Words for My Enjoyment

I Am Running Away From ‘The Hills’

March 23rd, 2007

This weekend sees a slew of new filmic releases, including The Hills Have Eyes 2.

You may or may not remember the original movie The Hills Have Eyes or the remake The Hills Have Eyes which came out about a year and a half ago and told the glorious story of a family whose camper breaks down in the middle of nowhere, and a slew of nuclear-deformed evil freaky bloated monster-people decide it’s time to kill them, eat them, and do a slew of other disturbing things to them. Needless to say, when I saw an advanced screening of the movie, I almost threw up in my mouth.

Which is part of the reason I am running away from The Hills Have Eyes 2.

You may or may not remember that I couldn’t get through The Ring. This is partly due to the fact that I am a wimp when it comes to horror movies, partly due to the fact that I was traumatized as a child when I saw The Shining and partly due to the fact that movie-magic make-up has gotten so technologically advanced and realistic-looking these days that when you see someone’s face melted off, it really makes you feel like you’re watching someone’s face getting melted off. (Oh, how I long for the kind of fake-looking face melting featured in movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark.)

Last year I was given admission to see The Hills Have Eyes 2 for a print review in Wired Magazine. I made my way down to the Twentieth Century Fox studios lot and sat in a dark room among a small group of other people and was treated to the film. Well, “treated” is the wrong word. I sort of likened the experience to what War of Terror enemy combatants are currently facing in secret prisons throughout the world. They feel trapped, are bombarded with uncomfortable images and sensations, and no matter what they do there’s no way for them to escape.

A very similar experience to watching The Hills Have Eyes.

That, of course, is primarily why I will not be waiting in line for The Hills Have Eyes 2. That is pretty much why I will not be renting The Hills Have Eyes 2. That’s mostly the reason why, if you see me at the movies this weekend, I’ll be seeing something more like Shooter or Zodiac instead of The Hills Have Eyes 2.

They could have called it Lookie-Loo Mountain Ranges and I still wouldn’t go see it.

When it all comes down to it, I’ve faced my fears of horror movies and come to the conclusion that there are certain images and certain stories that I just can’t stomach. If you make a horror movie with any of the following elements in them, you can pretty much write me off spending any money on your creation. If your movie makes me think that I might throw up in my mouth, chances are I’ll be seeing RV 2 instead.

But in case my patronage does matter, please excavate these elements from your horror movie now and avoid the horrible box office later:

• Hills with eyes
• People under the stairs
• Mutants that eat human flesh
• Realistic melty or severed faces and/or heads
• Loud startling noises that make me think I’m scared of something
• Ominous music preceding some kind of melty or severed faces
• People that are actually mutants, but we don’t know they’re mutants because they’ve got some kind of mask on, but they’ll eventually take off that mask and reveal they’re a mutant in a particularly ominous music-laden scene somewhere near the end
• Getting lost in underground caves
• Chainsaws
• Chainsaw massacres
• Rivers of blood
• Slow dripping blood from an unknown source somewhere on the ceiling which none of us can see since all the electricity has gone out for some unknown and ominous reason (includes ominous music, FYI)
• Big wheels
• Kidnapping
• Torture
• Giggling kidnappers
• Guffawing torturers
• Mute kidnapping torturers who reside in dark, twisting underground caves
• Big hotels with zero vacationers
• Dream warriors

Thanks, scary filmmakers.

Having an open mind is the one true way to box office gold.

Posted under Horror, Movies, Running Away From Topographical Regions, The Hills Have Eyes, The Hills Have Eyes 2, Wes Craven. |