I've been wanting to see it but just haven't gotten there yet. I've read some positive reviews. The sense I've gotten is that the visuals and scare factor are through the roof, but the mirroring of the two separate clans isn't as emphasized. I think when it comes to this type of movie, your threshold of tolerance for brutality is key. Mine rates higher than most peoples', but there were moments in Wolf Creek and High Tension (not really the most violent movies I've ever seen, just frightfully convincing and played for no laughs) where I wasn't sure if I could handle the suspense.

Some review samplings:

Quote:
“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.


Quote:
The Hills Have Eyes is a carefully plotted, brilliantly coiled example of suspenseful horror filmmaking. That’s quite a feat these days, with theatres glutted with cheap debris like Saw II. A bold and brutal film, The Hills Have Eyes gets under your skin on an almost primal level.


Quote:
Sure – there are about 15 minutes or so of this film that were so intense that my balls hurt, and that’s certainly something to regard with due respect. But sadly the rest of the film is a shambling, poorly-paced, and occasionally ridiculous mess – a dull walk in the desert littered with half-assed attempts at social commentary and spotted with moments of hilariously bad melodrama. In short, it’s basically the same as the first film, only with more blood on the walls.
"Pass me through your fingertips/Throw me down like an old rag/I'm not standing/Don't look back/Are you human or a dog?"