Themes: Nightmare Vacations, Cannibals, Survival in the Wilderness
Main Cast: Aaron Stanford, Kathleen Quinlan, Vinessa Shaw, Emilie de Ravin, Dan Byrd
Release Year: 2006
Country: US
Run Time: 107 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Alexandre Aja directs this remake of Wes Craven's film The Hills Have Eyes. In this update, a family is taking a cross-country road trip when their trailer breaks down, leaving them stranded in the desert of New Mexico. There, they find themselves under attack by the savage "hill people," who were deformed by radiation during nuclear testing. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
Review
The year was 1977 and the the Vietnam War had just ground to a slow and painful halt. The definition of "family" in America was changing as shell-shocked troops -- considered "lucky" by the naïve for having survived the horrific atrocities viewers at home only glimpsed on the nightly news -- were attempting to return to their families and loved ones and make sense of life in the serenity of the suburbs. But there was no going back; America had changed, and after two excruciating world wars and an extended quagmire in which the nation's youth were fed into the war machine and spat out in chunks, the culture of violence was flowing through her veins like an all-consuming disease. Ambitious horror filmmaker Wes Craven had absorbed the death and destruction that had become too much to bear for the numbed masses, and proceeded to shatter the senses of moviegoers with the boundary blasting sadism of Last House on the Left. As horror fans ached with curiosity to see what terrors he would bring to the screen next, Craven was cooking up a nihilistic tale of raw survival set against the scorching sun of the Nevada desert. Politically, Craven's sophomore vision personified the growing chasm between the right and the left while simultaneously serving to explore the differences between where we thought we were as a culture, and the contradictory reality so painfully obvious to anyone who still had the stomach to keep up with current events.
Flash forward to the year 2006 and another war is going on. This time it's the "war on terror" and, much like its mid-20th century counterpart, it seemed to have no end in sight. Over in Hollywood the remake trend was on fire, and whose catalogue better to raid than Hollywood horror franchise factory himself, Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream creator Wes Craven? Fresh-faced French filmmaker named Alexandre Aja's had just delivered what many considered to be one of the most unforgiving mainstream horror efforts in the last decade, and he needed a winning follow up to cement himself as a true master of the genre. Though the first half of the new The Hills Have Eyes seems to follow Craven's original screenplay almost to the letter -- including the harrowing initial raid on the family caravan that nearly recreates the original atrocity shot for shot -- the heavy handed second half takes an ill-advised turn off the main road to offer a none-too-subtle commentary on the destructive capabilities of the American machine that paints in broad, reactionary strokes where a steady, subtle hand may have been a bit more effective.
In terms of surface aesthetics, Aja's flick is retro-hip thanks to Maxime Alexandre's hyper-saturated palate, Daniel Glicker's throwback costume design, and Alessandra Querzola's sparse sets. Composers Tomandandy's unconventional use of discordant, tune-bent strings is strikingly effective in creating a mood of ill-ease early on before inexplicably, and somewhat tragically, swelling to an overbearing eagre of faux-triumphant horns in the final scenes. On the civilized side of things, the performances are generally strong thanks in large part to Ted Levine's turn as the jingoistic, praise-the-lord and-pass-the-ammo patriarch, a pacifist-to-pit bull transformation by unrecognizable X-Men alum Aaron Stanford, and a nurturing, heart-rending show by matronly Kathleen Quinlan, whose suffering at seeing her family butchered before her very eyes is only the beginning of her agonizing trauma.
In the end though, Alexandre Aja wants it both ways; he wants to remain staunchly faithful to the original while altering the proceedings to take on new meaning in a new era, and he wants to turn in an inventive, viscerally grating, nuevo-grindhouse epic that will subvert the multiplex experience while simultaneously getting sucked into the creatively exhausted remake trend. While the resulting film could certainly be considered reprehensible in its relentless pursuit to torment the audience, the exact same could be said for Craven's original back in 1977 -- and for viewers looking to be run through the ringer, the new Hills certainly obliges with ruthless abandon. For audiences who hunger for some form of intellectual nourishment amongst the bloody chaos, however, Aja's ponderous, ham-handed evisceration of the American swagger may prove a bit too bombastic to truly drive home his point effectively. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Tom Bower - Gas Station Attendant; Billy Drago - Papa Jupiter; Robert Joy - Lizard; Ted Levine - Big Bob Carter; Desmond Askew - Big Brain; Ezra Buzzington - Goggle; Michael Bailey Smith - Pluto; Laura Ortiz - Ruby; Gregory Nicotero - Cyst; Cedric Proust; Maxime Giffard - first victim; Maisie Camilleri Preziosi - Baby Catherine; Ivana Turchetto - Big Mama; Judith Jane Vallette - Small Deformed Child; Adam Perrell - Small Deformed Child
Credit
Gregory Levasseur - Art Director, Tamara Marini - Art Director, Cody Zwieg - Associate Producer, Richard Phillip - Boom Operator, Mark Bennett - Casting, Daniel Glicker - Costume Designer, Mohamed Boukhouima - Costume Designer, Adil Abdelwahab - First Assistant Director, Alexandre Aja - Director, Franklin Vallette - Second Unit Director, Baxter - Editor, Frank Hildebrand - Executive Producer, Jack Bricker - Hair Styles, Salima Ouled Dahhou - Hair Styles, Mark Boley - Hair Styles, Ron Pipes - Hair Styles, Noureddine Aberdine - Location Manager, Said Dahdouh - Location Manager, Ridouane Inzig - Location Manager, Inigo Lezzi - Line Producer, Tomandandy - Composer (Music Score), David Franco - Musical Direction/Supervision, Mariam Lee - Makeup, Gregory Nicotero - Makeup Special Effects, Howard Berger - Makeup Special Effects, Sasha Melaranci - Camera Operator, Joseph C. Nemec III - Production Designer, Maxime Alexandre - Cinematographer, Fatah Lahouissi - Production Manager, Wes Craven - Producer, Peter Locke - Producer, Marianne Maddalena - Producer, Samy Layani - Producer, Digital Filmworks - Recording, Pacific Title & Art Studio - Recording, Dane A. Davis - Sound/Sound Designer, Richard Adrian - Sound/Sound Designer, Danetracks, Inc. - Sound/Sound Designer, Florian Robin - Stunts, Guiomar Alonso - Stunts, Youssef Beddelem - Stunts, Ali Benbadi - Stunts, Mjid El Gachi - Stunts, Othman Illyassa - Stunts, Phillipe Lesson - Stunts, Noureddine Ouihya - Stunts, Aîssa Ouyous - Stunts, François Poirier - Stunts, Malika Saïd - Stunts, Mustapha Touki - Stunts, Cedric Proust - Stunts Coordinator, Franco Ragusa - Special Effects Supervisor, Frank Hildebrand - Unit Production Manager, Alexandre Aja - Screenwriter, Gregory Levasseur - Screenwriter, Erik Wilson - Second Unit Director Of Photography, Mustapha Amiri - Production Assistant, Mhamed Belemsaggam - Production Assistant, Redouane Fihi - Production Assistant, Nazha Kajja - Production Assistant, Driss Kharbibi - Production Assistant, Jamal Lahouissi - Production Assistant, Jamison Goei - Visual Effects Supervisor, Lmahjoub Boulmi - Animal Trainer/Wrangler, Alix Taylor - Executive in Charge of Production, Laurent Ben-Mimoun - Matte Artist, Carla Murray - Special Effects Editor, Bill R. Dean - Special Effects Editor, Bryan Watkins - Special Effects Editor, Dan Maddalena - Unit Publicist, Valerio Villalba - First Assistant Camera, Ionut Lupulescu - First Assistant Camera, Hassan Chrij - Grip, Marco De Philippis - Grip, Hamid Chayne - Grip, Lahcen Heraf - Grip, Abdellatif Lahouissi - Grip, Nazareno Savini - Key Grip, Sheri Ozeki - Music Editor, Tina Anderson - Post Production Supervisor, Ginette Mejinsky - Post Production Supervisor, Katryna Samut-Tagliaferro - Production Coordinator, Heidi Pavey Weis - Production Coordinator, Mark Fruin - Properties Master, Ezra Dweck - Re-Recording Mixer, Ken S. Polk - Re-Recording Mixer, Cheryl Leigh - Script Supervisor, Geraldine Berge - Script Supervisor, Olivier Agostini - Second Assistant Director, Jon-Luke Lourens - Second Assistant Director, Bertrand Gagey - Second Assistant Director, Shamiel Soni - Second Assistant Director, Dexter Locke - Second Assistant Director, Michael Gregory - Second Assistant Director, Mohamed Ali Aquermim - Special Effects Assistant, Ismael El Ghachi - Special Effects Assistant, Hassan Tib - Special Effects Assistant, Danilo Bollettini - Special Effects Coordinator, Lacey Terrell - Still Photographer, Mark Larry - Supervising Sound Editor, Laura Lefaivre - Visual Effects Producer, Frank T. Smathers - ADR Editor, Eric Thompson - ADR Mixer, Chris Navarro - ADR Recordist, Harry Pain - Art Department Assistant, Jerome Billa - Art Department Assistant, Yamani Bouhamdi - Assistant Chief Lighting Technician, Imad El Ghazi - Assistant Location Manager, Kawtar Bellafquih - Assistant Production Coordinator, Karim Haffad - Assistant Properties, Fehd Benchemsi - Assistant Properties, Nancy Barker - Assistant Sound Editor, Christopher Alba - Assistant Sound Editor, Alessandro Cardelli - Chief Lighting Technician, Zineb El Idrissi Mendili - Costumes Assistant, Julie Glick - Costumes Supervisor, Anna Lombardi - Costumes Supervisor, Nancy Capper - Costumes Supervisor, Kimberly McCord Wilson - Dialogue Editor, Eyoub Jallal - Electrician, Azeddine Mazil - Electrician, Mohamed Mkhantar - Electrician, Wannapa Sinthunawa - First Assistant Accountant, Sean Rowe - Foley Artist, Ginger Gary - Foley Artist, Solange S. Schwalbe - Foley Editor, Matteo Silvi - Key Make-up, Miriam Matejovsky - Personal Assistant, Carly Feingold - Personal Assistant, Tara Billik - Personal Assistant, Nanette Munro - Personal Assistant, Mehdi El Atlassi - Personal Assistant, Saadia Aalami - Personal Assistant, Soumaya Bellafquih - Personal Assistant, Leah Holmes - Post Production Accountant, R.C. Baral & Company - Post Production Accountant, Rojeanne Herbel - Post Production Accountant, Ibtissam Semmar - Production Accountant, Hanane El Amrani - Second Assistant Accountant, Ancuta Elena Iordachescu - Second Assistant Camera, Gregory Levasseur - Second Unit Assistant Director, Adrian Cancer - Storyboard Artist, Andrea Dietrich - Storyboard Artist, Omar Driouche - Transportation Captain, Mahjoub Nejma - Transportation Coordinator, Rez-Illusion - Visual Effects, Alessandra Querzola - Set Decorator, David Randolph - ADR Loop Group, Doug Burch - ADR Loop Group, Barbara Harris - ADR Voice Casting, Jamal Kandil - Cable Person, Michael Hatzer - Color Timing, Youssef El Idrissi - Craft Service/Catering, De Imperial Catering Services - Craft Service/Catering, Latifa Kherraji - Craft Service/Catering, Ryan Maguire - Foley Mixer, Gary Burritt - Negative Cutter, Albert Bailey - Production Sound Mixer, Hakima Hammoudi - Set Medic/First Aid, Gregory J. Taieb - Video Assist, Mark Scovil - Assistant Editor, Paris Manuel de Sousa - Assistant Editor, Ron Kelly - Assistant Foley Editor, Massimiliano Duranti - Department Head Hair, Mario Michisanti - Department Head Makeup, Robert Freitas - Mold Department, Ben Rittenhouse - Mold Department, Fabio Carussi - Carpenter, Pietro Petri - Carpenter, Roberto Rosati - Carpenter, Lorenzo-Maria Sartor - Carpenter, Akihito Ikeda - Painter (digital), Jeremy Aiello - Painter (digital), Andy Schoenberg - Painter, Tom Kileen - Painter, Cristina Cecili - Painter, Arianna Pascazi - Painter, Alex Diaz - Painter
