The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

Yes, this movie is as gross, messed up, and disturbing as you may think. I was initially interested due to the director, Alexandre Aja. His last film was High Tension, which I've mentioned here before and was possibly the most intense thriller I've ever seen. And there are certainly similarities. Early on things are quite creepy, cause you just don't know when things will happen, or what exactly. Then later on in both movies, anything goes. In High Tension it was a crazy plot twist, and here it's someone going "Rambo" as my friend put it.

The film is set in the New Mexico desert. In honor of their 25th anniversary, the Carter's get the whole family together to take a cross-country drive to California. The father, played by Ted Levine, has a thing for the desert, so they take a rather long and dusty route. Bad things happen though when they take the "advice" of a crazy old gas station manager and turn onto a dirt road. Yes, there are people in those hills. For generations they've held hate for anyone normal passing through, for their ancestors had been subjected to radiation from government weapons testing. In a scene reminiscent of the last shot in From Dusk to Dawn, you see a bunch of old vehicles suggesting these ambushes have been happening for a long time. The family's truck and camper are driven off the road, and they have no idea what horrors await them.

This also reminded me of an infamous episode of "The X-Files", which was called Home I believe. That one dealt with inbreeders, but it was brutal and twisted, and you just knew something horrifyingly violent was going to happen any moment. No one with a weak stomach should see this movie. I don't go out there as a gorehound, but the most terrifying movies seem to work that way. And I'm looking for the terror, the dread, the scares. I like horror movies but only go to a small percentage of them. Yep, most are bad. This was a good one though. The family is quite likable, and includes Levine, Kathleen Quinlan (I know her from Breakdown), Emilie de Raven from "Lost", and Aaron Stanford, who was Pyro in X2 (and the forthcoming X3). I had no idea who would survive. There were some great cheap-scare-type moments. 2 or 3 actually made me flinch a bit, which is quite an accomplishment I might add. And there are some good moments of suspense where you can hear your own heartbeat. Not quite as effective as High Tension, but good enough to recommend for anyone wanting to see this movie.

Things may get a bit crazy near the end as the survivors fight back, Rambo-ish even, haha, but it's quite satisfying. And this movie easily earns my non-patented Bad Boys II Violence Warning. Gunshots, mining tools, beatings, dismemberment. All that stuff.