The Hills Have Eyes

THE HILLS HAVE EYES (2006) - Mar. 10, 2006
A well-made and engaging horror film about a family who find themselves under attack by a band of radioactively mutated freaks. Featuring some surprisingly good performances, the film perhaps spends a bit too long setting things up (there's probably about an hour of build-up) but that's a pretty minor complaint. The whole latter half of the film is really suspenseful and pretty much riveting, and features some pretty satisfying moments of gore (mostly involving one of the survivors turning the tables on the freaks). The opening was also really effective, probably one of the better horror movie openings. The ending, on the other hand, could have been better, though it was nowhere nearly as bad as the almost movie-ruining stupidity of the ending for Alexandre Aja's previous film, High Tension. ***1/2