The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

Censorship, if not dead, is clearly half buried after this film gaining wide release. It’s such a pleasure experiencing how people clinging to a mundane life, receive one kick in the face after another throughout the span of this movie.

There are rapes, graphic murders, a dog walking around killing and eating people, dishonoring of the american flag, and a lot, lot more. And this isn’t stylized «movie violence» but full-blown reality blowing out our eyes. I mean, it was intense, and they didn’t shy away from any taboo, at least not many. I just love that.

The sense of relative normality at the start of the film is turned totally on its head.

It had to be made by a Frenchmen or two (the director/writer Alexandre Aja and writer Grégory Levasseur) visiting the United States…

There has been released a number of brutal and real to life films like Hostel, Saw and others lately, but this is truly the icing of the cake at this point. And it surpasses the previous version of The Hills Have Eyes by far.

This is Aaron Stanford’s film, really. The transformation he goes through, throughout the story is just phenomenal, and if I believed an Academy Award was worth shit, I would say he should have received one. At first he’s just the run of the mill tamed civilized male, but that eventually changes dramatically. After a while he’s covered in blood and guts and brain matter. Absolutely amazing. This is a beyond great movie, but for a person as anti censorship as I, it’s an absolute gem.

Aaron (Pyro from the X-Men, or rather X2, totally unrecognizable) plays Doug, a young, indifferent husband, and son in law of a peaceful family lured into the wilderness by a tribe of «brutal savages» (no, it isn’t what you think, not quite). To survive each and every one of them has to go deep into themselves, and find whatever courage, desperation and «murder impulse» they possess. It’s great.

I have to admit I sat there in my chair, more than a bit surprised, jumping up and down in joy, as yet another person was added to the body count (and the way it happened). Don’t get me wrong (as they say, excusing themselves), Films don’t have to be violent for me to enjoy them, and I don’t really like Splatter movies much. They tend to be quite phony, not really that brutal at all, but this one is real.

And I «have to admit» that it a lot of moments in the course of the story appealed to my always good sense of gallows humor, such as when good ol’ Aaron buried the pole with the american flag in the skull of one of the savages…

It reminded the audience of all the unpleasant truths in the world, everything they don’t want to think about, everything they hide right there, under the surface of their lies, pretence and self-loathing. Everything was present in their faces as they were leaving the theater. This isn’t «gratuitous violence» (whatever that is), but reality head on, controversial art at its best.

So very, very gratifying.

Doug, burying the hatchet in one of his enemies...

So, what’s next? An imaginative artist like myself can easily imagine this film being even more brutal. There is a lot of unplowed territory and unused possibilities here.

I’m so looking forward to hear about squeamish reviewers, supporters of censorship, outstanding citizens and so called highly moral people choking on their morning coffee in the years to come.