The Hills Have Eyes

The great classic horror movies, especially those produced in the legendary 1970s, were the primary target of a huge wave of remakes and reboots popular during the early years of the new millennium. “The Hills Have Eyes” (1977), a cult film and cornerstone of Wes Craven’s filmography, obviously wasn’t going to be overlooked.

Commissioned and produced by Wes Craven, who directed the original film, this crude, excessively violent film by Alexandre Aja remains quite faithful to its predecessor for the most part, actually taking some of its famous scenes to new extremes. The story takes off after a somewhat slow start, sustained by an engaging tempo and an excellent level of suspense – Aja, who had already made a name for himself with “High Tension” (2003), clearly doesn’t follow in the manic footsteps of Michael Bay and his recent imitators who crank out mediocre remakes that look more like extended music videos with their frenetic cuts, over-reliance on loud music, and an overly manicured, polished look.

So, at least for once, the end result here could be considered basically satisfying – beyond the purely commercial aim of the endeavor, the artificiality of its ecological message, and its hyperbolic ending (pacifist Doug turns into kind of a terminator), it definitely achieves its goal of providing pure movie entertainment.

Filmed in southern Morocco.