Written by James Rose (READ FULL ESSAY)
Offscreen: Vol 10, issue 10
Representations of the Modern Male in Alexandre Aja’s The Hills Have Eyes
[extract] Although twenty-nine years have passed since its first release, the possible interpretations of Craven’s narrative are as relevant now as they were back then. Given this Aja and writer Grégory Levasseur choose not to drastically alter Craven’s original story for their recent remake. This adherence is in some ways a hindrance for they change very little in terms of narrative structure and so the critical readings of Aja’s film are, to some extent, as equally applicable to Craven’s original. But, to their credit, Aja and Levasseur do make minor alterations, most notably to Doug Wood’s narrative. In addition to changing his surname, they place Doug into more psychological and physically gruelling conditions and so amplifying his violent transgression. In a responsive balance to this, the mutant family is given a greater identity by living in a semblance of a normal home, a nuclear test site village. Both changes lend weight to the film’s critical readings, predominately making the growing similarities between the two families, as much as their initial difference, more obvious. [extract]
I've only seen Craven's masterful original. I avoided the new one on account of everyone whose opinion i respected telling me it sucked bigtime.
It's one thing to talk about changes from the original narrative, but it has to be born in mind that the original film was simply a rip-off of Craven's earlier film, Last House On The Left. Craven only made The Hills Have Eyes because after LHOTL he had a guaranteed profitable formula, and as such THHE is very similar in structure and theme to that earlier (and in my opinion better) film.