BB DVD Review: The Hill Have Eyes

An all American family on a road trip take a wrong turn in more ways than one in a 21st Century remake of the Wes Craven cult classic. There's gold in them their hills. Well not gold exactly, more like horrible bloody death but that doesn't scan quite as well... I'm not sure this is really deserving of italics.



I'n not very keen on the idea of visiting America. For all my obsession with the myriad outpourings of Americana the high proportion of zealots, maniacs and downright morons that seem to populate the place make it downright unappealing. If I ever do visit, however, you can be damn skippy I will be staying exclusively in high-population urban areas. Sure I may be mugged, car-jacked or gunned down in a drive-by but that seems to be a laugh-riot compared to what awaits in the wide open spaces - here there be toothless redneck monsters.

For much like the original, Deliverance and their countless other 'you aint from around here boy' cousins, The Hill Have Eyes confirms the very darkest fear of millions of concrete-cosseted urbanites - if there isn't a McDonalds with 10 miles prepare to be raped and/or mutilated. I would rather prance through Compton in a Klan outfit that ever go near a Maw and Paw style gas station in the middle of nowhere. At least with a pistol-packin' homey I have some basis for conversation (You like rap music? I like rap music...). In short, the toothless moonshine soaked rapist button is an easy one to push, so the question becomes how well does Switchblade Romance helmer Alexandre Aja push it?

The answer... fairly well. While not a rip-snorting success, the movie has enough new tricks and sadistic glee to avoid pointless remake status (The Fog and The Omen I spit in your general direction) and collapse in a huffing heap in the just-about-justified category. Most praiseworthy is its out and out commitment to an 18 certificate. This is fucking horror we're talking about here people! Far too many Hollywood produced frighteners pussy out and go for 15 (or god forbid) 12a ratings to try and get a few extra adolescent bums in seats to the detriment of both the film (horror without gore is like a hooker without herpes) and the audience (you ever tried to watch a movie in the company of some 15 year olds?). Not so this one. As with his debut effort Aja lays it on thick and clotted, just the way a geek with unresolved violent tendencies likes it. Our protagonists go through hell and a half at the hands of these hillbilly fucks and the director understands that come payback time they as characters, and we as an audience, need sweet bloody revenge. One could take the high ground and argue that it's cathartic for people to have an outlet for the fear and anger that modern society creates in us but that's horseshit. I need no reason to enjoy seeing someone getting a pickaxe in the eye other than it's inherently fuckin' cool. So cool in fact that we get to see it twice - now that's giving the people what they want.

However the claret cannot paint over all the cracks. There is no third-act disaster to match the aforementioned Switchbalde Romance (surely the most ludicrous twist in the history of film) but there are times when the film struggles. First-off, it's damn hard to create tension in the wide open spaces of the desert. The jumps and scares that this kind of horror relies on needs enclosed spaces, corners and shadows which are kind of hard to replicate when you can see for miles around. It's a problem the creators try to surmount with the addition (not in the original) of a bombed-out 1950's style town but the tension created here just serves to show how little there is in the rest of the movie. More of a problem, at least for someone who has seen as many horror movies as me, is the awesome, unwavering stupidity that the lead characters exhibit for the majority of their screen time. Now this is a problem in modern horror in general, not just here, and it's really starting to get on my tits. There's has to be a way to create dangerous situations that does not involve people blindly wandering about like headless fowl with a deathwish. Put the average person in a dangerous situation and they become more wary, more careful. They do not, repeat, do not wander into darkened pishin' corners wondering where that blood-curdling scream came from. It's an insult to our intelligence and it's lazy writing.

Other things I liked...

The design of the mutants was cool, especially the wheelchair bound tumour with a brain and the bowler-hatted droog-a-like. Though nothing any Hollywood make-up artist can concoct can match the sheer god-hewn horror of original mutant Michael Berryman's face.

The close-up on a broken set of glasses that may or may not be a homage to Peckinpah's Straw Dogs. The films do, after all, share a similar normal-folk-pushed-to-extremes theme.

Bloodthirsty Frenchies. Who knew? Must be all that half-cooked horseflesh.