Review of The Hills Have Eyes (1977) by Craig J — 05 Jul 2007

If it wasn?t for Wes Craven, I don?t think my horror obsession would have been. I had seen various horror films before but in 1995 when I had seen Wes Craven?s New Nightmare, I was hooked. For starters I wanted to know more about a certain character named Freddy Krueger but furthermore I wanted to see more of Wes Craven?s work. Being the obsessive that I am, I read up on his filmography and found a whole list of films I needed to see. The Hills Have Eyes was one of those films.

Sometime in 2000, I was watching a video of Night of the Demons, which had a trailer for The Hills Have Eyes. Barely able to hold in my excitement of seeing some footage from the film I so badly wanted to see, I ended up being disappointed. The camera zoomed out from a full size shot of The Hills Have Eyes actor, Michael Berryman (which is scary in itself) and then a narrator with a deep, booming voice stated, ?From the director of A Nightmare on Elm Street?. And that was it. I knew one day I would see this film and now, after five or more viewings its time for me to give it a verdict. But after I hyped this film up, does it exceed expectations. Let?s head out to the desert to find out?

The All American blond haired, blue eyed, Carter family consisting of mum, Ethel and dad, Bob, their two daughters, Lynne and Brenda, their son, Bobby, their baby granddaughter and son in law, Doug, are heading to California with a trailer in tow. Stopping off at a decrepit, gas station, they are warned by the owner that they should just head straight for California and stay on the main road. Ignoring the warning, the Carter family continue on their way through the desert but when the car crashes, they are left stranded in the middle of the desert.

However, the Carter family are not alone. A family of hungry, inbred cannibals is watching them and plan to pick them off one by one. When Big Bob and Doug leave the group to search for help, the rest of the family are left on their own. When the family are split up, the savages take their opportunity. One of the Carter?s dogs is disembowelled and although, Bobby knows that this has happened when he eventually catches up with the mutt he decides to not tell anyone that someone is out in the desert. This communication breakdown ends up causing the death of three family members, a rape and a kidnapped baby.

Craven sets up the finale to display the theme of how the normal, everyday, civilised Carter family can turn just as savage and violent as the cannibal clan to survive thus blurring the division between ?good? and ?evil?.

Wes Craven didn?t want to make another horror film after the controversy that surrounded his debut film, Last House on the Left but after five years, he became broke and headed off to the murder and mayhem section of the library. He came across the real life story of Scottish family, Sawney Bean, who lived in a cave and killed people on ships who drifted ashore. Using this simple premise, he adapted the story to modern times and so The Hills Have Eyes was born.

The first thing you?ll notice when watching The Hills Have Eyes is no matter how low budget the film is, it still looks very professional and not as crude as Craven?s previous film. The tone too has changed. Whereas Last House on the Left was grim and at times hard to watch, The Hills Have Eyes although savage in its depiction is a much more watchable and enjoyable piece of cinema. Craven, although limited by the budget (which was considerably larger than Last House?s) manages to create a fast flowing film, with characters that we care for and an enemy that should be feared.

The success of The Hills Have Eyes lies in the direction. Craven, very wisely, doesn?t let us see the cannibal family until the forty fifth minute. We catch glimpses of them throughout the first half of the film but these are only long shots where we cannot see them clearly or close ups of various body parts. Instead of showing the villains, Craven uses ambient noises to great effect. Hearing the jeering voices and strange animal sounds of the cannibals in the darkness is plain creepy and is a great technique. Although we never see them in their entirety, Craven gives us enough to create a mental image in our head. The two brothers, Pluto and Mars are the first of the family we clearly see (unless you count Ruby at the beginning of the film but she?s not like the rest of her family) and it is in the brightness of the Carter?s trailer too. This is a real shock because the clothes they wear, the fake wolf-like teeth and the way they act are so realistic that you really believe that this could be happening. Michael Berryman who plays Pluto already had a unique look after being born with a number of birth defects, so add his strange facial features with his costume and you can see why he ended up on the poster to advertise the film.

The scene with Pluto and Mars in the trailer, although giving the audience a shock with seeing the villains properly for the first time is also the start of a brutal ten minute scene. The action in that small space of time is brutally savage, yet compelling to watch. You can?t help but feel sorry for the Carter family as their loved ones die before their eyes. Although, son of the family, Bobby Carter is to blame for the attack by not communicating with his family when he knew that their dog was killed, no one should have to go through such atrocities as this. Brenda is raped and Lynne and Doug?s baby is kidnapped to for use as food. The rape in The Hills Have Eyes is thankfully, not as graphic as those that was shown in Last House on the Left. In fact it is so tame that it?s hard to know if that is what happened but it does and Craven filmed it without disgusting the audience, which I was thankful for, as rape is a disgusting act. Craven could have made The Hills Have Eyes far more disturbing with the kidnapping of the baby. He could have had the baby killed but decided against that because that went too far. Not being against babies in anyway (I want kids eventually), I myself might have re-considered that option. The film would have been much more terrifying if the baby had been killed but that?s just my opinion; I honestly think it would?ve worked for the film but I guess Craven didn?t want the amount of trouble that he caused with his feature film debut. Also the cast were against that available option too and would have probably walked out on the shoot.

A horror film would not be the same without people being killed. Although a few of the Carter family get killed in pretty basic ways, Craven created one particularly nasty death for the father of the family, Big Bob Carter; crucifixion on a cactus and then being set alight. For a film so low budget, the execution of this scene is very realistic. When the Big Bob?s son in-law, Doug, manages to extinguish the flames and pull the man from the cactus, his skin is charred black and smoke wafts out from his mouth. This is very unsettling to watch and the fact that this scene is intertwined with the scenes in the trailer make it all the more hard on the senses.

Not all credit must go to Craven. The music, as always, adds an extra layer that manages to make the film all the more terrifying. Don Peake has created a very simplistic score that creates a sense of loneliness and isolation. Sometimes though, having no music creates fear. The savage trailer scene mentioned isn?t accompanied by any music, which gives the film a pseudo-documentary feel, which adds even more tension to an already electrifying sequence.

Another factor of The Hills Have Eyes that makes it such a shocking film is the character of Jupiter or Papa Jupe, as his kids call him. He is the head of the family and even though his children are frightening figures with the exception of Ruby, even they are afraid of him. When the villains are afraid of their own kind, you can only imagine how the Carter family feel towards this individual.

Where Last House on the Left attempted to have some comic relief, which didn?t fit in-between the viciousness of the story, Craven ditched any attempt at humour in The Hills Have Eyes. Any humour you may notice is subtle and very dark, for instance, using their dead mother as bait. It?s a horrible thing to do and the scene conveys this but it doesn?t stop it from being darkly funny too.

The cast are mainly unknowns but you cannot really tell, as they manage to hold the film with ease. Film fans will no doubt recognise the bald headed poster boy, Michael Berryman, as he has appeared in his fair share of films; One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest was his previous credit before he took on the role of Pluto. Dee Wallace makes her film debut, as Lynne and we all know she stayed with her horror roots with The Howling and Cujo before being the mum in E.T. ? The Extra-Terrestrial. The rest of the cast, are excellent in their roles. I was particularly impressed with Lance Gordon who plays the brutal, Mars. He looks like an intimidating figure and spouts out the best line of the film (it?s one of Eddie Murphy?s favourite lines too), ?Baby?s fat, you fat. Fat n? juicy.? Brilliant.

The Hills Have Eyes is without doubt dated, the fashion wear being the main offender, but that doesn?t stop this classic from being a piece of brutal cinema. Much more accomplished than Last House on the Left, this has to be Craven?s second best film of his career after The People Under the Stairs. The seventies were a great time for primal horror. The slasher genre hadn?t even been created yet and Craven, Hooper and Romero et al were still creating the rules that have been so clichéd since then. The Hills Have Eyes is horror at its best; powerful and raw. No film since the seventies has been able to match the rawness of the classics from this period. It saddens me to hear that a remake is in the works for The Hills Have Eyes, with Craven producing. Do yourself a favour and see the original before its memory is tainted with a no doubt self-referential re-telling (although The Hills Have Eyes Part 2 did a good job of doing that but that?s another story or should I say review). The Hills Have Eyes, so go use yours and watch this classic.