Movie Review - The Hills Have Eyes

The Hills Have Eyes

2006

The Cast

There's not much difference between this remake and the 1977 original.  A family of campers have decided to drive across America.  Unfortunately for them, this includes the desert, wherein the 1950's the army carried out a series of nuclear tests.  After stopping for gas, and inadvertently offending the station attendant, he tells the group of a shortcut through a valley in the hills...  Just as it starts to dawn on them that the shortcut is turning out to be a long drive, their tyres blow out...  This is a 50th wedding anniversary they'll remember until they die... which won't be long...

This may sound disrespectful of Wes Craven, but the best thing about this film, by far, is the direction.  Alexandre Aja, who had only previously directed the acclaimed, magnificent, and one of my favourite films, Haute Tension, does the story proud.  His eye for panoramic shots and the ability to create an atmosphere of aloneness with them, and then his use of the nuclear-blasted "Little America", complete with creepy mannequins, creates a really uneasy eeriness that's exactly what the story needed.

Also opting to get rid of the dreadful electronic soundtrack was a bonus.  This was a major hindrance to the original.  Without it, the excitement is created in different ways;  camera shots, angles, lighting, acting, and sound effects.

The other nice thing was the cast... though a cameo by Michael Berryman wouldn't have gone amiss.  There are a more than a few solid actors in the film.  Ted Levine as Big Bob the ex-policeman and father of the group.  He gives a solid reliable performance in a supporting role, though he's yet to come across a role as meaty as his Buffalo Bill Silence Of The Lambs character.  His wife, Ethel, is played by the beautiful and talented Kathleen Quinlan.  Though the stand out characters is Tom Bower as the gas station attendant, Robert Joy as Lizard - he really does appear to enjoy this role, Dan Byrd as Bobby, and Emilie De Ravin as Brenda.

Also, the special effects have moved on a long way from 1977... instead of the bright red blood which flowed copiously back then, we have a more realistic crimson, which gets slashed, gouged, and blasted insanely all over the place.  Not only do the hills have eyes, they also run red...

This is how a remake should be made.  It was brave of Aja not to change the story but to bring it up-to-date, not just in the story but also with the filming techniques.  Aja, just adds his skill into the mix and the outcome is beautiful, brilliant, and spooky as hell enjoyment.  Because of this, I would recommend every horror fan or wannabe to check this out rather than the original 1977 film.

I give this Re-Dux a Nuke-Blasted Mega Mutation of 7.5 out of 10. 

The Trailer

Movie Review - Wicked Little Things

Wicked Little Things

(2006)

Millennium Films / Nu Image / Sandstorm Films : After Dark Films / Sony Pictures Entertainment / Lionsgate Home Entertainment

7.75 / 10

The main reason to watch this film would be the story as it gives a refreshingly fresh take on the Zombie genre.

The Carlton's had owned the land for generations. On that land were forests, houses, and a mine.  Deep in the mine were buried the Carlton's darkest injustice.  But some transgressions don't stay buried...  These ones are on the hunt for retribution.

The Carlton's used child labour down in their mine and one day an avoidable incident caused the deaths of most of the youngsters.  Carlton was cleared of any wrongdoing and was never prosecuted for the deaths.  The event was ruled a tragic accident.

Wanting revenge, the children now walk the woods looking for Carlton and his bloodline...

Enter Karen (Lori Heuring) and her two daughters, Sarah (Scout Taylor-Compton) and Emma (Chloe Grace Moretz), who move into a property on Carlton land.  The house had been left to their husband and father, who had passed away leaving them in enough debt that they had to sell their home.  The house is one of the most oppressive I've ever seen.  It's dark and foreboding.  The door is open and blood has been painted on the door.

It's not long before Emma has made a friend in Mary...  The trouble is, nobody else can see Mary.

The director, J S Cardone (of The Slayer - reviewed on this blog) does a winning job of creating atmosphere, tension, and suspense at all the right times in the movie.  The night scenes in the moonlit woods are lovely, verging on beautiful, they do give an eerie feel to the location and situation.  However, as I stated in the review to The Slayer, it appears he also likes dark houses.  It's actually brighter outside in the woods by moonlight than it is in the house with all the lights burning.  It's just as annoying here that the light of an electric bulb only radiates a couple of feet.  There are some wonderful iconic and haunting shots of the children in their miner's garb carrying their work tools, which they use to dispatch anybody they run into.

The actors all give good performances, though, at times, both Ben Cross as Aaron Hanks and Martin McDougall as Mr Carlton ham it up, but they do reign in the piggies after a short while.  Not one actor or actress stands out above the rest, they are all fair at making their characters believable.  Though I do have a fondness for Geoffrey Lewis, especially after the hauntingly eerie rocking chair scene in Salam's Lot that stays with me today.  He is good as the irascible plumber Harold.

It's the story that's the star in this film, though, and that is a very unusual thing to say about a horror film.  It's the fresh take on the Zombie mythos, in some ways it harpers back to the original Zombie, where a spell or a curse would resurrect the dead.  They then become unstoppable until the curse is lifted has run its course.  The course here is the revenge of the children on the Carlton bloodline.

I would recommend this to all horror fans or the casual viewer looking for something respectable in the genre.  You could do worse.