The Hills Have Eyes (2006) Directed by Alexandre Aja
Cannibalistic desert dwelling mutants, just that alone is a good premise for a movie. This is a remake of a Wes Craven movie from 1977, however I have seen both films, and I would honestly say that the remake is better…in my opinion. The other night I picked three movies: Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Child’s Play 2, and The Hills Have Eyes. I let my wife pick which one we watched out of the three, and since I referenced the Hills Have Eyes multiple times this past weekend, she chose this. Since I haven’t seen the movie in a couple years it was fun revisiting.
The movie starts with a group of scientists testing a desert for radioactivity, when they are attacked by a mutant and killed brutally. After that we get a really cool credit scene, cool and disturbing really. They show stock footage of nuclear testing and deformed people/infants. Then the main story begins with a family traveling cross country to California for the parents’ anniversary. The family consists of Bob and Ethel Carter, their children Bobby, Brenda, and Lynn. Lynn’s husband Doug and their infant daughter Catherine are also along for the trip as well as two German Shepherds, Beauty and Beast. They stop for gas and the attendant tells them they should take a short cut on a dirt road around the hills (smart). They decide to take the said short cut (even smarter), and of course disaster awaits them when a spike strip punctures their tires.
They get out and assess the damage of the vehicle and trailer, Bob decides that him and Doug will walk for help. Bob walks towards the gas station and Doug in the other direction looking for anyone that can help them out. Beauty decides to run off into the desert and Bobby chases after her. He finds Beauty dead, gutted laying in the sand. Being scared, Bobby takes off running (I love how logical Bobby is at this moment, you never see that in a horror movie) and falls down a small cavern and knocks himself out. A young mutant girl named Ruby protects him from her brother Goggle, whom is eating Beauty’s leg. Bob gets back to the station and discovers a bag full of items including a box with ears in it. He realizes the attendant put them into danger purposely. Bob walks out, gun in hand and finds the attendant drunk or hysterical who knows, in the out house. He goes to check on him and the attendant blows his face off with a shotgun. Horrified, Bob gets into a car to leave and he is brutally attacked by Jupiter, the lead mutant. Jupiter, Lizard and Pluto then drag bob into the mining caves.
Bobby comes to, and makes it back to the trailer, but doesn’t mention anything about Beauty, not wanting to scare the family. The family is awaken later by Bob’s screams as he is strung up and lit on fire. The family races to help bob while Pluto and Lizard pillage the trailer, raping Brenda in the process. Lynn returns to the trailer hearing Brenda screaming. Pluto and Lizard are still in the trailer when Lynn enters, Lizard holds a gun to the baby and sucks on Lynn’s boobs (I mean she does have a pretty sweet rack, but since she’s a mother she’s lactating, so yeah kinda gross). She then grabs a screwdriver and buries it into Lizard’s leg, he then stands and shoots her in the face. Then Lizard blows a hole in Ethel’s chest causing her to fly backwards. Lizard and Pluto run off with the baby in arm.
Doug and Bobby return to the trailer after Bob dies, to find Lynn and Ethel barely alive. Lynn and Ethel die shortly after and Brenda is hysterical. Beast kills Goggle who was working as a lookout for the other mutants. The next morning Doug and Beast set off to rescue the baby. Doug finds an abandoned nuclear testing town, much like Nuke Town from Call of Duty Black Ops. Doug is knocked out by Big Mama and is put into an icebox full of body parts. Doug comes to and escapes the icebox to continue his search. Doug comes across Big Brain, a mutant that is confined to a chair, who is horribly disgusting and tells Doug of the grotesque family’s origin. Pluto then attacks Doug; it is worth noting that Pluto is enormous and basically a mix of Jason Voorhees and Sloth from The Goonies. Pluto basically beats the shit out of Doug, who is kind of a pansy anyway. Pluto chops off a few of Doug’s fingers, and then Doug distracts Pluto and kills him with an axe.
Doug then kills another mutant named Cyst, while looking for the baby. After ordering Lizard to kill the baby, Big Brain is killed by Beast. Beast is a badass and I was so happy when he killed that douchebag Big Brain, he’s horribly disgusting and arrogant. Lizard takes a cleaver and tries to kill the baby only to find that Ruby has taken her and she runs off. Back at the trailer Brenda and Bobby rigged up a trap for a mutant with propane and propane accessories. The trailer explodes horribly wounding the Jupiter. They walk up the wreckage and Jupiter is laughing until Brenda buries a pickaxe into his eye. Doug sees Ruby running off with the baby, so he follows her. Doug catches up to Ruby, suddenly Lizard attacks Doug and they start fighting. Doug beats the crap out of Lizard and goes to get the baby from Ruby. Ruby hands the baby over and you see Lizard stand up and aim the shotgun at Doug, when Ruby runs over and tackles Lizard off a cliff and they fall to their death. Doug walks back to the trailer with the baby and Beast. They all hug and celebrate their victory, when suddenly the camera shifts to a binocular sight of an unknown mutant.
This is a very intense and brutal movie. The gore is pretty awesome and the acting is solid. I like how the crazy dubstep style music plays at intense moments; it is perfect for the scenes. It is cool how Doug goes from being a candyass to a badass when his daughter is in peril. It was sad seeing Ruby die because she had a kind heart unlike the others and she was a cute little girl in a mutated deformed kind of way haha. The setting is awesome because being trapped in the desert miles from civilization is a very demoralizing situation, adding the fact that blood thirsty mutants are hunting them down is just plain nuts. I only wish that this movie would’ve been a stand alone, the sequel remake of the sequel was god awful. I saw that one in the theater and the acting was the worst I have ever seen in a theatrical release. The Hills Have Eyes is quite possibly the best movie remake of the 2000s, well it is probably the best, but it doesn’t have much competition. I would give this movie a B+. It is well shot, the music is awesome, the acting is solid, the atmosphere is good but it is not perfect. Some of the scenes, the violence is just over the top and unbelievable. I was kind of surprised there wasn’t any nudity in the movie, both Lynn and Brenda are pretty hot, plus with the time this movie was made it seems that nudity would have been involved but I won’t knock it for that. Another thing that drove me nuts was the fact that Bob and Bobby both just fire shots off into the dark at nothing, and Bob was a retired military officer or police officer wasn’t he? I hate that trope in horror movies! See what you shoot people c’mon! Lastly, a interesting fact I found online is that Bob played by Ted Levine, did the voice of Rusty Nail on the Paul Walker movie Joy Ride, so I’ll use that as a connection to The Fast and The Furious haha.
