to CARE for and KNOW each other underneath the surface. They seem like a real family, so I cared about them. I wanted to beat them senseless for being stupid, but I didn't want them to die. And they weren't AS stupid as some characters. For instance, they didn't discover that someone intentionally drove them off the road yet decide to split up and go for help anyway like mental giants, they didn't know WHY their vehicle crashed, it just did, and it makes sense to have the two men split up and each go a different direction looking for help (why make the women walk, especially with a baby? And they had no clue anything was wrong yet except by natural and not human causes). It's a little thing, but I've come to appreciate the little touches like that; they help me enjoy the movie without developing a twitch in my eye and a sinking feeling in my stomach. The movie also pulls a little switch in that the character you expect to lead the pack for the rest of the movie is dispatched rather gruesomely, thus the others are justifiably in shock, and all their actions that might normally seem stupid make sense because they're too distracted by the shock of trying to take in all the crazy events and sudden emotions that they don't realize what's going on right away (just like real people). This is a refreshing change from characters that seem to suddenly become clairvoyant halfway through the film, performing astounding leaps of logic and figuring out every aspect of the killer's dastardly plan with ease instead of being burdened with pesky emotion over the loss of their loved ones to brutal deaths.
Since I'm talking about characters, it would be a good time to sing the praises of the character development that had me shaking in my seat, restraining myself from jumping for joy. Because I'm a geek, I love subtext and I watch for it (and in my exuberance, I sometimes find it where it's not really there, I suspect) and I LOVE watching characters start out a certain way and then grow and change throughout the course of a story (especially when said development cements who they really ARE-I'll explain that in a moment). The best of the best horror movies either have characters becoming utterly insane as they break under the pressure or becoming stronger as they learn to adapt to it and use their pain to fuel their revenge and survival. Either scenario shows something that actually happens to real people in times of crisis, but many films opt for the photogenic hero who doesn't react to events or feel emotion, the one that simply moves and acts through events and walks through a hail of bullets without a scratch. Those kind of characters have their place, but it's much more rewarding to watch characters who actually limp, bleed, scar, and either keep going or break down-just because the actual terror and monsters in the world have the same affect on real people, and it's cathartic to watch movie characters going through something that affects them the way it would affect a real person in such a situation. These characters go through a steady mix of breaking down and becoming stronger, but it has an air of authenticity. The blows wound, the blades slash, the cuts bleed, the clothes tear...some of the pain inflicted was real enough not to make me turn away but to make me watch more closely, in awe of how real it seemed. THAT is something I don't see every day.
What's more, the main character here goes through a spectacular change that had me covering my mouth to hold back cheers. This character starts out mildly annoying (though aesthetically pleasing...mmm, yummy) and seems weak, goes through some grief that's heart-wrenching, tries a stupid yet heroic move, seems at the point of failure...and then suddenly evolves into this feral FORCE that channels all the pain into a resolve and a strength that's so thrilling to watch it's orgasmic. Seriously, I've seen a transformation this powerful exactly four times in my life and each time, it cements the movie in my head as an almost religious experience (Just Before Dawn, 28 Days Later, Halloween, and now this movie). It's awesome to watch this character go from what the loudmouths behind me in the theater so eloquently dubbed a "pussy" to a genuine hero, and from that moment on (and it's a great, brutal, bloody moment) this movie had me by my nonexistent balls and NOTHING could tear my eyes from the screen. The development wasn't just from a weak character to a stronger character, it was from a wannabe-hero into the actual hero and leader he was supposed to be, and it worked, dammit. So well that even some of the final stupid horror character moves (hey, we think the villain is dead, let's drop a weapon near him and all turn our backs) can't take away the enjoyment of watching the final reels. I love gore, sadistic kills, tension, creepy music, creepy villains tormenting people cut off from the world who seem to have no way out. I love these aspect of horror so much that I enjoy watching them in movies, even when the movies aren't very good. The Hills Have Eyes is better than that. It doesn't just set up these elements, it reminds me why I love them. The setting truly is remote and there's a sense that even if the characters DO win their battle they might not survive and find help, but they try anyway, and that's powerful. The gore isn't just gooey and cool, it's actually DISTURBING and it made me watch in awe because at times it looked so real it was mesmerizing. The music was creepy but it worked WITH the scenes and acting and visuals, not FOR them (in other words, the scenes were already scary because of how they were set up, so the music just added to the tension instead of creating all the tension in an otherwise bland scene). The villains seemed superhuman and disturbing enough that they scared me, and even when one character starts giving the standard "This is why we're killing you" speech, it doesn't make me throw bricks at the screen because I care enough about the character who's in danger that I ignore the annoyance and focus on him. The movie's so good that I don't have to FIND the good in it, it's just there for me to see, and it's a rare pleasure to see that in horror movies these days. It doesn't break new ground or try to impress me with bells and whistles, jumping around like a hyperactive kid screaming "Look at what I can do!" It takes known, trusted horror elements and shows me anew why they work so well. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen because the movie set up the characters, set up the situation, delivered the gore, made me care, held my interest, let its characters grow and change, and built so much tension that I bit my nails off while waiting for a climax that didn't let me down and satisfied me EVEN THOUGH I SAW IT ALL COMING. That's not hard, it's nearly impossible. But it happened.
The Bottom Line: Were there stupid moments? Of course there were. But these didn't bother me, because the movie was high quality and it held together so well that the flaws didn't matter. I didn't enjoy the movie in spite of them, I enjoyed the movie and barely noticed them because the rest of the package was so good. In other words, this wasn't a picnic lunch where I stopped eating when I saw ants on my food but was still glad I came because I like picnics, it's one where the food was so good I picked the ants off and ate anyway because it was worth eating.
Overall: 9.5/10 God bless you, Alxandre Aja. You make me remember why horror is worth watching.
Summary of The Hills Have Eyes
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