The Hills Have Eyes (2006) Dir: Alexandre Aja

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Watching a lot of horror films often means watching one's fair share of bad horror films along the way, and I was under no illusions that this Alexandre Aja remake of Wes Craven's 1977 horror film of the same name would be anything but that. I had not actually seen the original, but this version was far more available to watch, and clocked in nicely at around the ninety minute mark, so I ploughed on regardless.

I must say, I do respect the willingness to commit to the practical effects and makeup in the way that this film did. With that being said, none of it looked all that good. It felt like I was watching a B-movie from a couple of decades prior, and not a particularly good one either. In some respects this film felt very much right out of the 70's, which I didn't hate, but the execution needed to be there, and it wasn't.

The biggest issue that this film faced, though, was its truly awful writing. The first half played like a cheesy horror from the 70's, the second half played like a very poor 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' rip-off. Not only this, but the characters were unrelenting in their shallowness. The female characters were mostly relegated to being useless and emotional victims, whilst the male characters were brave and determined - it sucked. The film was boring, slow, and generally very bad.

As one might have been able to deduce from the quality of the rest of the film, the acting was also not very good. Nobody particularly impressed me, including the main faces; Aaron Stanford, Dan Byrd, and Emilie de Ravin, who all overacted to the moon and back. With that said, what those three provided was better than what the likes of Kathleen Quinlan, Vinessa Shaw, Ted Levine, Billy Drago, and Laura Ortiz, provided in their roles - it was a mess.

Overall, this was a pretty diabolical excuse for a film. Crikey, it was bad. In all honesty, the best bit about the film was the cool retro credits at the end, which I really did like a lot. The rest of the film was not up to scratch at all. Despite my negative experience with this remake, I do actually still want to watch the original, if only to compare. Whether or not I'll see that as worth the venture remains to be seen, but I can only hope it's better than this.