You know there’s a problem when the act of writing a review about how a movie genre is now just a series of clichés becomes a cliché. And while the horror genre especially has always been the bearer of a seemingly endless line of predictable storylines, made very clear by Wes Craven’s “Scream,” lately those clichés seem to just keep building up to the point of total absence of creativity. “The Hills Have Eyes” (ironically a remake of a Wes Craven film) is another film that does very little to break from the trends of recent horror movies — which is not to say it makes for an entirely bad movie experience, just one we’ve all seen played out many times before.

To put it simply, most of you already know whether or not you’ll like “Hills.” It’s a remake of a cheap, gritty 70s horror flick. As such, it’s a gritty, gory, stylized 00s horror flick. It’s pretty graphic, filled with the gory imagery popularized in the likes of “Saw” and “Hostel” (everything’s even got that yellowish tint found so often in horror movies nowadays). It’s unflinching in depicting the brutality of its villains, often using cringe-worthy moments and buckets of fake blood to evoke scares. The rest pretty much follows all the formulas you’d expect — which is okay, given the circumstances, as with horror movies it’s less about originality and more about scaring the audience by any means necessary. Basically, if you’re a fan of movies like “Saw,” “Hostel,” or even the “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” remake (which was much worse than this), you’ll probably like “Hills.”

The story revolves around a family on a road trip through New Mexico (with cast members including “Lost”’s Emilie de Raven and “Monk”’s Ted Levine because Hollywood hierarchy demands that horror movie actor fall right above TV supporting star — check out the remake of “The Fog” if you don’t believe me). As on any family roadtrip — surprise, surprise — Dad wants to take a detour through the middle of the boring, barren wasteland that is the desert. Fortunately for the audience, those hills are not so barren, and are in fact inhabited by angry mutants left disfigured (and ornery) by US nuclear testing so many years ago. I’m pretty sure there was a bit of social commentary there in the original film, but, you know, whatever. So the mutants go about their ways in attacking and occasionally just tormenting the family. On a purely brainless level, it’s pretty entertaining, providing enough shocking intense moments to sustain the film for those expecting just the horror movie they’ve seen time and again. On to the gripes!

“Hills” comes off as just a standard modern horror flick and, unfortunately, does little to stand out among the rest. For starters, director Alexandre Aja does very little to create suspense throughout the first half of the movie, made all the worse by how obvious it is he’s trying. His attempt to imbue the empty desert with a creepy sense of life fails, and what we’re treated to is a series of empty images of rocks. In addition, as far as character development goes, all we get are a bunch of annoying family members yelling at each other and frustrating the audience. The first part of the movie is pretty much just filler until we get to the good stuff.

Fortunately, when the movie gets going, it gets going. After two-thirds of the movie drudges by, the movie comes alive, with a nonstop barrage of intense violence and gore that succeeds in exciting the audience. It’s not so much scary, but intense and graphic enough to shock and entertain. Some of the character developments make no sense — the most annoying character becomes a sort of vengeful cult-hero figure and one of the villains does something that goes entirely unexplained — but all is forgiven for the sheer entertainment value. Many of the problems of the first two thirds, including confusing and frustrating motivations of all involved (Wouldn’t you take notice if your sister was screaming for her life? And where did the villains develop their unique tastes?) and the fact that some of the mutants come off as comic (two of them I amiably nicknamed Skinny Gary Busey and Vaudeville Gollum), are forgotten when the movie finally kicks into gear.

In the end, you probably already know whether you’ll like the movie — it’s a modern standard horror movie in the vein of those that came before it. It’s no Hitchcock or Carpenter or even Craven classic, but for many, including me, it’s got enough good ol’ horror guts n’ gore to make for an overall engaging (if totally unoriginal) movie experience.