“This is not in the original,” says Wes Craven on his commentary, as (sensitive readers, turn the page now) a nuke-basted psycho sucks on the breast of a weeping mother he’s likely to kill. Craven – seminal figure of exploitation horror, bane of the BBFC, pusher of the bloody envelope – sounds, in his understated, goateed manner, appalled. Or perhaps he’s impressed. After all, how many filmmakers could shock the man who made The Last House On The Left? Hills was the follow-up to that long-banned 1972 revenger and while the chrome dome singularity of hick villain Michael Berryman means horror fans remember it fondly, truth is the ragged shocker was never untouchable. A huge admirer of it, Switchblade Romance director Alexandre Aja embraced Craven’s offer of the remake and the result is as impressively ferocious as it is desperately empty. The set-up’s the same (in-fighting family attacked in the desert), the style a slick-ick step away from the original’s enforced shonkiness, the pacing messy until Aja veers from Craven’s template by sending Aaron Stanford’s Dustin Hoffman-lite New Man out with an axe to discover his inner Neanderthal. Despite ugly exposition, here the movie matches the relentless high tension of the French filmmaker’s breakthrough, but it’s telling that the comprehensive extras focus so intently on special effects and production craft. As a producer blithely discusses costume difficulties during a flaming crucifixion and bloody rape, it underscores that while these Hills may have eyes, they don’t have a heart.
DVD Extras:
Making Of documentary
Writer/director and crew commentary
Producers' commentary
Music video
