Hills Have Eyes, The

Film Threat Heidi Martinuzzi

When Aja really starts in on the brutal slayings, he spares no one any comfort at all.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

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.

The New York Times Nathan Lee

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.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

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

Boston Globe Erin Meister

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.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Almost 30 years later, it's just as primal.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

French up-and-comer Alexandre Aja's full-bore do-over is a shockingly successful update of a seminal 1970s shocker.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

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

Variety Robert Koehler

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.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Aja's version, while a killer ride in its own right, never manages the nagging subtexts Craven so handily injected into the proceedings. It's a topnotch nightmare, but this time you wake up.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Though this new Hills is both scarier and smarter than 95 percent of the other horror product out there, it's also indicative of everything that's wrong with horror movies today.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

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.

Empire Chris Hewitt

Fans of the original won't be disappointed, but ultimately it's just another decent, arguably unnecessary, '70s horror remake.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

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.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

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

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Alexandre Aja directs in full glop mode and the cast includes a few performers, including Ted Levine (from "Monk"), Robert Joy, and Kathleen Quinlan, who probably wish they were elsewhere.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Some may condemn this gruesome, heartless exercise, but I prefer to savor the irony: three years after the Francophobia that accompanied Operation Iraqi Freedom, every bonehead in America will be lining up to see a Frenchman's movie about subhuman hillbillies.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

As with all ensemble horror movies, your first challenge is to guess which of the Carter kin will survive to destroy the creatures killing them, and in what order the family members (and their pets) will fall.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

There are scenes that may make your stomach feel uncomfortable for a moment but rarely stories that will upset your equilibrium.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

This slick, sick remake of the 1977 Wes Craven cult shocker is more of a glum bummer than a horror show.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Thanks to assured direction and a fine cast, Hills isn't terrible, only terribly unnecessary.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

The net effect would be doze-inducing if in fact the Dolby didn't attempt to wake the dead.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It is not faulty logic that derails The Hills have Eyes, however, but faulty drama. The movie is a one-trick pony.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The ratings board gets all twisted up about sex and skin, yet it cannot give you or your kids enough ax blades to the cranium. This week's evidence: the remake of the old Wes Craven horror item, The Hills Have Eyes, which should not be rated R. It should be rated NC-17, or ITTS-OW, which stands for Is This Thing Sadistic, Or What?

USA Today Claudia Puig

Nothing is right about this ridiculous horror schlockfest.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

An orgy of bloodletting and dismemberment that's more monotonous than shocking. Aja and Levasseur are to splatter what Liberace was to rhinestones: practitioners of gaud.

New York Post Kyle Smith

These man-eaters are deadly, mainly in their ability to bore you to death.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Aja's stomach-churning remake (produced by Craven) follows the original with frightening fidelity, amping up the barbarity from a nine (on the 1-10 scale) to a 12.