'Tis the season.

Who knew that writing about psychotic mutant hillbillies would be such a problem? I've been meaning to write about Alexandre Aja's remake of Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes for months now. With Halloween upon us, I figure it's now or never.

I'm a little embarrassed over how much I love the film. It's such an unapologetically ugly film, full of extreme violence and an unrelenting pace. But that's why I've always loved the classic horror movies of the '70s and the early '80s: they're ruthless in execution (unintentional pun, I swear) and full of anxiety. I don't have a lot of love for the recent spate of horror films because most of them are so poorly paced and ineptly made. (Hello, Eli Roth.)

The Hills Have Eyes is all momentum and sick fluidity: it's smartly shot, judiciously cut, and competently acted. Sure, there's little to the plot (all-American family gets stuck in the desert, hillbilly mutants descend, chaos and carnage ensues) and the characters are all stock (former police detective Dad, loving Mom, two hot daughters, bumbling son-in-law). Honestly, that's what I want in a horror movie. I want a compendium of phobias rubbed in my face; I want it to be outlandish and unbelievable; above all, I want it to be scary. Hills is all of those things and a little more. Like those 70s/80s classics, it's all jittery about current events. This is where that I have problems whole-heartedly endorsing the film. (Deep breath) You see, I'd argue that Aja intends this film to be a pro-Iraq War/anti-insurgency rallying cry.

Consider the frame of the story: a Midwestern family makes a fatal error when they take seriously bad advice from a man they thought they could trust. They wind up stranded in the desert and quickly realize they've made a huge mistake. As night falls, the hillbilly mutant killers descend and really, really mess things up. (Arson, rape, torture, dog-killing, you name it.) It's kill or be killed now. Up until this point, the nebbish--i.e., liberal Jewish--son-in-law was a pacifist who refused to hold a gun. When he realizes exactly what's at stake (namely the safety of his wife and child), he picks up that gun... and an ax... and flammable liquids and learns to love warfare. He realizes that, yes, he's been lied to and should never have been in this situation, but by God, the threat is real and he's got to get some blood on his hands.

And exhale.

Before you think I'm insane and an asshole film nerd making shit up, Aja's flirtation with conservative politics emerged in his debut film, 2004's High Tension. That movie I can't abide by. Technically savvy: yes. But also illogical and plain dumb. Without really spoiling the film's much-touted shock twist, I'll just say that I'm not alone in thinking the entire film amounts to a crazed rant about how the gays are destroying the traditional family.

This is the point in the post where I suddenly ask myself: Wait, why do I like this movie again? Then I say: Oh yeah, because its primary objective (to make me really uncomfortable and scare the bejesus out of me) is more than met. The fact that the politics are repellent and naive is secondary to me. (I like that George Romero wrangles with Vietnam and consumerism in his Zombie movies, but that's not what makes them great; first and foremost they're effing creepy.) I don't need to be constantly coddled, I'm OK with debate. And I'm not going to lie: I'm amused that a 28 year-old Frenchmen seems to have the same world-view as Bill O'Reilly and he used Hollywood money to craft a hardcore exploitation film to express it. Then I realize that if O'Reilly ever saw the film, he'd probably consider it a sign of the apocalypse and try to have it banned. It's the gift that just keeps on giving.

Happy Halloween.

And on November 4th 7th, please vote against lying gas station attendants who tell you that the quickest way to California is on an unpaved road that goes through the desert. They're assholes and they need to go.