alexandre aja's THE HILLS HAVE EYES (2006)

this is one of the very few films i've ever walked out of at the theater. it was on kim's initiative, but i can't say i wasn't myself inclined - and it's for that reason i've retained a curiosity about The Hills Have Eyes. i've got a reasonably high threshold for Horror's darker territories, but the film exists in such a perfect storm of nihilism and moral filth that it very honestly, deeply offended and affected me, and because of that i've no place denying it as a work of art. poor existential taste does nothing to dull Aja on a technical level; he stretches the first act out almost unbearably, but does so with such confidence that doom's dull roar has grown deafening by the time the film's brutal, balls-to-the-wall centerpiece siege yanks the narrative into oppressively high gear. part of me was bothered by the genuinely crass sexual violence, uncomfortably misogynistic in its deployment as little more than a cheap scare amplifier. but another part of me was terribly compelled by the film's sullied slickness and fearless sociopathy, and how they dare to combine in the form of entertainment.

watching the rest of the film from where i left off more than a year ago, it's an inevitable disappointment that soon afterwards The Hills Have Eyes declines into a Troma Team remake of Straw Dogs, and never again reaches the fever pitch of the scene that sent us (and another couple a few rows behind us) back to the lobby. it's still engaging, and fx stalwarts KNB work their usual magic on the desert colony of sun-baked mutants, each uniquely horrific. but after the tension and release of the first half, the rest of the film can't help but color pretty much within the lines, which makes it a little harder to hate, and much harder to respect. still, it's been a long time since a horror movie bothered me as badly as Aja did here, and on its own terms that makes it a roaring success.