The Hills Have Eyes

Director: Alexandre Aja
Year Released: 2006
Rating: 1.0

Sequel to the Wes Craven flick has significantly more violence and blood than the original - Aja, who directed the grotesque High Tension, has a thing for faces and clothes painted almost completely red - but sports a suitably action-packed third act, saving it from the junk bin of mindless, pointless horror films (it's a gigantic junk bin if you've been following along). The attempt at subtext is desperate - most of the family identifies itself as Republican (especially the pistol-toting father, played by Ted Levine) while one of the lone survivors, the son-in-law, is the crafty, determined Democrat - and never more obvious than when the Democrat dispatches a deformed baddie (blame the environmental murderers the Republicans!) with an American flag (the one, incidentally, that was lodged in Levine's head) ... but what else do you expect from a French director?