‘Launch’ yourself to movie theaters this weekend.

Part Texas “Chainsaw Massacre”, part “Deliverance”, and all nightmares, the movie the “Hills Have Eyes” is a thrilling bloodbath that will leave the audience short of breath while they look over their shoulders.

A remake the 1977 Wes Craven film, the movie begins with a classic horror scenario, and one of the most frightening: a road trip into the middle of nowhere where anything can happen, without anyone ever knowing.

Cleveland police detective, “Big Bob” Carter, and his wife, Ethel Carter, decide to celebrate their wedding anniversary by taking their family on an extended to road trip to visit California.

Bringing, their two teenagers, Brenda and Bobby, and eldest daughter, Lynn, with her husband, Doug, and their newborn baby; the dysfunctional family heads on through the New Mexico desert pulling their trailer behind them.

On the advice of a sketchy gas station attendant, “Big Bob” decides to take a shortcut through the desert where they run into vehicle troubles.

Lost and in the middle of nowhere without any cell phone reception, the family decides to wait for help, while another family watches on: the grossly mutated, cannibalistic, progeny of miners left behind during the days of government nuclear weapons testing in the area.

The family is picked off one by one by the mutated cannibals with extremely gory, bloody detail, leaving almost nothing to the imagination, and showing all.

The mutants, angry about the nuclear testing and their current forms, prey on anyone they can get their hands on with extreme hostility, hatred, and then devour their carcasses.

Featuring moments when one can’t imagine the gore and violence getting worse, it does, shocking all with the intensity of each scene.

There are burning corpses, rape, dismemberment, cannibalism, suicide, grossly disfigured humans, and plenty of murder.

But this movie breaks the recent bad horror and slasher movie mold that is typically filled with lame plot lines and bad acting.

With a reasonably realistic plot line based on American history, the actors portraying the Carter family look and act well in their roles ?” no overly pretty, big name, Hollywood actors here.

The Carters are a realistic portrayal of a normal American family with real dialogue that’s not only believable, but makes the family seem familiar.

The main protagonist of the movie is also not a Hollywood heartthrob with bulging muscles and quick, witty one-liners; but a scrawny, techno geek, who lacks the courage to kill or hurt anything until it becomes absolutely necessary for his survival.

Imagine Bill Gates kicking ass here.

Once the initial shock value of the movie wears off, the movie turns into the hunters becoming the hunted: Doug must travel out into the mutant’s dwelling, deep in the desert mountains, to destroy them in a surreal and troubling trip into America’s past.

The mutants are completely disgusting monsters that make it easy to despise them while their existence can also be sympathized with.

Just in time for Spring Break and after seeing this movie, students may want to change their road trip plans for something a little more close to home.

In my opinion,”The Hills Have Eyes” is one of the most depressing and terrifying movies out there.

Rating: four out of four stars.

Michael can be reached at [email protected].