by Spencer Hawken

Created on: February 19, 2008

In 1977 Wes Craven became a horror movie legend after bringing his tale of desert cannibals to the screen. The Hills Have Eyes, was released, censored, censored again; and then banned in the UK before being re-released 2 years later. In 2005 Wes Craven was confronted with the idea of re-telling the story, and although he wanted to be deeply involved he did not want to direct the tale. The question is; is the 2006 version as good as the 1977 version?

During a long hot summer a family decide to take a holiday on the road together, the holiday is also to celebrate Big Bob and Ethel (the parents) wedding anniversary. They stumble across a service station, where they meet the slightly backwards owner. Through an unfortunate series of events the owner has reason to suspect that the family may be on to his little secret; this is cemented by the fact that Big Bob reveals he was a police officer. Not wanting his secret revealed against his better judgement the owner directs the family on a short cut to their destination; fully in the knowledge that this family will never reach the other side.

Within an hour of taking the short cut the families trip is cut short by a horrific accident; luckily none are hurtYET!
Realising that they can get no mobile phone signal and the true isolation of their location Big Bob and Doug decide to go in separate directions to get help. Big Bob goes to the service station where he encounters the suicide of the owner, obviously burdened by some terrible secret. Doug finds a giant crater in the ground, inside it are dozens of deserted cars, what he does not see is the trails of blood smeared up the side of some of them. Meanwhile Bobby (Big Bob and Ethel's youngest son) looses one of his two dogs Beauty; which he soon finds unfortunately it has met with a nasty end; but before Bobby has chance to tell anyone of his discovery he has fallen down a massive hole.

The lucky ones die first!

Cast

Maxime Giffard .... First Victim
Michael Bailey Smith .... Pluto
Tom Bower .... Gas Station Attendant
Ted Levine .... Big Bob
Kathleen Quinlan .... Ethel
Dan Byrd .... Bobby
Emilie de Ravin .... Brenda
Aaron Stanford .... Doug
Vinessa Shaw .... Lynn

In a time when the American cinema is a wash with nasty remakes especially in the horror genre two offensive candidates being The Amityville Horror and The Fog, I was disturbed by the announcement of a new version of this classic tale. But when I heard that not only had Wes Craven had given his blessing to the venture, but

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>