Better of Remakes: "The Hills Have Eyes"

Hollywood remakes tend to get a bad rep because they're assumed to be lazy attempts at creativity, and an effort to destroy the original. And while I'm not a movie buff, to my knowledge, I can say the early 2000's was a decade of remakes, and real terrible ones too.

Recreations of classic, older films never bothered me but I can enjoy a film for what it is and what's presented. If I felt I wasn't interested however, I just wouldn't watch it. Kinda how I've never watched the Friday the 13th remake or the Halloween remake. Not that I won't watch it; but the interest just isn't there yet, and the expectation of disappointment is partly the reason.

But anyway, when I reflect on horror films with terrible remakes, I remember one horror film remake that I enjoyed; I enjoyed it in every respect. Funny enough, I didn't even know it was a remake until I recall looking up filming locations for the film and two movie titles with different release years came up; the '76 original and the '06 remake. The Hills Have Eyes is pretty self-explanatory. It's an amazing film from beginning to end. Summarizing the film's plot, it's based around a stranded family being terrorized by a deformed clan of a destitute family in the middle of a desert. It’s probably one of the few films where mutant, deformed-like characters aren’t zombies, but are actually a direct historical result of atomic test bombings.

The first film was created and directed by Wes Craven and released in 1977. A remake would be released in 2006, same plot and everything. But it is far more superior to the original, for many reasons. The characters, to the background story, to the conclusive ending. In the original film, we're immediately introduced to the family, who they are, and where they're going. The immediate difference in the characters is how much more likable they are in comparison to the ones in the original.

Doug, the hero of both films, is an even bigger hero in the remake. In the remake version, the film explores a portion that was not part of the original. It's a portion that extended for a good part of the movie. And thanks to advanced technology and makeup, the destitute clan seemed more gory than they appeared, allowing the audience to immediately see that they were deformed physically. And one particular scene with the father of the family gave viewers background as to why and how these people came to be.

This is just one of the examples of a good remake. It may seem as Hollywood just picks a film, and places good-looking people as leads for a sucky movie, but not always. It can't always be a miss. It's not just the horror genre either, thrillers have seen the same fate too, like When a Stranger Calls or The Hitcher. And those films weren't bad, but compared to their originals...yeah.