French director Alexandre Aja turned some heads with his 2003 flick, Haute Tension and his gritty approach to the material and knack for staging suspense sequences makes his choice to direct the remake of Wes Craven's 1977 cannibal family opus The Hills Have Eyes a solid one. And damned if he doesn't start the thing off with a bang as three Government soldiers in Hazmat suits are brutally slaughtered by someone sporting a pickaxe. Turns out this little spot in the New Mexico desert was once the testing site for nuclear weapons and that when the miners who lived around the area refused to sell their land and move from their homes the almighty government decided just to run over top of them and do their testing anyway resulting in a clan of mutated, murderous beings.

This spells bad luck for Bob (Ted Levine, years separated from playing Buffalo Bill in The Silence Of The Lambs) who's decided to drag along his wife, teenage son, and two daughters (as well as the one daughter's baby and husband - who he really doesn't like to much) on a cross country trip to San Diego to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Along the way they stop in at an out-of-the-way gas station where they are given directions by the somewhat shady attendant (Tom Bower) who tells them all about a "shortcut" to get them back on the freeway. Of course, our attendant isn't as helpful as he seems and the family ends-up on a desolate stretch of highway where they become prey for the group of mutant cannibals who live nearby in a nuclear testing village deserted by the government years ago.

After a leisurely build-up that gives us a chance to meet our main characters (including Aaron Stanford, who has the task of being much abused son-in-law Doug, a character who is basically beaten, tortured, and put through sheer Hell for the second half of the movie), Aja begins to kick our ass all over the place as he ramps the film up to a grueling pace not giving you a chance to breathe until the very end (and a finale which, unfortunately, has some really out-of-place heroic music and dumb actions by our hero-by-default Doug).

Aja manages to unsettle us at various times, such as when he intercuts the burning alive of the family matriarch Bob with the suggested rape of younger daughter Brenda (Emilie de Raven). Aja also delivers in the thrills department giving the audience plenty of "jump moments" (a few of which actually worked on me - and I barely jump at movies anymore) and Doug's assault on the test village to retrieve his baby offers up enough excitement and brutality involving an axe and American flag that if you gave up on the movie due to its slower start you'll miss out on it.

The Hills Have Eyes does something most remakes (or "re-imaginations" as they're calling them these days) can't do and actually manages to surpass Craven's original. In fact, it almost makes the original movie look tame in comparison - and while using the nuclear testing as a plot point makes things a bit more logical, it's too bad they didn't stick with the inbred family angle as it would've rooted the movie more in reality. The mutant and gore effects by maestro's Howard Berger and Gregory Nicotero are as top notch as you'd expect, the acting is solid across the board, and Aja delivers some great photography of the desert landscape while keeping his camera constantly moving to help build up tension. On top of that, Aja's script (that he co-wrote with his Haute Tension co-scripter Gregory Levasseur) hits all the notes of "survival of the fittest" and "revenge" that drove Craven's original movie as well.

As it stands, three months into the year, The Hills Have Eyes is the best horror movie I've seen to this point - but judging on what's come down the pike so far this is going to be one Hell of a 2006 for us horror freaks with Hostel and Slither also helping re-invigorate our favourite genre. (Chris Hartley, 4/5/06)

Directed By: Alexandre Aja.
Written By: Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur.

Starring: Aaron Standford, Dan Byrd, Emilie de Raven, Kathleen Quinlan.