The Hills Have Eyes (2006) Critic Reviews

Snobs may balk, purists will be appalled, but this new and exceedingly nasty version of Wes Craven's 1977 cult shocker is awfully good at what it does. And mostly what it does is make you feel awful.Read the full review

Even as he reinvents, Aja invents. He's clearly working on a big budget for his first American film and has been told he can do anything he can think of. Visually, the movie is wildly alive, full of sure touches.Read the full review

Hills is a far cry from its cheesy and predictable predecessor. "Gruesome" doesn't begin to describe the horrors that are revealed on-screen here.Read the full review

If studios insist on remaking classic horror films, this is definitely the way to do it.Read the full review

Besides proving to be a faithful mimic of Craven's filmmaking, Aja pours on the gore. But where Aja's version really leaps beyond Craven's both atmospherically and on the violence scale is in the second hour.Read the full review

This remake of the 1977 Wes Craven cult classic is brutally horrific. And that's a compliment.Read the full review

The Hills Have Eyes gets points for gore and general creepiness, and for occasional periods of tension, but it's not scary enough to linger long in the subconscious.Read the full review

Where Craven and his director, Alexandre Aja, may have miscalculated is in making the genetically damaged demons, with their flesh-potato foreheads and minimal verbal skills, into monster action figures who take vengeance on the world that created them. They're not scary because they're victims themselves.Read the full review

What good is a wallow in sicko sadism if you take all the fun out of it?Read the full review