The Hills Have Eyes

[Failed Bridge 0]

it makes me curious as to what some of you guys actually consider to be a good horror movie

I listed a couple, but my favorite horror movie ever is the original Dawn of the Dead.

[cbacon 0]

Emily de Ravin's character is raped.

 

Emily no

[Guest jm29195]

I saw this last night, as to whether it sucked or not, when I go to see a horror film, I am satisfied as long as there are jumpy bits, bloody bits, and so on in it, this filled most of that criteria, plus it had mutants for added bonus, and the burning alive and beng locked in a freezer full of body parts were both something you don't see very often in more recent horror films....

[Guest El Satanico]

I wouldn't nominate it as one of the greatest horror films ever, but I liked it alot. It was brutal and intense, which is exactly what's expected of movies like this.

 

I'd rank it higher than the original.

 

I want to see a spin off with just Doug and Beast roaming the southwest deserts looking for more "problems".

[Guest Coffey]

If you do plan on watching it, please, at least watch the original FIRST.

[nl5xsk1 0]

If you do plan on watching it, please, at least watch the original INSTEAD.

EFA

[Angle-plex 0]

....on a side note I left actually thinking that some people on this board would lie or even love this film but of course the first post is "it sucked..don't waste your time"...it makes me curious as to what some of you guys actually consider to be a good horror movie

 

The original Texas Chainsaw is the same basic premise as this and is done 10000x better just because the last half of the movie isn't the main character beating the shit out of/setting complicated booby traps for Leatherface and the family. And Leatherface didn't get his ass kicked by a dog....

 

The scene in the trailer in this movie was wicked intense, but everything after that was dog shit. Many laughs from people in my theatre.

[Guest fanofcoils]

DannyIan (Danny of Apprentice 3 combined with Ian of Survivor Palau) was the only character with some charisma. The Ryan Phillipe boy character was annoying just like his clone, the dad's son, in Saw 2. Whatever the character with the glasses name was likable throughout the whole movie except when he was arguing with the kid in the trailer in the early part of the movie.

 

The movie was very boring in the beginning and apparently tried to tell a story about the occupation of each member of the family, but this is before the movie established an interesting storyline, so the structure of the movie at this point failed. After the family gets into trouble in the desert, the movie had some decent parts and then it went downhill until DannyIan killed the big zombie like creature in the room in the town after it was beating the crap out of him and then the zombie like creature outside.

 

A couple of points

- For some reason at the end of the movie I did not care when the family got back together but I really did care and enjoy when the guy with the glasses killed the first creature in the room near the end. I wonder if you guys have any reasoning for this? I think the movie didn't make you care about the characters but that creature was beating up the guy with glasses for so long I guess that establishes automatic sympathy.

 

- The creature with the shotgun outside that room which DannyIan kills next. I think the fact that they already showed this monster walking outside with his own weird personality/look made you care more when DannyIan kills him than if it was just another monster (like if it was the 5th one DannyIan kills with no trait/storyline at all about the monster).

 

Why was the kid and the guy with glasses so stupid about not going in the trailer when the family was attacked? I mean maybe they didn't hear the sister and mother being attacked but I thought they should have known better going away from the trailer for so long. I don't think they explained how the monsters got their monster traits, other by the assumption that when they were blown up in the mine, they got their traits.

 

I had no idea the family had 2 dogs, that was somewhat of a surprise to me after the first dog died and then there was a 2nd dog, anyone else thought of this? To wrap this rant/review up, I thought this movie was 2 out of 4 stars because it was somewhat entertaining and it had a really good scene that I mentioned but other than that there was a huge boring part in the beginning, the movie kind of went downhill in the middle, and the lackluster ending. And I wonder how the family gets out of the desert or if they just starve to death..

[SpikeFayeJettEdBebop 0]

I enjoyed it. Didn't scare me at all, but I didn't expect it to. Haven't seen the original yet, but I really enjoyed this one.

[dubq 0]

Why was the kid and the guy with glasses so stupid about not going in the trailer when the family was attacked? I mean maybe they didn't hear the sister and mother being attacked but I thought they should have known better going away from the trailer for so long. I don't think they explained how the monsters got their monster traits, other by the assumption that when they were blown up in the mine, they got their traits.

 

I had no idea the family had 2 dogs, that was somewhat of a surprise to me after the first dog died and then there was a 2nd dog, anyone else thought of this? To wrap this rant/review up, I thought this movie was 2 out of 4 stars because it was somewhat entertaining and it had a really good scene that I mentioned but other than that there was a huge boring part in the beginning, the movie kind of went downhill in the middle, and the lackluster ending. And I wonder how the family gets out of the desert or if they just starve to death..

 

Did you even watch the movie? They weren't monsters. They were deformed people who lived and worked in the mines and their "area" of the desert was turned into a nuclear testing site. Ie: intense radiation equals mutations and deformities. That and the fact that there were two dogs was evident from the beginning of the movie.

[Guest fanofcoils]

But the beginning of the movie was boring, so that explains why I didn't realize there were 2 dogs. I wasn't sure what they were, I knew about what happened to them, so I just called them monsters.

[reign 0]

Some of these repsonses are just hilarious. I find it hard to believe that someone could be so "bored" as to miss multiple scenes where two dogs bark in the window of the RV and then later tear off in to the desert and have to be drug back by the kid. These were not quick flashes of dogs here...they were full scenes well before Beauty is killed. Perhaps you should pay better attention to the movie before laying any more critisms..otherwise how else can anyone really take you seriously. I really am challenging some of you naysayers to put up some of your favorite horror films. The Ring? okay...good horror movie. Seven is just badass on a multi-genre level. THHE stands up as one of the better horror films of..well f' it I'll go ahead and say the last decade at least .

I really found the acting to be quite good and realistic...no.. with the chaos of the dad burning and screaming I doubt anyone was paying attention to what was going on in the RV...they did mind you a moment later..and the underlying theme of this film is one of utter chaos placed right in the lap of an unsuspecting family...these aren't trained soldiers so they do make some mistakes but I don't think that the son of a cop is uncapable of ever learning some boobytraps...hell after watching that movie I could make the same trap.

[Guest fanofcoils]

But the beginning as I said was bad/boring and I don't have a high tolerance for that so it was hard for me to pay attention and remember the 2 dogs. Luckily after the family members left the gas station the movie picked up.

[RedJed 0]

I wouldn't nominate it as one of the greatest horror films ever, but I liked it alot. It was brutal and intense, which is exactly what's expected of movies like this.

 

I'd rank it higher than the original.

 

My thoughts exactly. Some really shocking/intense/gritty/dirty moments with the trailer scene and others here and there, just unabashed violence which somehow fits the context of the twisted story in the first place. It just went hand in hand. Some of the stuff made me a little unnerved in it (and there just HAD to be some moments cut with the rape scene there), which doesnt happen to me much with these kind of films. So a job well done by Aja.

 

Much better to me than the original - with that said, has anyone seen the old sequal to Hills Have Eyes? Just ran into it on Netflix but have yet to check it out.

[nl5xsk1 0]

But the beginning as I said was bad/boring and I don't have a high tolerance for that so it was hard for me to pay attention and remember the 2 dogs. Luckily after the family members left the gas station the movie picked up.

If you weren't paying enough attention to catch simplistic plot points, don't bitch about the movie not giving you the plot points that you missed. They showed two dogs (conveniently named "Beauty" and "Beast" to make it easy to remember their names, and the number of them) repeatedly. And there was a whole opening montage about the effects of nuclear testing AND a scene when Big Bob sees the newspaper articles reviewing the fact that the miners refused to vacate their town and thus were subjected to radiation during & after the testing. Other than having someone sit next to you in the theatre and point these things out, they really couldn't have made it more obvious what was happening.

 

I'm looking forward to the director's cut more after seeing the theatrical release. Like RedJed points out, they likely had to cut part of the rape scene, and likely some violence, to avoid the dreaded NC-17 rating.

 

And how anyone was scared at all during this movie is surprising to me. Quick shadows running across the screen, and the subsequent <gasp> by the actor, isn't scary. It was a good horror movie, with lots of gore and violence (e.g. the gas station attendant's head after he shot himself) but it wasn't a scary movie in the slightest.

[reign 0]

I would tend to think that any guy over the age of 11 has a difficult time being scared of any "horror" film these days..in fact I'm more frightened by "The Corporation" then any Wes Craven flick(I know he didn't direct the new Hills movie)...but the gals in the theatre were definately jumping and screaming when something popped out...the tempo of the film just created that sense of impending doom and intensity that really kept you glued to the screen. The opening scene with the guys testing the radiation levels was a good way to set the mood if you will...I still don't know how after that scene where three people get the shit kicked out of them followed by loud music with pictures of deformities could leave someone so bored that they would subsequently miss some major plot points in the movie...one has to assume that this person was either talking with freinds during the movie and missed these points or fell asleep..

[reign 0]

I wouldn't nominate it as one of the greatest horror films ever, but I liked it alot. It was brutal and intense, which is exactly what's expected of movies like this.

 

I'd rank it higher than the original.

 

My thoughts exactly. Some really shocking/intense/gritty/dirty moments with the trailer scene and others here and there, just unabashed violence which someone fits the context of the twisted story in the first place. It just went hand in hand. Some of the stuff made me a little unnerved in it (and there just HAD to be some moments cut with the rape scene there), which doesnt happen to me much with these kind of films. So a job well done by Aja.

 

Much better to me than the original - with that said, has anyone seen the old sequal to Hills Have Eyes? Just ran into it on Netflix but have yet to check it out.

 

I haven't seen the sequel in many years but I do remember that I watched it before I saw the original film...from what I remember it features three of the survivors(the boy,Beast and Ruby, the mutant who helps the family) traveling with some MotorCross guys to test a super fuel and they just happen to stumble in to a new mountain refuge were the remainders of the family live....

 

one thing I did miss from the new movie was the names the mutants had...they called one of them Papa Jupiter but some of the others were alson named after the planets or Roman gods...

[theintensifier 0]

Seven is not a horror film.

 

And, I'm not even going to waste my time with this "movie". Looks lame, and predictible, much like most moives these days.

[nl5xsk1 0]

I actually kind of liked the new names for the mutants ... "Goggle" and "Lizard" were the two that stuck out in my mind. Not to over-analyze the movie, but one would think that in real life, the miners that remained would have still thought of themselves as relatively "normal" and thus would have had normal names. Why would a parent name their child after a planet or God, even if they'd been subjected to radiation (and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't all/most of the original mutants named after the planets & whatnot?)

 

I think normal names, with nicknames that were applicable to their appearance was more sensible and, even though I hate to use the word for this movie, realistic.

[dubq 0]

I haven't seen the sequel in many years but I do remember that I watched it before I saw the original film...from what I remember it features three of the survivors(the boy,Beast and Ruby, the mutant who helps the family) traveling with some MotorCross guys to test a super fuel and they just happen to stumble in to a new mountain refuge were the remainders of the family live....

 

Same actors, too. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089274/

[Stephen Joseph 0]

Lurker's question

 

Explain to me how, if this has been going on since the testing, why law enforcement never sought out the place. That bugs me.

[reign 0]

It is a known fact that the law enforcement agencies of Crystal Lake, Elm Street, Texas as well as the New Mexico desert are too busy with kids drinking and having sex than to concern themselves with a trifle thing like mass murder...besides...most of the people killed were city slicker outsiders with no business in their neck of the woods anyways...and we all saw what Michael Myers did to the cops when they decided to get involved....

[Guest El Satanico]

The sign at the gas station said "last stop for next 200 miles", and we saw no signs of the gas station being close to or in a town. They all appeared to be in the middle of no where, so the police probably aren't an issue. Besides, I don't believe anyone suspected it, so who's gonna investigate.

 

Those workers at the beginning disappearing will likely bring attention to the area, but that would just be a rescue mission now.

[nl5xsk1 0]

Lurker's question

 

Explain to me how, if this has been going on since the testing, why law enforcement never sought out the place. That bugs me.

In the movie, they had to cut through a mineshaft to get from the main road to the 'town' that the mutants had been living in. My guess is that their homes were far enough away from where people had been attacked and cars had been abandoned that the mutants would be low on the suspect list.

 

Plus, like El Satantico referenced, they're in the middle of nowhere ... with such a large area to cover, my guess is that the police presence is relatively minimal.

[Guest fanofcoils]

But the beginning as I said was bad/boring and I don't have a high tolerance for that so it was hard for me to pay attention and remember the 2 dogs. Luckily after the family members left the gas station the movie picked up.

If you weren't paying enough attention to catch simplistic plot points, don't bitch about the movie not giving you the plot points that you missed. They showed two dogs (conveniently named "Beauty" and "Beast" to make it easy to remember their names, and the number of them) repeatedly. And there was a whole opening montage about the effects of nuclear testing AND a scene when Big Bob sees the newspaper articles reviewing the fact that the miners refused to vacate their town and thus were subjected to radiation during & after the testing. Other than having someone sit next to you in the theatre and point these things out, they really couldn't have made it more obvious what was happening.

 

The beginning of the movie was HORRIBLE for me, it had terrible structure as I mentioned. There was none/little information about where the movie was going in the beginning unless you already knew what the movie was about. I did not know what the movie was about when I went to see it other than it was a horror movie. The beginning of the movie failed to have an interesting story connected with the characters so I couldn't pay attention to what was going on, it was super boring and it is hard to pay attention to something when you are so bored with it. I wonder if anyone experienced this too with the beginning of this movie? Luckily the movie finally developed a story when the family got lost in the desert. And I did see those newspaper articles but I didn't get a clear message that because of the radiation, they turned into mutants, until it was obvious they were mutants or monsters as I called them because of the radiation.

[Vyce 0]

How can you not get a clear message about the radiation causing the mutation? The opening credit montage was nothing BUT photos of atomic bomb testing, coupled with photographs of human birth defects. Anyone paying the SLIGHTEST bit of attention to the film could have easily connected the two. Did you just sleep through the movie up until the part where people started to die?

 

Anyway, I saw this flick, and I enjoyed it. Not a great horror film, but an entertaining one for what it was. They didn't ease up on the gore or violence, but after a while it got a bit desensitizing. I was surprised that the yuppie jew who turned into the hardass revenge killer was played by Pyro from X-Men 2.

 

And oh yeah, who couldn't love the dog in this? That dog kicked ass. You have to love a dog that enjoys mauling mutants.

[Guest fanofcoils]

The beginning of the movie before the vehicle accident had no story so I couldn't focus entirely on it. Just like many movies (Serenity I'm pointing to you), this movie had storytelling issues.

[dubq 0]

The beginning of the movie before the vehicle accident had no story so I couldn't focus entirely on it. Just like many movies (Serenity I'm pointing to you), this movie had storytelling issues.

 

I beg to differ: you're either an idiot or Uwe Boll in disguise - in which case, you're still an idiot.

 

PS - Serenity is a movie. It can't hear you, or see you pointing at it. Thank you, drive through.

[dubq 0]

And oh yeah, who couldn't love the dog in this? That dog kicked ass. You have to love a dog that enjoys mauling mutants.

 

Totally. My friends and I were rooting for Beast the entire time. It seemed like he got in on more killin' action than any of the humans.

[RedJed 0]

To Coils - the main juggernaut of the story was CLEARLY explained in the opening montage. Anyone seeing even one trailer of the film and then the film itself could grasp what the story was going to be about. I was high as a kite after smoking a blunt before the movie, had not even seen the original before this (saw it directly afterwards) and yet I still got it and understood things in its' entirety. Just admit you didnt like it, thats fine, but to say it made no sense is fucking asanine.

 

BTW, read something recently that the directors cut DVD will have about 2-3 extra minutes that was cut to maintain the R rating. Good to see a "unrated" DVD coming out that actually is more lude and crude than the R rated version and not just some extra pointless scenes thrown in there to make it "unrated."