Synopsis

It’s the wedding anniversary of rugged Cleveland police detective 'Big Bob' Carter and his chatty wife Ethel and to celebrate, Bob’s asked his extended family to cruise to California with them, hoping the joys of the open road might help fuse their frayed connections. No one is particularly happy about it. Nevertheless, the entire clan piles into a weathered Suburban pulling Bob’s beloved ’88 Airstream trailer and heads west. Then, Big Bob takes a detour. Suddenly, the Carter family finds themselves in a desolate stretch of desert, where nothing seems to be alive for miles. When they run into a little unexpected vehicle trouble, they realize they are in dire straits, far from help, with a relentlessly sweltering desert sun overhead. But even as they fight to survive the deadly desert, a far greater threat emerges. The Carters soon discover they are not quite as alone as they first though.

What The Critics Say

"Torturing the audience is not the same thing as scaring them, and I'm not sure Aja can tell the difference." Rene Rodriguez MIAMI HERALD "Gore disciples rejoice: Alexandre Aja's remake of The Hills Have Eyes hits like a hot blood baptism." Dave Alexander RUE MORGUE MAGAZINE "The Hills Have Eyes isn't the kind of movie to go see with your family... or your mother... or with your prayer-warrior girlfriend." Kevin Carr 7M PICTURES "Aja confuses suspense with shock, sacrificing the former for the latter. it's a radioactive waste of time." Susan Granger MODAMAG.COM "... it is much better than most remakes, and one that remains true to the nature and intent of the original. Although campy and truly disgusting, it is also often fun and always scary: Wes Craven fans and horror junkies have much to enjoy here." Brian Duff FILMINK

"Anyone not conditioned by previous R-rated horror film experiences will probably be heading for the nearest exit after the first axe attack (with the half-dead victim burnt at the stake)." Des Partridge THE COURIER MAIL "The new Hills Have Eyes has little reason to exist, except to obey the law that every film from the '70s must be remade at least once before 2010." Loey Lockerby KANSAS CITY STAR "The body count is higher than the scriptwriters' combined IQ's." Jackie Loohauis MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL "New horror films, like Aja's, simply shock us with the blunt imagery of heads being axed or blown up, and of limbs being chopped or ripped off." Jack Mathews NEW YORK DAILY NEWS "This vivid but brutal remake of Wes Craven's 1977 cult favorite The Hills Have Eyes made me a little sick with its gore and extreme violence." Robert Denerstein DENVER ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS

The Inside Story He's known as the man who reinvented the youth horror genre when in 1984 he wrote and directed the classic horror shocker, "A Nightmare On Elm Street". Who is he? None other than Wes Craven. One man who knows him very well is Peter Locke who produced, financed and distributed the original "The Hills Have Eyes" in 1977. "He’s a terrific storyteller, a compelling writer and a wonderful director," says Locke. "He’s the master of the horror genre because he had early success in it and he’s figured it out probably better than anyone around." Back in those days Craven didn't have the big budget many films enjoy today. In fact the original "The Hills Have Eyes" had a budget of just $US325,000 and it was shot on a handheld 16mm camera. Money was so tight, Producer Peter Locke would pickup and drive the cast to locations. When wet weather hit the set the crew wore garbage bags for rainslickers. To get enough props to use in the filming of "The Hills Have Eyes", they scavenged from Tobe Hooper’s horror classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". The question most want answered is, if the original was so successful, why do a remake? "Because the original had been produced on such a minuscule budget, there were many aspects of the story I simply couldn’t afford to explore", Craven explained. "Fortunately, the new version has a much bigger budget so we were able to greatly expand the production’s scope and take more time and care in shooting." That also meant they would need to find the right director, " a rising young director to bring fresh perspective to the project." Cravens' longtime producing partner Marianne Maddalena provided the answer. She'd seen the film "High Tension", a blood-drenched tale of serial murder and mayhem that caused a sensation at the Toronto and Sundance Film Festivals. "We all agreed it was brilliant," says Maddalena. Cravens' keen eye for talent soon convinced him that Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseurs were just what the project needed. "With "High Tension", Alex and Gregory demonstrated a multi-faceted understanding of what is profoundly terrifying," comments Craven. "After viewing the film and then meeting the film makers, I knew I wanted to work with them." So what was Alexandre Aja's reaction? "Wes Craven was one of our childhood heroes," Aja notes. "We grew up watching all of his movies and that was really what got us into horror movies in the beginning. Greg and I actually bonded over one of his movies, "Shocker", and "The Last House On The Left" served as a huge inspiration when we made "High Tension". So given all that, we couldn’t possibly have been happier." But there was another reason as Aja revealed. "The idea of making a survival horror movie about a family and not a bunch of teenagers was very attractive," he said. "When you have a family like the Carters, you have an opportunity to explore so many different characters with so many different behaviors facing the danger. That was very interesting and allowed us to build some very different scenes with each of them. I think that members of the audience will each identify with the mother, sister, brother or son-in-law, and the experience is always more real and more disturbing when you really care for the characters." Once they were onboard Aja and Levasseurs set about rewriting the original story, timelining it to 2006. In case you're wondering, Craven was happy for the guys to rewite his original script. "Wes was a perfect gentleman and said, 'I already made my movie and I really respect your vision so I want you to make your own movie.' Instead, he asked us to find a new approach to the original," says Aja. "I think it was just a week later when we came in with some ideas about working the nuclear testing into the fabric of the story." One major aspect of the story is that it covers a very short time span. "When you’re dealing with a very short amount of time, just one night of action, you get a very interesting arc," says Levasseur. "You start at a point where everyone is clean and good looking and you finish with all the clothes distressed, covered with blood, and the people wounded, barely alive. The evolution is really big and I think it’s very exciting whenever there is such a big contrast between the beginning and the end of the film." And here's a twist. It seems Aja, like many cinemagoers hasn't been impressed with some of the recent horror remakes. "We disliked many of the remakes of classic horror films made in the last few years because they’re too much like music videos, too clean and not as scary and graphic as they should be," Aja notes. "With this film, we were able to make exactly the movie that we wanted to see." Here I must insert a warning. That is Aja and Levasseur's vision. It is a vision for those who love the genre. Accordingly, unless you are a true fan of the genre you'll find little to like in this remake because "The Hills Have Eyes" is aimed at a particular market segment. But back to the making of "The Hills Have Eyes". With a dircetor, screenwriters and producers in place, the next step was to find the cast members. The face of 'Big Bob' Carter will be a familiar one for fans of the television series "Monk" in which veteran actor Ted Levine played Captain Leland Stottlemeyer. "I liked this character a lot because he’s very real and very normal, which I think can actually be one of the biggest challenges for an actor to play," says Levine. "It can be kind of easy to play evil people because you can always justify their behavior. But to play a straight forward guy like Bob dealing with a set of moral ethics in the face of total fear was very interesting to me." Playing Levine's onscreen wife is Apollo 13 Academy Award nominee Kathleen Quinlan. "Horror is really the only genre I haven’t touched yet, so I just had to give it a try," she states. "I was also really impressed with Alex and Gregory, they are so young and so passionate about what they’re doing. I think they are visionaries." One cast member audiences will be cheering on is Aaron Stanford who is well known to audiences as Pyro in "X-Men 2". He plays 'Big Bob' Carter's son in law Doug Bukowski. "Aaron was a wonderful choice to play Doug," says associate producer Cody Zwieg, "especially because the audience relates so strongly to him right up front. Then, they have a chance to completely savor his powerful transformation into a man who will stop at nothing to get his family back." Doug Bukowski undergoes quite a change in "The Hills Have Eyes". 'Big Bob" treats him like crap but in the end it is Doug who salvages something out of this terrible experience. "Doug is completely changed by what happens on this night. In a matter of minutes, everything he thought he knew and understood about his universe is ripped open and turned upside down and he realizes he’s living in a kind of hell and he’s going to have to rise to the occasion" notes Stanford. "He becomes a kind of reluctant hero, but it’s really thrust upon him, and in a way he discovers the savage side himself." It all adds up to a hightension finale` that's sure to tickle the fancy of young audiences who are big followers of the genre. Asked why young people gravitate towards the scariest of movies, actress Emilie de Ravin has a theory. "I think human beings are drawn to extreme emotions, kind of like an exotic amusement park ride. If you can get your heart beating fast, if you can get pulled out of your normal every day life and into this other reality, it makes everything seem more exciting. And even if it scares you to death, you want to do it anyway." "The Hills Have Eyes" is sure to get plenty of hearts beating faster. The Verdict "I went expecting to see a film that would match the quality of say, "Dawn Of The Dead". Guess what! It wasn't, So folks, don't go anywhere near "The Hills Have Eyes" unless you're a big fan of blood-sucking, flesh-eating, gorefest films that feature horribly disfigured mutants who's IQ is so low the only thing they know how to do well is butcher innocent human beings. Best left to those who get their jollies off on low grade, poor quality, unimaginative crap! The warning to your average cinemagoer is: Steer clear! 1 STAR. On the other hand ..... Those who really do love this genre will have a cringingly good time and yes, in true style, a hero worthy of cheering on appears to save the day. Or does he? All will be revealed in this terrifyingly shocking remake of Wes Craven's 1977 cult classic, "The Hills Have Eyes". 3 1/2 STARS." Cast & Crew Bytes "THE HILLS HAVE EYES" stars .......
Kathleen Quinlan ["Nightmare in Blood", "Apollo 13" and "Event Horizon"]; Dan Byrd ["28 Days", "A Cinderella Story" and "Lonely Hearts"]; Emilie de Ravin ["Brick" and "Santa's Slay"]; Vinessa Shaw ["Eyes Wide Shut", "40 Days and 40 Nights" and "Melinda and Melinda"], Aaron Stanford ["Tadpole", "X-Men 2", "Spartan" and "Live Free or Die"] and Ted Levine ["The Silence of the Lambs", "The Truth About Charlie", "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Memoirs of a Geisha"] as 'Big Bob' Carter.
"THE HILLS HAVE EYES" was .......
directed by Alexandre Aja ["Over the Rainbow", "Furia" and "High Tension"]; screenplay by Alexandre Aja ["Break of Dawn" and "High Tension"] and Grégory Levasseur ["Furia", "Break of Dawn", and "High Tension"]; costume design by Danny Glicker ["Once We Were Strangers", "Pretty Persuasion", "Transamerica" and "Thankyou For Smoking"]; cinematography by Maxime Alexandre ["High Tension" and "The Last Drop"]; casting by Mark Bennett ["Monster's Ball", "Unfaithful", "In the Cut" and "Cursed"] production design by Joseph C Nemec III ["Another 48 Hrs", "Terminator 2", "The Getaway" and "Twister"]. Run Time 107 minutes Rated R18+ [AUST] Copyright ©2006 - Fox searchlight Films - All Rights Reserved Copyright Protected © 2006 - The Movie Pages & Impact Internet Services - All Rights Reserved