THE HILLS HAVE EYES (2006)

 

(Director/co-screenwriter: Alexandre Aja. Co-screenwriter: Grégory Levasseur, billed as Gregory Levasseur.)

Plot: A vacationing family, lost in a desert, are hunted by mutants.

 

Review

Aja’s remake of Wes Craven’s 1977 shocker is a slicker, less raw, more-tightly scripted film. The savagery─malicious violence, rape and killing is still in-your-face and gory, and the underpinnings of national unease are still there. Also: this remake shows more of the nuclear test town and the automotive graveyard; and the remake is more overt in its political-divide commentary, e.g., Big Bob and Doug’s Right Wing/Left Wing exchanges are explicit in their political barbs—Ted Levine (THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, 1991) and Kathleen Quinlan, as ex-cop Big Bob and his ex-hippie wife, Ethel, represent Red State thinking; their daughter, Lynn (Vinessa Shaw) and her husband (Doug, played by Aaron Stanford) represent Blue State leanings. Lynn’s siblings, Bobby (Dan Byrd) and Brenda (Emilie de Ravin) aren’t solidly political yet. And of particular interest to the cannibals there’s Lynn and Doug’s baby.

Like Craven’s original film, inspired by Tobe Hooper’s THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974), there’s a steady build-up of small-but-unsettling events that, midway through the film, become more overt, terrifying and deadly.

Veteran actor Tom Bower is great as the “Gas Station Attendant”─ Bower, in this excellent cast, stands out in what might be one of the most rewarding roles in HILLS, as a man struggling with his conscience.

The mutant cast: Michael Bailey Smith (Pluto); Robert Joy (the lecherous Lizard); Laura Ortiz (Ruby); Ezra Buzzington (Goggle); Greg Nicotero, HILLS’s special makeup effects designer, played Cyst; and cold-gazed Billy Drago (THE UNTOUCHABLES, 1987) as the family patriarch, Papa Jupiter.

“Remake” is understandably a bad word in many movie-goers mouths, but this second-time-around take on HILLS is a well-made, timely flick worth watching if you’re not an originals-only purist, and willing to judge the 2006 version on its own merits.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE (2009)

 

(a.k.a  MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D; director: Patrick Lussier. Screenwriters: Todd Farmer and Zane Smith, based on John Beaird’s 1981 screenplay.)

 

Review

Harmony, a small mining town, Valentine’s Day. Miner Tom Haniger (Jensen Ackles, SUPERNATURAL, 2005-20) forgets to “bleed the [methane] lines” in one of his father’s company’s tunnels, and an explosion traps six men underground. One of them survives, Harry Warden─and he’s in a coma. Local newspaper headlines scream this information as they fly across the screen during the film’s opening credits.

One year later. Tom attends a party at the same mine (tunnel No. 5) where the accident happened. A lot of his peers are there, including Tom’s girlfriend, Sarah Mercer (Jaime King, SILENT NIGHT, 2012). Warden, who’s awakened from his coma and slaughtered twenty or so patients and hospital staff, dons mining gear and a gas mask, and, wielding a pickaxe, attacks those attending the mine party. Just as Warden’s about to kill Tom, the police shoot him dead.

Ten years later, almost Valentine’s Day. Tom, who disappeared after Warden’s attack, returns to Harmony to sign legal papers to sell the mine, still considered by many Harmonians to be the town’s economic lifeblood. He’s cagy about where he’s been, further alienating others, including his ex, Sarah, who’s married to one of their friends, Axel Palmer (Kerr Smith, FINAL DESTINATION, 2000), the local sheriff who has a secret or two of his own.

New murders occur─one of the victims a trucker named Frank (co-screenwriter Todd Farmer)─and the main suspect, of course, is Tom, who survives a second attack by The Miner). Tom begins an investigation independent of Axel, hostile toward Tom, believing him to be the killer. Meanwhile, the gory, splashy mayhem and attacks continue.

This remake of the 1981 stab ‘n’ pickaxe film wastes no time in its execution, and is notably different than its grim, atmospheric source film. The 2009 version has a slicker look (not surprising, since it was released as a 3D, “Real D,” movie), and cuts to the terror quicker─there’s also more suspense, nudity, gore, explicit violence and dead bodies, and The Miner’s murder style is more brutal, though just as creative. Conflict between many of the characters, especially Tom and Axel’s, are heightened, while director Lussier’s restive cameras add to the film’s roller-coaster-fast and source film-respecting storyline.

Additonally, Lussier and Cynthia Ludwig’s editing keep the movie tight and suspenseful, an effect furthered by Michael Wandmacher’s jump scare-punctuated score, Brian Pearson’s cinematography, and the film’s art/set design. The acting, across the board, is solid, including these notable players: Tom Atkins (THE FOG, 1980) as Chief Burke; Kevin Tighe as Ben Foley. Megan Boone (THE BLACKLIST, 2013-?) as Megan. Edi Gathegi (THE BLACKLIST, 2013-?) as Deputy Martin; and Marc Macauley (DRIVE ANGRY, 2011) as Riggs. Richard John Walters, billed as Rich Walters, played Harry Warden.

MY, like the notably different 1981 film that spawned it, is worth seeing, both aspire to do what a good splatter-genre flick should: entertain with R-rated gore, sex, delusion, and violence.