The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

I'm not sure which I should be more scared of ...

a) I've now lived through a bad movie remake (the original Hills Have Eyes movie was 1977)
b) Hollywood is so devoid of original material that they remade this movie
c) I actually paid to see this movie on PPV.

What I was definitely not scared of was the movie itself. Horrible piece of crap.

I tuned in because they promised atomic mutants. They delivered on at least that. Boring, repetitive atomic mutants. It did have some surprises, like who gets killed first, etc.. Not everything was your boilerplate zombie movie predictability.

I came away from the movie with one main question: why are atomic mutants and zombies always superhuman? 99% of the time, mutants you see in the movies are super strong. Like C.H.U.D.s. They were super strong and cannabalistic (hence the C in C.H.U.D.). Godzilla... he was an atomic mutant. Super strong, almost indestructable except to opponents like Mothra. Spiderman... atomic spider mutant. The Hulk. That's a good one.

In the real world, mutants are weak. I've come across a few, at bars in San Francisco, and I've kicked all their asses. The reality of the atomic mutant situation would be much more dire than the movies make out. A world of atomic mutants would be one that required a lot of meals on wheels and such.

The bottom line is, I'm tired of the atomic mutant in film. The ol' "nukes are bad, here's the nuclear badness represented in terms of atomic mutants" meme just doesn't carry the same weight that it might have in 1962 or 1947.

As a moviegoer, I say, screw atomic mutants. Attention Hollywood: you won't get me to watch a movie again just by claiming you have them in there. They always end up having the same stupid bad makeup with a bubble face or bad teeth, a large head, whatever. Atomic mutants suck! I'd rather watch the Atomic Bomb Movie if I wanted to see something atomic.

Rating: Bad/Bad. I'd be surprised if it ever made it to HBO.