Having never seen any of the films in the
Hills Have Eyes franchise, I’ve now seen all of the films in the
Hills Have Eyes franchise.
I found the original rather mediocre, so it wasn't an auspicious start. I don't begrudge the film its continued cultural relevancy, but I didn't see anything here that earned it. Like
the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the film seems insistent on making all of the characters annoying beyond caring about any of them. The original and sequel certainly bear plenty of Craven hallmarks, like his obsession with unlikely booby traps, and both films feature the RL Stine-ish bon mot “human french fries.” Speaking of, the sequel,
the Hills Have Eyes Part 2, has a reputation for being so stuffed with flashbacks that even the dog gets one, but while the latter part is accurate, the flashbacks barely constitute four minutes total (if that), so their (over)use has been grossly inflated. The story here is even dumber than before, and the film is more of a slasher cash-in (with a bit of
Mad Max) than continuance of the tone of the first. But the goofier characters here made it far more palatable, especially the (blind!) Final Girl who wears a sweater adorned with the letter B even though her name is Cass. I wish I lived in a world where this actually was Wes Craven’s worst movie like its detractors claim, but I found it better than at least half of the films I’ve seen by Craven, and it’s only just barely a lesser film than the first.
Alexandre Aja’s 2006 remake carries over most of the plot of the original, but it is a nasty film, reframing many of the key character actions as antagonistic, and what it brings new to the table is despicable. All of the action sequences are filmed in the same unwatchable high speed framerate and are needlessly mean-spirited in their execution. Even worse, Aja’s film has an incredibly low opinion of its female characters: when things start going south, all are either worthless or rape and slaughter objects. The younger sister in the first film at least had the gumption to jump right into the booby trap plan. Here her equivalent character is sobbing uncontrollably ’til the MAN does what needs to be done. In the single most vile scene in any horror film I watched this entire month, one of the attacking mutants pauses in his rape and slaughter fest to feed from the breast of the nursing Vinessa Shaw. While this no doubt resembles Jeffrey Wells’ darkest Litrotica output, it is a grotesque objectification and needless provocation in the midst of
plenty of relevant reasons to seek revenge, &c
—and it is of course made even more repulsive given that Shaw is then shot point-blank in the head about thirty seconds later. That this and all of the other poor screenwriting excuses for motivation are baldly tapping into the worst potential prurient natures of audiences is only too apparent.
It is wholly characteristic of the film though. We don’t need to just see someone get burned alive, we have to see the flesh literally melt off the bones and the eyes turn white thanks to computer graphics (pun intended). When the totally pussified anti-violence Dumbocrat finally sees the light and becomes a totally awesome killing machine, he cements his change to the proper perspective by offing one of the assorted mutants with an American flag through the throat. I’m not kidding.
Things don’t initially look up in 2007’s
the Hills Have Eyes II (which is
not a remake of
the Hills Have Eyes Part II, though unlike the 2006 film it is co-written by Craven), as the film opens with a pregnant mutant giving birth and then being punched in the face while someone yells “Shut up, bitch!” Unbelievably, the film recovers from this. Of the four films, this is the only one that presents an intriguing premise not initially built on idiocy: a group of green National Guard trainees stumble into the mutant situation and have to band together with their meager combat skills as they navigate through the mines and cliffs &c. It’s standard issue action thriller stuff, but it has a proper sense of urgency, and the characters, while archetypal, are the most engaging of the series. I also liked little touches like how the Hot Girl who looks like Amber Heard is fortuitously nicknamed “Amber.” I
didn’t like the unnecessary, though mercifully brief, rape scene. What is the continued appeal here of needing to see a mutant sexually ravage a wailing innocent? That said, this is by far the only one of these films I ended up enjoying on the whole, though mostly in a 90s straight-to-HBO kinda way. It did not surprise me to learn that most fans of the series don't like this entry, as I don't like their series!
