By Justin Kroll
For The State News

Not since the 1970s have horror films really been able to grasp the grit and grime they held at that time. Films such as Tobe Hooper's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and Wes Craven's "The Hills Have Eyes" established a rough-edged documentary style of filmmaking with a lot of blood and guts to go with it.

These films would be given the title "The Drive-in Horror Film," and since the end of the '70s, there have been few horror films that have taken after this style of filmmaking.

With director Alexandre Aja's remaking of Craven's "The Hills Have Eyes," Aja blended that old style of filmmaking with his own new age, shock-filled gory violence to create one of the best horror films in a long time.

Aja received Craven's blessing and was even able to get him as a producer so fans of the original wouldn't be scared away.

In this new version, we open with a montage of governmental nuclear tests being held in the New Mexico desert.

We then cut to present-day as a family of seven is driving through the New Mexico desert on its way to vacation in California. The family consists of the two parents, Bob and Ethel Carter (Ted Levine and Kathleen Quinlan), their eldest daughter Lynne (Vinessa Shaw), her husband Doug (Aaron Stanford) and their infant daughter Catherine and the two younger siblings, Bobby (Dan Byrd) and Brenda (Emilie de Ravin).

The family stops at a beat-up gas station run by the very creepy Tom Bower, best known as the janitor in the second "Die Hard" movie. The family is complaining about how long the trip is and the gas station attendant tells them about a shortcut that will cut down on a couple hours.

The family takes the shortcut, which of course is a trap set by the defected miners, mutated by the nuclear bomb testing. From this point on, the family is stuck trying to find help and fend off these creatures at the same time.

It sounds like any other horror film but the difference between this and past films such as "Saw 2" and "Hostel" is instead of just throwing the audience into a blood-filled film, it builds up the suspense and uses timing and patience as an ally.

The audience hardly gets a glance of our mutated friends for the first 40 minutes of the movie. Along the way, the family comes across a bomb crater where all the past victims' cars have been dumped and they can hear heavy breathing over their walkie-talkies.

When the family is finally attacked in its trailer, it becomes one of the most grueling, sadistic and horrific scenes audiences will probably see this year.

For those who think this film will not shock them as much as some of the more recent horrors, they're very wrong. Besides the constant use of pick axes to kill off characters, the film also contains cannibalism, human sacrifice by fire and characters getting beaten to a bloody pulp.

With this new blend of old and new school, audiences can only hope more horror films are made like this one.