|The Hills Have Eyes (2006): The Remake That Hits Harder Than the Original?

[Ambrose:] So in the early 1600s, somewhere along this absolutely jagged, unforgiving stretch of coastline in Galloway, Scotland — a single family just… vanished into a cave system along the coast.

[Jessica:] Okay.

[Ambrose:] And over the next 25 years, they hunted, murdered, and ate over a thousand human beings.

[Jessica:] Which is just an impossible number to wrap your head around.

[Ambrose:] It really is… And they did it without ever getting caught. Then, like 400 years later, this young filmmaker named Wes Craven is sitting in the New York City Public Library.

[Jessica:] Okay.

[Ambrose:] And it’s a totally casual afternoon. And he's reading the exact historical account of that cannibal family. And he realizes something genuinely terrifying… that the so-called civilized men who eventually hunted that family down were, in the end, just as brutal as the people they were hunting.

[Jessica:] Oh, absolutely. The retaliation was completely savage.

[Ambrose:] Exactly. So okay — welcome back. Drop whatever you're doing and just put yourself here with us. The rest of the world has gone totally silent. The only sound is the heavy, suffocating hum of the air conditioner barely keeping this studio cool right now.

[Jessica:] Barely, I might add.

[Ambrose:] It's trying its best. So, we’re surrounded by gear, the red light is on, and there is nowhere for you to go. So settle in. Get comfortable. Because tonight you are stepping into the radioactive, blistering, absolutely unforgiving wasteland of Alexandre Aja's 2006 masterpiece of cinematic cruelty… We’re talking about The Hills Have Eyes.

[Jessica:] And it really is a wasteland in every conceivable sense of the word. You can practically feel the irradiated grit in your teeth just looking at the poster.

[Ambrose:] The poster alone is iconic.

[Jessica:] Right. But to really understand what Aja pulled off here, you have to put the film in context. This thing landed right in the dead center of the mid-2000s extreme horror wave.

[Ambrose:] Yeah — that post-9/11 stretch where everything just got so bleak.

[Jessica:] Exactly. But this one stands completely apart from the pack. It's operating on a totally different frequency. So we're gonna dig into the chaos factor of this movie, look at how the scares are actually built, get into the absolutely punishing production history, and talk about why this story of American decay still hits the way it does.

[Ambrose:] I want to start at the very beginning… the DNA, because you genuinely cannot unpack the 2006 film without tracing it back to Wes Craven's 1977 original.

[Jessica:] No, you can't. It's foundational.

[Ambrose:] Right. But even 1977 isn't the real starting line. To find the true origin of this nightmare you have to go back to the legend of Sawney Bean.

[Jessica:] Ahhh, the Scottish cannibal clan.

[Ambrose:] Yeah. Like, tell us how does a story from 17th century Scotland become the foundation for a movie about mutant cannibals in the New Mexico desert?

[Jessica:] Well, the thing that connects them is actually pretty fascinating. The mythology Craven tapped into is a study in total, complete isolation. Historians still fiercely debate whether Sawney Bean was a real historical figure or just a piece of anti-Scottish propaganda cooked up by the English.

[Ambrose:] Okay — like a boogeyman story to make the Scots look like savages.

[Jessica:] Exactly. But the lore itself is the dark beating heart of this entire franchise. Sawney Bean and his partner, Black Agnes Douglas, completely abandoned civilized society. They retreated to the East Lothian region — specifically the Galloway coast — and moved into this massive hidden cave system that flooded with the tide.

[Ambrose:] Which is such a crazy tactical advantage. It keeps intruders out for half the day.

[Jessica:] Right. And in total darkness, over 25 years, they raised a clan of nearly 50 incestuous family members.

[Ambrose:] Which is just a logistical nightmare even before you get to the murder part.

[Jessica:] Oh, completely.

[Ambrose:] We're talking about 50 people living entirely off the grid. They aren't farming. They aren't going to the market. They are operating as an apex predator pack on the very edges of a society that doesn't even know they exist.

[Jessica:] And they survived through highly coordinated nighttime ambushes. They targeted travelers on the lonely coastal roads — swarmed them in the dark, dragged them back to the cave, and processed them.

[Ambrose:] Processed them?

[Jessica:] Yeah. It's grim. They pickled, salted, and consumed over a thousand human beings. For 25 years, they never once stepped foot in a neighboring village. Never bought supplies. Never had any contact with the outside world at all. The sheer scale of it is what makes the legend so sticky.

[Ambrose:] But the math eventually catches up with you, right?

[Jessica:] Yeah.

[Ambrose:] A thousand missing people creates a massive vacuum. At some point, someone notices.

[Jessica:] You'd think.

[Ambrose:] And the turning point of the legend is when an ambush finally goes wrong. A husband and wife are riding home from a fair. The Bean clan swarms them. The wife is pulled from her horse, her throat is cut, and she's basically eviscerated right in front of her husband. Just brutal. But he fights back — drives his horse through the attackers, uses his sword, and actually manages to escape. He brings this horrifying testimony to the magistrates in Glasgow, and word travels all the way up to King James I.

[Jessica:] And King James does not treat this like a local criminal matter. Not even close. He treats it like a full-scale military invasion.

[Ambrose:] He takes it personally.

[Jessica:] He really does. He personally leads an army of 400 men with trained bloodhounds. They track the scent of decaying flesh all the way back to the cave entrance. And when the soldiers breach it — the historical accounts describe a scene that just defies comprehension. Human limbs hanging from the ceiling like cured meat. Piles of stolen gold, clothing, jewelry from decades of victims. But the core philosophical twist of the whole story — the exact thing that caught Wes Craven's attention — is what happened after.

[Ambrose:] Because there's no trial. No due process for the Bean clan.

[Jessica:] None whatsoever. The retaliation was barbaric in a way that deliberately mirrored the cannibals themselves.

[Ambrose:] So, fighting fire with fire.

[Jessica:] Exactly. They didn't just hang the men. They severed their hands and legs and left them to bleed out in the dirt. The women and children were forced to watch before being tied to stakes and burned alive.

[Ambrose:] Jesus.

[Jessica:] Yeah. Craven looked at that historical record and saw a terrifying mirror. He realized that civilized society — when its basic sense of security gets shattered — is instantly capable of the exact same atrocities as the people it calls monsters.

[Ambrose:] Because it strips away the whole illusion of the social contract.

[Jessica:] It does.

[Ambrose:] And Craven took that mirror and built an A B test of culture for his 1977 film. On one side, the Carter family — modern suburban American comfort. On the other, the Jupiter clan — feral survival at any cost. But when you look at the two films side by side, Craven's original and Aja's remake, they feel like they were made in completely different stylistic universes.

[Jessica:] They really do. Craven's original is defined by pure, unpolished post-Vietnam grit. It's got this documentary-style, cinema vérité griminess to it.

[Ambrose:] And it looks so dirty.

[Jessica:] It does. Colors washed out, lighting harsh and natural, and the whole thing feels like you're watching degraded found footage of an actual crime scene.

[Ambrose:] So it’s like something you shouldn’t be watching it.

[Jessica:] Exactly. Then you shift to 2006. Aja had just directed the French extreme horror hit High Tension, and the studios hand him a $15 million dollar budget.

[Ambrose:] Which is insane for an R-rated horror movie at that time.

[Jessica:] Astronomical for a hard-R, incredibly violent horror film. And Aja delivers this hyper-stylized, slick, physically punishing action-horror upgrade.

[Ambrose:] And this is where horror fandom splits hard. You've got purists who argue that Craven's original low-budget constraints are exactly what make it terrifying. The original is incredibly rough around the edges — I mean, the mutant costumes literally look like discarded Halloween store clearance rack stuff.

[Jessica:] It really does. Lots of animal pelts and bad wigs.

[Ambrose:] Right. But that amateurish, dirty aesthetic gives it this almost snuff-film quality that gets under your skin. So the debate always comes down to — does a polished $15 million dollar budget actually water down the terror of a survival story?

[Jessica:] and that argument definitely has merit. When a film looks too glossy, your brain kind of subconsciously registers the artificiality. You recognize the cinematic lighting, the precise framing — and it gives you this psychological safety net reminding you it's a manufactured product.

[Ambrose:] And your brain goes, oh, this is just a movie.

[Jessica:] Right. The raw 16mm ugliness of 1977 strips that safety net away. It feels dangerous because the filmmaking itself feels unstable and rogue.

[Ambrose:] Okay but I have to push back on that really hard.

[Jessica:] Oh, really?

[Ambrose:] Yeah, because there's this real snobbery in horror circles that equates cheap with authentic. Like if a movie isn't shot for the price of a used Honda Civic, it's somehow a sellout.

[Jessica:] Okay, that’s fair. There's definitely that bias.

[Ambrose:] And in the specific case of Aja's remake, that $15 million dollar budget didn't water down the terror at all. I think it exponentially amplified the scale of the threat. Because with the funding for top-tier practical effects, massive custom-built sets, and huge location shoots, the 2006 film takes the threat from a weird family in the hills to a full-on sprawling apocalyptic nightmare.

[Jessica:] Oooh I see what you're saying. So, the scale is completely different?

[Ambrose:] Yes. And when the Carters break down in the remake, it doesn't just feel like they took a wrong turn. It feels like they drove off the edge of the known universe into a forgotten, irradiated circle of hell. The environment itself feels vast and inescapable.

[Jessica:] I do get the structural argument about scale — Aja absolutely uses the budget to expand the mythology and the physical footprint of the danger. But the core dynamic that powers both films is still deeply intimate. It's rooted in the friction between the characters, which Aja sets up brilliantly in the first act. He uses the claustrophobia of the family RV to map out the social tensions of the mid-2000s.

[Ambrose:] And the RV scenes are so incredibly tense before anything even happens.

[Jessica:] And we're introduced to the patriarch, Big Bob Carter, played with incredible weight by Ted Levine.

[Ambrose:] Ted Levine is amazing.

[Jessica:] He's fantastic. Big Bob is a rigid, retired police detective. Aggressively pro-gun, hawkish, views the world as a dangerous place that requires forceful control.

[Ambrose:] And Aja instantly contrasts him with his son-in-law Doug, played by Aaron Stanford. Doug works in cell phones. He’s soft-spoken. Explicitly anti-gun. Represents a progressive, pacifist worldview. And look — we need to be clear here. Aja and his co-writer Gregory Levasseur are not writing political op-eds. We're not taking sides on any of this either. We're just reading the text. They're using these distinct ideologies as load-bearing pillars for the story.

[Jessica:] Exactly. It's a framing device.

[Ambrose:] Right. They trap a hawkish, force-oriented worldview and a pacifist, diplomacy-oriented worldview inside a metal tube. And they're setting up a stress test — which philosophy actually holds up when civilization completely collapses?

[Jessica:] And it's an ideological pressure cooker. Because Big Bob believes the world is savage and must be controlled. And Doug believes the world is civilized and violence is some archaic relic. The brilliance of the script is that it doesn't pick a side in the RV. It waits until they're stranded in irradiated dirt — and then it systematically destroys both of their worldviews. And speaking of that irradiated dirt — the environment that tests them is just as crucial to the film's success as the characters themselves. To really break these people, Aja had to put them somewhere actively hostile. And he achieved that by subjecting his cast to one of the most punishing filming locations on the planet.

[Ambrose:] Right. Because the production of this movie is its own parallel survival horror story on it’s own.

[Jessica:] Oh, absolutely.

[Ambrose:] The film is set in the New Mexico desert. But they didn't shoot in New Mexico.

[Jessica:] Wait…they didn’t?

[Ambrose:] Nope. They shot the entire thing in the Ouarzazate region of Morocco.

[Jessica:] Really now? If I’m not mistaken that would of been in the absolute peak of summer. And we’re talking ambient temperatures hovering consistently between 120 and 130 degrees Fahrenheit.

[Ambrose:] Oh can you just imagine.

[Jessica:] Uh no, I can’t imagine that. Because that kind of heat would just fry your brain. Plus, the mutant makeup that was made with this heavy foam latex couldn’t handle that kind of temperature at all…It would basically slide off of their faces in real time.

[Ambrose:] That is just insane. I can’t even wrap my head around that.

[Jessica:] And the adhesive couldn’t bond to their skin with all that pouring sweat

[Ambrose:] Now can you just picture the misery of that. You're an actor covered in thick, claustrophobic, non-breathable rubber. And your vision is obscured by the contact lenses.

[Jessica:] Uh no, I can’t picture that…It’s just gross. And the contacts were probably the worst part of it all.

[Ambrose:] Oh I bet. And you're running up and down sand dunes in the Sahara Desert in 130-degree heat while screaming and swinging prop weapons. The exhaustion isn't performed — it's biological.

[Jessica:] No, it’s pure survival.

[Ambrose:] You have a point there. But, there’s this great behind-the-scenes detail about actress Ivana Turchetto, who plays Big Mama. The production required her to have a completely shaved head. She agreed — but only if they paid her an extra thousand dollars. And honestly, having a shaved head in 130-degree heat probably felt like a luxury upgrade. She should have been paying them.

[Jessica:] Right! She absolutely got the better end of that deal. But the heat dictated everything — the production schedule, the actors' stamina, all of it. Morocco did offer something beyond just a brutal landscape, though. It offered this bizarre, surreal infrastructure.

[Ambrose:] It did. Because it’s a massive filming hub.

[Jessica:] Exactly. Ouarzazate has dozens of international productions going on simultaneously. And the Hills Have Eyes crew was actually sharing their hotel with the cast of a TV miniseries adaptation of The Ten Commandments.

[Ambrose:] Stop! Wait a minute. Can you just picture the hotel breakfast buffet for a second.

[Jessica:] I can. And I bet the line for the omelet station felt like a literal forty-year trek.

[Ambrose:] Oh to be a fly on the wall that day. And you’ve got actors caked in dried fake blood, wearing grotesque mutant prosthetics, pouring their morning coffee, right next to actors in flowing biblical robes with fake beards playing Moses and the Israelites.

[Jessica:] And asking someone to pass the cream.

[Ambrose:] The whole image is just so 'out there'—it’s like a bizarre comedy sketch.

[Jessica:] It’s peak Hollywood surrealism. And the production team really committed to the immersive dedication to the whole thing. Aja himself is actually in the movie — there's a micro cameo, but it's so understated you'd never catch it unless you knew exactly where to look.

[Ambrose:] Wait, really? Where?

[Jessica:] There's a tight close-up of a hand holding a two-way radio during a suspense sequence. That's Aja's hand. He didn't want to break pacing to direct an actor for an insert shot — so he just grabbed the prop and did it himself. But the most enduring monument to the Morocco shoot is the gas station set.

[Ambrose:] Oh man. The gas station is a masterpiece of production design. Because early in the film, the Carters stop at this dilapidated, forgotten outpost where a deeply creepy attendant gives them the fatal advice to take a shortcut through the hills.

[Jessica:] Yeah, you never take the shortcut.

[Ambrose:] Exactly. Every horror fan knows that. And the set designers built this massive, rusted, authentic-looking Americana gas station completely from scratch in the middle of the Moroccan desert. And they built it so convincingly that while they were filming, actual local drivers passing by on the main highway would pull over trying to buy gasoline.

[Jessica:] Now that is so funny. Because they created a literal mirage of American infrastructure in North Africa.

[Ambrose:] It was that good.

[Jessica:] And the strange postscript to that is…the gas station was never fully demolished.

[Ambrose:] Sooo, it’s still out there?

[Jessica:] It’s still standing. It's degraded over the last 20 years and has basically become this eerie, dilapidated Atlas Obscura landmark for tourists brave enough to venture out into the desert.

[Ambrose:] Man, that is just crazy.

[Jessica:] But going back to the conditions of the shoot — it raises this fundamental question about filmmaking philosophy. There's a long-standing tradition, really favored by directors like Werner Herzog, that genuine physical suffering on set directly translates to a more authentic performance on screen.

[Ambrose:] Ah yes, the Herzog approach. Dragging the boat over the mountain.

[Jessica:] Exactly. When an actor is truly, biologically exhausted, the performance stops being a cognitive exercise and becomes an automatic response. So, let me ask this. Do you think subjecting a cast to 130-degree heat actually makes the final product better? Or does it cross the line into directorial abuse?

[Ambrose:] I do think there's a real difference between psychological abuse and environmental immersion.

[Jessica:] Okay.

[Ambrose:] And in the specific context of this movie, the environmental suffering is absolutely vital to what's on screen. When you watch the Carters trapped in that stranded Airstream, their faces are flushed red, their hair is matted, their clothes are plastered to their bodies with sweat. They look miserable. They're breathing heavy just sitting still. You cannot fake that specific physical reaction to extreme heat with makeup and a spray bottle.

[Jessica:] No, you can't.

[Ambrose:] And the actors are literally baking. And it reframes the whole narrative. The desert itself is the ultimate unbeatable enemy before the mutants even show up. And let’s be clear, you know damn well they had medical staff on hand if anything got really out of hand.

[Jessica:] True. And that’s a great way to put it. And you more then likely right about the medical staff being on set.

[Ambrose:] The environment is actively trying to kill them from minute one. The mutants are just the cleanup crew taking advantage of the sun's work.

[Jessica:] Oh, I completely agree with that. It's an indifferent, lethal landscape. And Aja doesn't just rely on the actors' sweat to convey that — he builds it directly into the visual language of the film through the camera work.

[Ambrose:] And the camera work is phenomenal.

[Jessica:] Aja uses this very specific fear hierarchy in how the film is shot. It operates on a neurological level. When the camera is aligned with the panicked, vulnerable victims…the Carter family. It goes handheld. Erratic, jerky, unstable.

[Ambrose:] And it creates this somatic empathy. You physically feel the panic.

[Jessica:] Exactly. Your inner ear practically feels the loss of balance. But the moment the perspective shifts to the mutants. You know when they're watching the family from the ridges, when Aja is building that slow-burn suspense — the camera locks onto a static mount.

[Ambrose:] And It just smooths out completely.

[Jessica:] And it glides across the desert floor. It's omniscient. And on a subconscious level, that smooth motion triggers something in the viewer… a prey instinct.

[Ambrose:] Wow.

[Jessica:] Because it tells your brain you're no longer experiencing the chaos of the hunted. You're sharing the cold, calculated vision of the apex predator. The predator owns the environment, and the camera reflects that total control.

[Ambrose:] So, it’s a predatory camera.

[Jessica:] Exactly. And it makes you feel completely exposed as a viewer. And the environment that camera is gliding through isn't just hot and desolate — in the mythology of this remake, it's deeply poisoned. Which brings us to the core conceptual upgrade of the 2006 film. The dark, cynical joke at the center of the whole thing. A violent destruction of the classic American nuclear family. That’s taking place inside a literal government-sanctioned nuclear zone.

[Ambrose:] That’s just insane to even think about.

[Jessica:] I know. And this is where Aja and Levasseur really diverged from Craven's original text. In 1977, the Jupiter clan were essentially feral mountain people. Their savagery was a product of isolation and bad genetics.

[Ambrose:] So, just backwoods weirdos, right?

[Jessica:] You can say that. But for the post-9/11 world of the mid-2000s, Aja needed a deeper, more resonant origin story. The threat couldn't just be localized. It needed systemic roots. So, the character designs were handled by KNB Effects Group, led by the legendary Greg Nicotero.

[Ambrose:] Oh. Nicotero is an absolute genius.

[Jessica:] And Nicotero made a brilliant, deeply disturbing artistic choice. He deliberately avoided typical Hollywood monster tropes. No exaggerated fangs, no symmetrical demon horns.

[Ambrose:] That’s because monsters are easy to dismiss. And real trauma is what lingers.

[Jessica:] Precisely. They grounded the horror entirely in medical reality. Nicotero and his team based the mutants' physical deformities on real-world archival footage — and that's what makes it so hard to look at. They studied medical photographs of radiation victims from Chernobyl, survivors of the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the devastating birth defects caused by Agent Orange exposure during Vietnam. They translated those real-world conditions — asymmetrical bone growth, hydrocephalus, severe skin lesions — directly onto the actors.

[Ambrose:] Which is why looking directly at the mutants triggers such an intense, uncanny valley reaction. Your brain looks at Pluto or Lizard and recognizes — this isn't just a guy in a rubber Halloween mask. The anatomy is rooted in real human tragedy. It triggers this deep-seated biological revulsion because it's a reflection of actual disease. And Aja pairs those character designs with production design that's equally unsettling.

[Jessica:] Oh, you’re talking about the Village?

[Ambrose:] Yes. When Doug finally realizes he has to venture into the irradiated hills to rescue his kidnapped baby, he doesn't just find a cave. He stumbles into a massive fake suburban atomic testing village built out in the middle of a crater.

[Jessica:] It's a phenomenal set piece. It's heavily inspired by the actual Doom-town structures built at the Nevada Test Site in the 1950s.

[Ambrose:] Exactly. It's filled with department store mannequins perfectly posed as happy families sitting at dining room tables. Fake television sets. Painted picket fences. Pastel-colored houses that were literally built to be obliterated by a nuclear blast. When Doug walks through that town it acts as this twisted funhouse mirror of the Carters' own domestic life. He's walking through a dead, artificial version of the exact American dream he was trying to protect back in that RV.

[Jessica:] And Aja uses that imagery to launch a really cynical critique of mid-century Americana. You're confronted with it in the very first seconds of the film.

[Ambrose:] Oh, right. The opening credits.

[Jessica:] Yes. The opening credits sequence is a masterpiece of tonal whiplash. The screen fills with rapid-fire archival images — radiation-exposed babies, mushroom clouds, military testing footage.

[Ambrose:] And it's a lot to take in right off the bat.

[Jessica:] And it's all scored to an upbeat, twangy, painfully cheerful remix version of the 1950s country ballad — "More and More" by Webb Pierce.

[Ambrose:] So it’s not the original song. Correct?

[Jessica:] No. The composer duo Tomandandy took the original track and digitally degraded it — remixed it so the audio warps and pitches down and sounds like the physical tape is literally melting inside the machine.

[Ambrose:] So, it takes a nostalgic, innocent song and actively decays it into pure horror. Well I got to say it perfectly primes you for everything you're about to watch.

[Jessica:] It sure does. And that cynical weaponization of Americana is sustained through the whole runtime. There's this darkly ironic moment later in the film where the mutant known as Big Brain — the grotesque patriarch of the clan — is sitting in a rusted lawn chair, monitoring the chaos through a stolen radio.

[Ambrose:] And he's singing right?

[Jessica:] Yes. He’s rasping out the Star-Spangled Banner. And honestly, the most visually memorable kill in the whole movie involves the giant mutant Pluto being violently impaled through the throat with a massive American flag on a heavy wooden pole.

[Ambrose:] Right. The symbolism isn't going for subtle. It is swinging a sledgehammer at the concept of blind patriotism.

[Jessica:] It really is.

[Ambrose:] And it's blunt-force thematic trauma. And it forces the audience to grapple with a really uncomfortable question about the mutants' origins. The mythology of the film is that these mutants were created by the United States government. They were originally a community of miners who refused to abandon their homes when the military claimed the land for nuclear testing.

[Ambrose:] So the military just tested the atomic weapons on top of them anyway. And abandoned the survivors to mutate, suffer, and breed in the radioactive fallout. So strictly from a narrative standpoint. Does that tragic, government-inflicted backstory make the mutants sympathetic? Or does it make them more terrifying, because they're a living reflection of society's own sins coming back to collect a debt?

[Jessica:] Well, if we look at how empathy actually functions in the film — Aja presents a worldview that is deeply, aggressively nihilistic. The backstory gives you context. But it deliberately denies you the comfort of sympathy.

[Ambrose:] You’re right, they're too far gone for sympathy.

[Jessica:] Exactly. The mutants' suffering is genuine. Their creation is a real injustice. But their response to that trauma is pure, irredeemable sadism. The framing suggests this cycle of violence where the victims of state cruelty have completely internalized that cruelty and turned it into a weapon.

[Ambrose:] Right.

[Jessica:] They don't want understanding. They want vengeance. If anything, their backstory removes the safety of just calling them monsters. It forces the audience to recognize them as a byproduct of our own infrastructure.

[Ambrose:] Oh, I completely agree. And I actually look at it through the lens of class horror.

[Jessica:] Okay, what do you mean?

[Ambrose:] Well, structurally, this film operates as a brutal, unapologetic critique of the insulated, comfortable middle class. The Carter family represents a specific segment of society. You know, they’re driving a massive, gas-guzzling Airstream through the desert, arguing about trivial domestic stuff, completely protected from the harsh realities of the world by their wealth and technology.

[Jessica:] That’s a very good point.

[Ambrose:] And when their vehicle breaks down, they are physically, violently forced to confront the discarded, irradiated underclass that their society literally built its comfort on top of. It's the ultimate version of chickens coming home to roost. And the bill for American prosperity has come due, and it's being paid in blood.

[Jessica:] Ooooh I love that. And as the film's own tagline put it… “the lucky ones die first.”

[Ambrose:] That’s such a great tagline.

[Jessica:] It really is. And nowhere is that debt more agonizingly apparent than in the sequence that is the dark heart of the movie. The one that still gets studied, debated, and condemned. The trailer attack.

[Ambrose:] Oh man. This is where the air gets completely sucked out of the room. We need to walk through this methodically because it is without a doubt one of the most exhausting, boundary-pushing, technically brilliant sequences in modern horror cinema.

[Jessica:] It's genuinely grueling.

[Ambrose:] So, let’s set the scene. The family is stranded. Night has completely fallen. And Big Bob has walked back up the highway toward the gas station to find help. Doug has walked in the opposite direction.

[Jessica:] Basically splitting the party. Which is never a good idea.

[Ambrose:] Again most horror fans know this. You never  split up. So, the family's defenses are fractured. The men with any ability to fight are gone. And the mutants — operating with military precision — execute a perfectly coordinated ambush.

[Jessica:] And the tactical sophistication of it is what makes it so devastating. These aren't mindless zombies swarming a vehicle. They use psychological warfare. They use Big Bob as a horrific diversion.

[Ambrose:] God, poor Bob.

[Jessica:] They capture him in the hills, tie him to a dead tree in the distance, and set him on fire. The family inside the trailer hears his screams echoing through the canyon. And they look out and see him burning in the dark.

[Ambrose:] And naturally, they react immediately.

[Jessica:] Exactly. The mother, the daughters, the son — they all rush out of the trailer into the desert to try to save him. And that calculated distraction leaves the RV completely undefended. Which lets Pluto and Lizard too slip inside… where the baby is sleeping.

[Ambrose:] And I want to highlight a really important editing choice that changes the entire psychology of this scene. In the original theatrical cut, the explicit close-up details of Big Bob burning are shown a little later in the sequence. But in the unrated cut — which is Aja's true vision and they move the agonizing extreme close-ups of Bob's scorching skin, his hair igniting, his eyes going completely white, to the very beginning of the ambush. Right as the family takes their first frantic steps toward him.

[Jessica:] And that structural shift is so devastating. By showing the audience that Bob is already irreversibly dead before the family even reaches him, it drains the entire sequence of any residual hope.

[Ambrose:] That's so insane. 

[Jessica:] It really is. And the audience realizes the rescue attempt is completely pointless. The family is running toward a corpse. It traps the viewer in this state of hopeless dread, and knowing that everything they're doing is meaningless.

[Ambrose:] And while the family is distracted outside, the real nightmare begins inside the tight, claustrophobic, metallic confines of that RV. What happens next cannot be overstated.

[Jessica:] No it can’t. It’s hard to even watch.

[Ambrose:] And Aja locks the audience in a confined space with pure malevolence. We're forced to watch the prolonged psychological torture of the family. The brutal murder of the mother. The sexual assault of the teenage daughter. This bizarre, grotesque moment where the mutant Lizard finds the family's pet bird, and bites its head off, and then drinks its blood.

[Jessica:] It's an overwhelming sensory assault. And Aja layers the violence with this chaotic, suffocating sound design. The screaming, the tight framing, the sheer physical size of the mutants towering over the family inside that narrow hallway.

[Ambrose:] But the moment that truly tests what an audience can endure is when Lizard picks up a loaded .357 Magnum, cocks the hammer back, and points the barrel directly at the forehead of the family's infant daughter, Catherine.

[Jessica:] And it's a line you just don't see crossed very often.

[Ambrose:] And the tension in that specific sequence is physically nauseating. I mean, we're talking about Wes Craven. You know, the guy who basically invented modern extreme horror with Last House on the Left. But during the edit, they realized the shot of the gun pointed at the baby was just too much for the audience to stomach. And Craven was genuinely convinced that if they left it in, it might of provoke a strong reaction. And it’s one of the few times a horror legend actually blinked and said, 'Okay, maybe that’s a bridge too far for the theater.

[Jessica:] And I don't blame him. And the emotional toll this sequence takes is enormous. It pushes the boundaries of what's acceptable in cinema right to the breaking point. Unsurprisingly, the MPAA ratings board had a full-scale problem with it.

[Ambrose:] Oh, I'm sure they hated it.

[Jessica:] They demanded significant cuts to the violence, the sexual assault, and the overall cruelty just to secure an R rating for theaters. They felt the tone was just too punishing. It wasn't until the unrated DVD release that Aja's full, unrelenting vision was restored.

[Ambrose:] And thank God for the unrated cut.

[Jessica:] But here's the thing — we have to look at the function of this trauma within the story. This sequence is not an exercise in shock for shock's sake. It's the foundational turning point for Doug's entire character arc.

[Ambrose:] So, let’s talk about Doug. Aaron Stanford's performance is the anchor of the third act. Doug begins the film as an intellectual pacifist. He represents modern progressive diplomacy. He literally refuses to hold a firearm when Big Bob offers him one.

[Jessica:] Right.

[Ambrose:] But after the trailer attack, and after he comes back and finds his wife brutally murdered, his in-laws slaughtered, his sister-in-law traumatized, and his baby daughter kidnapped. And this is were we watch a complete psychological collapse.

[Jessica:] And his evolution is heavily inspired by Dustin Hoffman's character in Sam Peckinpah's highly controversial 1971 film Straw Dogs.

[Ambrose:] Oh, I forgot about that one. You’re right.

[Jessica:] And Doug is forced to confront the total failure of his civilized ideals. Diplomacy cannot save his daughter. Reason has no currency in the irradiated hills.

[Ambrose:] And to understand Doug's breaking point, you have to think about metallurgy.

[Jessica:] Okay, I like this.

[Ambrose:] If you take a piece of structural steel and apply immense, sustained pressure to it. It doesn't just bend gracefully. The molecular structure holds out for as long as it can, and then it catastrophically snaps. It breaks into a new, jagged, highly dangerous shape.

[Jessica:] Wow! Ambrose. That’s a perfect analogy.

[Ambrose:] What can I say, but thank you. And that’s exactly what happens to Doug's mind. The pacifist gets obliterated. And what snaps into place is a blood-soaked, pickaxe-wielding force of nature. He wades into the mutant village and dismantles them with a brutality that matches their own.

[Jessica:] Which brings us to one of the most enduring debates around the mid-2000s horror landscape. Critics at the time. Including prominent voices like Roger Ebert — dismissed films like The Hills Have Eyes, Hostel, and Saw under the label "torture porn."

[Ambrose:] Oh my god. I hate that term so much.

[Jessica:] And they argued that the extreme violence — particularly the sexual assault in the trailer — was gratuitous. The debate comes down to intentionality. Is the cruelty in Aja's film just shock for the sake of shock? A cynical move to gross out teenagers? Or is it a structurally necessary, completely unsparing descent into hell that's required to justify Doug's total abandonment of his morality?

[Ambrose:] And just to be clear, I will push back hard on the torture porn label when it's applied to this specific movie. If you want to aim that critique at the later Saw sequels — where the plot basically just exists to string together elaborate mechanical traps… fine. But The Hills Have Eyes uses its extreme violence with surgical narrative precision.

[Jessica:] I completely agree with you.

[Ambrose:] Just look at the mechanics of Doug's snap. If the mutants had just shot his wife with a rifle from 100 yards away and ran off with the baby. It would be tragic. But it wouldn't fundamentally alter Doug's worldview.

[Jessica:] No, it'd just be a tragedy.

[Ambrose:] Right. So, the suffocating intimacy of the trailer attack. Was a total violation of their enclosed safe space, the complete humiliation of the family unit, the sadistic glee of the attackers. And that level of trauma is precisely what's required to break a civilized man's mind. And that sequence is built not just to make you wince, but to completely obliterate the illusion of safety.

[Jessica:] And it leaves no room for reason.

[Ambrose:] So, if Aja pulls his punches in the trailer, Doug's turn into a brutal pickaxe-swinging killer in the third act doesn't feel earned. It feels like a cheap 80s action movie transition.

[Jessica:] And he becomes just some badass for no reason.

[Ambrose:] Exactly. But because the film drags the audience through the absolute depths of despair alongside Doug, we're compromised. Because when Doug finally corners a mutant and drives a pickaxe through his skull — the movie makes us complicit in his bloodlust.

[Jessica:] I totally agree. And Aja strips away our civilized viewing habits. He removes our objective distance and basically turns the audience into a mob silently screaming for revenge.

[Ambrose:] And that’s exactly what we want him to do.

[Jessica:] Yes. And when Doug goes on his rampage through the atomic village, the violence is cathartic — but it's a deeply ugly, unsettling kind of catharsis. He's not a hero dropping one-liners. He's a traumatized animal. He impales mutants, shoots them at point-blank range, hacks them apart, and ends up head-to-toe in blood.

[Ambrose:] It's so messy.

[Jessica:] But he gets the baby back. And he limps out of the desert and reunites with his surviving sister-in-law Brenda and his brother-in-law Bobby. They're standing there in the blinding sun, surrounded by the corpses of the Jupiter clan. Triumphant music swelling. They made it.

[Ambrose:] Yeah, And let’s not forget the family dog Beast survived too. And Brenda survived, Bobby Survived. And Doug is holding his baby. The nightmare is over. And they defeated the monsters. And you could almost feel the audience exhaling, reaching for their coats.

[Jessica:] Ahhh a happy ending — relatively speaking.

[Ambrose:] Okay wait. Hold on.

[Jessica:] What?

[Ambrose:] You actually thought we were done?

[Jessica:] Oh, I see where you're going. 

[Ambrose:] Yeah. You really thought we were gonna roll the credits, wrap up the analysis, and let you walk away feeling safe and satisfied. We haven't even touched the real madness of this franchise yet. We're just getting warmed up.

[Jessica:] Oh, absolutely. We cannot close the book on The Hills Have Eyes without getting into the deeply bizarre cultural footprint it left behind. The thematic analysis is crucial. But the strange legacy this movie spawned — particularly when it moved into the 2007 sequel — is entirely its own thing.

[Ambrose:] Exactly. And we have to talk about the sequel. The Hills Have Eyes 2. Because it was rushed into production, and co-written by Wes Craven and his son Jonathan, directed by Martin Weisz. Now whatever you think about the actual quality of that second movie — and the consensus is, well, not great. But, the trivia surrounding its release is absolute comedy gold.

[Jessica:] Oh it really is.

[Ambrose:] And I need to know if you're familiar with the legendary theater mishap in New York.

[Jessica:] I believe I know the incident you're referring to. The catastrophic projectionist error.

[Ambrose:] Yes. Okay. So picture the exact opposite of the grim irradiated desert we've been talking about. Picture a Saturday afternoon on Long Island in early 2007. A local multiplex packed to the brim with families. Little kids with massive buckets of popcorn. Parents settling into their seats. All of them waiting to watch a very wholesome PG-rated magical sci-fi family film called The Last Mimsy. It's about kids finding a magical stuffed rabbit.

[Jessica:] Okay. That’s a very different vibe.

[Ambrose:] And the lights go down. The trailers end. The theater gets quiet. And the projectionist in the booth accidentally hits play on the wrong digital print.

[Jessica:] Oh my god. You’re absolutely right. It was a truly catastrophic failure of quality control.

[Ambrose:] It definitely was. And instead of a cute magical rabbit on the screen, these completely unsuspecting children are instantly blasted at maximum volume with the opening sequence of The Hills Have Eyes 2. Which — for context — features a captive, terrified woman giving birth to a deformed mutant baby in a filthy, blood-soaked subterranean dungeon before being brutally murdered.

[Jessica:] Oh my God. That’s totally insane right there.

[Ambrose:] And the reports from the theater were absolute chaos. People screaming, parents throwing jackets over their kids' heads, grabbing them by the arms and sprinting for the emergency exits while the mutant birth echoed through the Dolby surround sound.

[Jessica:] It is the most horrific yet darkly hilarious real-world collision of genres in cinema history.

[Ambrose:] And it's so funny in hindsight, but man —

[Jessica:] Those children went in expecting a magical rabbit and walked out requiring decades of therapy.

[Ambrose:] Or did they leave that theatre not traumatized, but from that day forth they became huge horror fans today. That’s how I’d like to look at it.

[Jessica:] Of course you would think that. And since we're on the sequel — we're obligated to mention the porta-potty scene.

[Ambrose:] You know how my mind works Jessica. And I believe we are obligated to talk about the porta-potty scene.

[Jessica:] It's widely considered by horror fans to be one of the most flat-out disgusting moments of two thousand cinema. Okay I want you to picture this. A character is using a portable toilet out in the desert, and a mutant hiding beneath the raw sewage reaches up and pulls him down into the holding tank.

[Ambrose:] And that just weaponizes the ultimate universal phobia of vulnerable spaces.

[Jessica:] It truly does.

[Ambrose:] But here's the incredibly nerdy behind-the-scenes detail that might actually save you from losing your lunch the next time you watch that scene. All of that incredibly realistic feces and sewage the actor was drowning in? It was literally just massive heated vats of mashed-up stewed prunes from the catering table.

[Jessica:] Oh that’s good to know.

[Ambrose:] The visual is horrifying, but the actor on set basically smelled like a warm, sweet retirement home breakfast.

[Jessica:] Ahhh, the majestic illusion of Hollywood. Stewed prunes, Karo syrup, fake blood, and melted foam latex. But as endlessly entertaining as the franchise trivia is —

[Ambrose:] Yeah, the air is starting to get a little thin in here.

[Jessica:] And the hum of the AC is getting louder. The shadows on the wall are getting significantly longer.

[Ambrose:] Okay, Okay, we get it… So we’ve crawled through the radioactive dust. We’ve survived the relentless trauma of that trailer scene. We’ve laughed at the mashed up prunes, just to keep ourselves from screaming. And now there’s only one place left to go.

[Jessica:] It's time, for the final reckoning. When we step back and look at the totality of Alexandre Aja's 2006 film — we're forced to ask a definitive question. Is this the rare remake that actually surpasses its legendary original? Does it deserve to be called the best horror remake of the 21st century?

[Ambrose:] Oh those are all great questions. Now, it’s time to step into the Critic's Crypt.

[Jessica:] So what are you waiting for....Lead the way Crypt Boy!

[Ambrose:] Okay. I want to note that something is dripping directly onto my left shoe and has been for at least the last four minutes.

[Jessica:] Maybe it’s just water.

[Ambrose:] And how do you know it’s just water?

[Jessica:] Uh, I don’t know. Maybe just an educated guess.

[Ambrose:] Okay. If you say so…Anyway down to business.

[Jessica:] You’re such an ass. Let’s just do what we came down here to do and get the hell outta here.

[Ambrose:] Ahhh, spoken like a true warrior that you are.

[Jessica:] Whatever.

[Ambrose:] Okay, let’s talk about the pro’s of this movie. So, for me I came in expecting a knockoff and I walked out a changed man.

[Jessica:] Oh, I completely agree.

[Ambrose:] There are moments where I was like, okay, that's a real body part. I don't think that's a prop. That can't be a prop. And that's the correct reaction to have.

[Jessica:] That was the goal. And what I love about it is it never feels gratuitous for its own sake. Like, it's brutal but it's purposeful. Every horrible thing that happens is connected to what the movie is actually about.

[Ambrose:] Right, because the movie has something to say! Which — honestly — I wasn't expecting.

[Jessica:] I know, right? And the whole mutant family as a product of a nuclear testing angle was a real genius. Because these aren’t just monsters. They’re the fallout…Literally.

[Ambrose:] And you feel that throughout. Like, the geography of the film is doing so much. The desert, the testing ground, the bombed-out village, it all builds this world that feels genuinely contaminated. And not just visually. Atmospherically.

[Jessica:] And Aja understood the assignment on every level. The way he builds tension is so patient. You keep waiting for the release and he keeps NOT giving it to you, and then when it does come—

[Ambrose:] It's catastrophic.

[Jessica:] Yeah that’s an understatement.

[Ambrose:] And speaking of… can we talk about the trailer scene? Because I think that sequence is one of the best set pieces in modern horror by far. Not just in this movie. But in the genre.

[Jessica:] Yeah, that trailer scene is special. That’s for sure.

[Ambrose:] It is genuinely one of the most upsetting things I've watched in years, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment.

[Jessica:] It's perfectly constructed. And the way it escalates. Every beat is worse than the last and you can't look away because you keep thinking it's going to turn around and it…just doesn't.

[Ambrose:] But, that’s what makes it work. A lot of horror movies flinch right at the moment they need to go all the way in. And this one doesn’t flinch at all.

[Jessica:] Yeah. No flinching here, that’s for sure.

[Ambrose:] Okay, but — I do have to be honest. There were parts where the movie kind of wobbles.

[Jessica:] Yeah. That middle stretch wobbles a lot.

[Ambrose:] Okay, so you felt it too.

[Jessica:] Yeah. There’s a section after the initial attack where it slows down significantly. And I get it that. Because you need to breathe, you need to regroup, you're with the survivors — but it does drag a bit. Like, it takes a beat longer than it should to get back to the tension.

[Ambrose:] And here’s the thing. The film has built up so much momentum that when it stalls, you really feel it. It's not boring exactly. It's just. I don’t know, the pacing becomes uneven. I mean the first act and third act are so relentless, and then there's the middle section that doesn't quite earn itself.

[Jessica:] And don’t get me wrong here. It’s not a deal-breaker. It’s just something you notice when you are watching it.

[Ambrose:] Right. It’s like a bump, and not a full on smack into a wall kind of feeling. And the other thing is…and people can disagree with me on this or not. But some of the human family characterization in the first half. Like, I understand you need to set them up as normal people before everything goes sideways, but a couple of those characters are so thinly drawn that when bad things start happening, you’re not as invested as you should be.

[Jessica:] I know exactly what your talking about. I mean Aaron Stanford’s character does carry a lot of weight on his own.

[Ambrose:] He does. And Bobby is genuinely compelling. And you’re right about Aaron Stanford character does a lot in his role. But I don’t know, some of the others around them…kinda of feel very thin.

[Jessica:] True. But come on you have to admit Doug’s character arc does pays off.

[Ambrose:] Oh, Doug absolutely earns it by the end. That whole ‘mild-mannered’ guy becomes something else. And he does it well I might add.

[Jessica:] And we can’t forget that final run. It was so good.

[Ambrose:] A chef's kiss… Over all I’d have to say the performances were spot on. And with that being said. Let me give you mine final assessment of this movie over all.

[Jessica:] Okay.

[Ambrose:] Don't "okay" me like that.

[Jessica:] I'm not arguing. I'm just... 

[Ambrose:] Can I continue.

[Jessica:] sure go right ahead.

[Ambrose:] Okay than. I’m giving this movie a five out five coffins…now wait let me explain why I’m giving it a five out five. So, the craft is there. The intent is there. The execution is there. And that trailer scene alone puts it in the upper tier by far. And that is why I’m giving it Five coffins.

[Jessica:] And all of that is valid. But for me I’m going have to give it a four out of five Coffins..And the reason is, because the mid-section pacing cost it just enough that I can’t fully close that gap. It was close. But it’s still a strong four for me.

[Ambrose:] Hmmmm a four eh…

[Jessica:] Yup.

[Ambrose:] And your sure it’s a strong four?

[Jessica:] The strongest four you could ever give.

[Ambrose:] Alrighty then… Four it is.

[Jessica:] Yes four.

[Ambrose:] Well I can respect that. I think you're wrong, but I can respect your decision.

[Jessica:] You gave it a five so I think you might be the biased one here.

[Ambrose:] I'm not biased, I'm correct. Those are different things.

[Jessica:] Oooh sure they are.

[Ambrose:] Okay, whatever. Can we leave now? My shoe situation has escalated.

[Jessica:] Really now. So I take it’s not just the left one anymore?

[Ambrose:] No, it’s starting to feel like both of them now.

[Jessica:] Okay, okay, we can definitely leave.

[Ambrose:] Ok I will leave you with this. I highly recommended that you go and watch this movie again. You won’t be disappointed.

[Jessica:] Well that’s a first…You not disappointing someone.

[Ambrose:] Whatever do you mean? 

[Jessica:] Oh you know exactly what I mean….Just move it Crypt Boy.

[Ambrose:] Okay folks, we just finished our review of The Hills have Eyes…

[Jessica:] And can I just say this…I’m never going on another road trip ever again. And I don’t care if it’s free…Nope, no way!

[Ambrose:] Honestly, I don’t blame you after seeing this movie I’d just rather stay inside and never go to the desert at all.

[Jessica:] Well, the desert specifically didn’t have to do all that.

[Ambrose:] It really went above and beyond didn't it.

[Jessica:] It was extremely committed to that bit…that’s for sure.

[Ambrose:] Alright, so — if you're also committed to the bit and you keep showing up here every week, do yourself a favor and subscribe. Makes it way easier to find us and it helps others.

[Jessica:] And as always don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky at the thing about films.

[Ambrose:] But hey—if you want to dive deeper into this mess with us, you’ve gotta join the mailing list for our newsletter… The Dead Letter. It’s where we really pull back the curtain on the horror world.

[Jessica:] Exactly. We’ve got The Anatomy of a Scene for the technical nerds, The Cutting Room Floor for the stuff that was too intense for theaters, and Casting Shadows for the 'what-ifs' of horror history. Plus, Whispers in the Dark and Summoning Soon to keep you ahead of what’s crawling out of the woodwork next.

[Ambrose:] And the best part is, it’s absolutely free. You can sign up, check it out, and if it’s not for you, you can cancel whenever you want. No hard feelings.

[Jessica:] I mean, at this point, it’s basically a public service. We’re doing it for the culture.

[Ambrose:] It really is a charity at this stage. Okay—last thing before we get out of here. If your RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere?

[Jessica:] Yeah, I think I would just call 911 and most importantly is you never leave the RV until help arrives.

[Ambrose:] That’s a excellent choice.

[Jessica:] I know right. Okay…Bye!

[Ambrose:] Until next week…Byeeee!