The Grim Cellar

2006, US, Directed by Alexandre Aja

Colour, Running Time: 103 minutes

DVD, Region 2, Fox, Video: Anamorphic 2.35:1, Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1

On a road trip to California the Carter family are cutting across the desolate New Mexico desert when someone or something lays a trap for them that blows out their tyres, causing them to crash and pretty much writing off the car. The father and son-in-law Doug head off in different directions to try to find help while the rest of the family stay at the caravan in the blistering heat, able to do little more than wait. But then one of their dogs is found almost disembowelled, the dad doesn’t return from his expedition, and Doug finds a huge crater containing scores of abandoned vehicles. Finding little else Doug heads back to the caravan where he and the rest of the family try to get some rest, hoping that the dad will appear, but a brutal attack is launched on the group by a number of horrifically disfigured homicidal mutants that have been living and breeding in the hills since nuclear testing in the vicinity ceased decades before.

Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977) was hard hitting for its period and can still have impact today, but while he continues to make anaemic genre movies Aja has emerged, remaking Hills to have pretty much an equivalent impact on today’s imperturbable audiences, hence it is all the more gory and relentlessly gruelling. It wastes no time in hinting at the terror to come with an opening axe attack probably like you’ve never seen before. The storyline follows the original quite closely but there has been effort to enhance the historical background; I particularly liked the discovery of a test village where some hideous inbreeds still hang out, this both improving the mythos and facilitating geographical variety which is otherwise difficult for a film set entirely in the desert. The caravan attack is similar to Craven’s but much more grotesquely violent - it’s amazing and ironic to see a film such as this passing uncut at the hands of the BBFC where the tamer (by comparison) original movie was once banned by them. How times change! The lead protagonist (Doug) goes through physical and emotional hell on his journey, taking most viewers along with him. The film may be too nasty for some but, as far as modern horror is concerned, it does its job very well. I’m not a huge fan of Hills ‘77 so I’d say this is a rare occasion when a remake can be considered not only a worthwhile undertaking but a better film altogether.

The Fox disc features a highly detailed and colourful image (Hills boasts attractive cinematography and landscape work) combined with an aggressive surround track serving the movie more than adequately. The UK DVD is longer than the theatrical cut, or ‘unrated’ as it was labelled in the US. If you really want the softer edit then it’s available on R1, but not here. Most fans will want the ’unrated’ version anyway so there are no complaints. Aja is a genre director of note, previously shooting the controversial (primarily due to its denouement) slasher Haute Tension (available in the UK as Switchblade Romance); he pulls no punches with Hills.