The remake of The Hills Have Eyes was one of the best horror films I’ve seen in some time. It worked for me on almost every level, and I guess it worked for the audience too, since it made enough money to warrant a sequel. I don’t know if that film will be any good (I’m not betting my life saving on it, though), but that has nothing to do with the latest bit of mischief the MPAA has gotten up to.
The censors at the MPAA don’t get to just rate movies, they also have oversight of posters, TV ads and other promo material. It’s nuts. And it sometimes results in sheer insanity, like the banning of a poster design for The Hills Have Eyes 2. The original design is on the left in the image above; the new one is on the right. For some reason the MPAA had a problem with the hand coming out of the bag and clawing at the ground – I guess because it implies the person in the bag is alive, while the second one has much more of a Schrodinger’s Cat feel to it.
It’s a little thing, and it isn’t like the original poster was some great piece of art (both versions feel too cartoony to me), but it’s just another example of the creeping meatball of the MPAA. To see the original poster in full size, visit EatMyBrains.