Traveling cross-country to California seemed like a good idea at the time.

Stuck in the New Mexico desert, their vehicle totaled and the only refuge available inside a cramped Airstream trailer, the only thing the bickering Carter clan thought they had to worry about was a sunburn. At least eight miles from their last known civilized contact, an out-of-the-way gas station run by a hunched-over desert rat, one of them is going to have to make the long trek back to the store. If not, this trip could get dangerous, maybe even deadly.

More deadly than they know. With patriarch ‘Big Bob’ Carter (Ted Levine, “Heat”) heading back to the store and tech geek son-in-law Doug (Aaron Stanford, “X-Men 2”) off in the other direction looking for the highway, the rest of the family is left on their own. That leaves them at the mercy of the people living in the desert hills, people who have spent generations growing up in the shadow of radiation poisoning caused by the Unties States government’s decades-long desert nuclear testing programs. No, the Carters are, not as they once thought, alone, and to their horror they discover quite quickly the hills surrounding them have eyes, eyes that will not stop staring at them until the family is decimated one bloody member at a time.

A remake of Wes Craven’s 1977 cult favorite, “The Hills Have Eyes” is easily the best flat-out balls-to-the-wall horror-thriller since Danny Boyle reinvented zombie movies with “28 Days Later.” Alexandre Aja’s (“High Tension”) update, made under Craven’s guidance, is superbly gory and unsettling entertainment of the highest order. It is a nerve-wracking masterpiece of tension and terror so gory and repulsive it is exactly the fix gross-out fanatics have been waiting for. It is, without a doubt, masterfully done, easily one of 2006’s most pleasantly disquieting and freakishly discomfiting roller coaster rides.

For those who remember such things, I was not a fan of Aja’s “High Tension,” a malignant French import the director co-wrote with collaborator Gregory Levasseur that arrived stateside last year to much fanfare and internet buzz. While the filmmakers showed zest for the macabre, and while the director certainly knew how to create unease, the script to the nascent women-in-peril fright fest was so pathetic, featuring a twist so absurd, I couldn’t help but be worried when I say their names attached to this.

But where that one went off the rails by the time it reached the denouement, “The Hills Have Eyes” builds beautifully with elegantly Machiavellian glee and shrewd nihilistic abandon unlike anything I’ve seen in ages. Aja and Levasseur take the time to let the audience get to know the Carters, each of them getting a chance to make something of their characters before the filmmakers start dispatching them with horrifically abhorrent gusto. Better, this time the duo remembers to write a suitable ending, the last 45 minutes of the feature so kinetically mesmerizing in both their audacity and intensity they simply blow the mind.

Take care, however, those with weak stomachs or delicate sensibilities should stay as far away from this as humanly possibly. Aja has constructed one of the most extremely graphic horror flicks to ever get an R-rating from the notably puritanical MPAA. The last half hour, in particular, pushes the limits of good taste to their very extremes, so much blood and gore flopping against the screen even a mortician would have trouble keeping his lunch watching it all splish-splash gleefully right smack dab into the middle of their face. There is cannibalism. There is dismemberment. There is cruelty of the highest scale, and if you are the type of person who can’t handle any of that (and more of the same) then stay home and watch another “Friends” rerun because this certainly isn’t for you.

For the rest of us, be ready to discover something extraordinary. While it might take a little while to get going, and while some of the events near the end are little too silly to take completely seriously, “The Hills Have Eyes” is better than the original and, even more shocking, one of the best character-driven movies so far this year. That’s right, I said character-driven, because of all the amazing things hiding inside Aja and Lavasseur’s screenplay none is greater then the shock of seeing actual flesh and blood human beings inhabiting 1970’s-style visceral B-grade horror.

It helps when you have such a dynamic cast inhabiting players. Levine is wonderful as Bob, the gun-toting former lawman ready for action but unprepared for the complexities of the situation confronting his family. Even better is former Oscar-nominee Kathleen Quinlan (“Apollo 13”) as his seemingly mild-mannered wife. She has a great scene outside the Airstream where she must decide whether or not to shed her motherly manners and take action, the sheer depravity of the sight confronting her enough to make even the most valiant shake simpering inside their leather work boots.

But they are all good here. Vinessa Shaw (“Melinda and Melinda”) has a knockout moment trying to defend her newborn baby, while television veteran Emilie De Ravin (“Lost”) and youngster Dan Byrd (“A Cinderella Story”) each have the time to make their characters jump of the screen. I also quite liked veteran character actor Tom Bower (“North Country”), his twitchy gas station attendant a mordantly subversive catalyst that gets the Carter family’s ball rolling in the completely wrong direction.

None of them, however, can hold a candle to Stanford. His meek liberal techie goes through the greatest transformation, the enormity of the situation facing him and his family-by-marriage forcing him to shed his normal tendencies and take on the mantel of protector and warrior. By the end of the film you can’t help but root him on, even as each step he takes towards the deformed villains trying to causes him to literally transform into that it is he is fighting against. It is a brilliant, slow-burning performance, one that sneaks up on you with its complexity and power.

After a 2005 where every horror movie that hit theaters (including the duo's own aforementioned “High Tension”) was either hideous, disappointing or hideously disappointing, to see something as gloriously terrifying as “The Hills Have Eyes” is almost cause for celebration. While it is no more than a stripped down B-movie, it is a B-movie dripping in energy and pulsating in visceral scares. As far as I'm concerned, Aja’s directed a winner, and in my eyes this one’s going to be a hit.

Film Rating: êêê1/2  (out of 4)