The Hills Have Eyes

Herald rating: * * *

Horror films should scare the living daylights out of you and also unsettle, unnerve and simply, gross you out. The Hills Have Eyes, a remake of the 1977 original by Wes Craven (A Nightmare On Elm Street, Scream), does a reasonable job at all of these.

The Carter family are travelling through the New Mexico desert on holiday and find themselves in a remote area previously used by the US Government for nuclear testing in the 1950s.

Back then many of the inhabitants refused to leave and now their psychotic, deformed descendants live here.

Lost star Emilie de Ravin is molested, quite revoltingly (forcing a few in the cinema to up seats and scamper), by these hideous mutant freaks. That, surely, gives her the perfect motivation to go berserk and kill, kill, kill.

But it's Doug, the slightly geeky, telecoms guy, who gets all the gory glory on his escapade to rescue his baby.

It's a good horror thanks to the eerie suspense, grotesque creatures, and gratuitous blood and guts, but we're still a long way from a great modern-day horror movie.

CAST: Emilie de Ravin, Ted Levine, Tom Bower, Dan Byrd, Aaron Stanford, Kathleen Quinlan, Vinesa Shaw
DIRECTOR: Alexandre Aja
RUNNING TIME: 107 minutes
RATING: R18, graphic violence and sexual violence
SCREENING: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley