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The Hills Have Eyes (1977 film)

The Hills Have Eyes is a 1977 American horror film written, directed, and edited by Wes Craven and starring Susan Lanier, Michael Berryman and Dee Wallace. The film follows the Carters, a suburban family targeted by a family of cannibal savages after becoming stranded in the Nevada desert.

The Hills Have Eyes
Theatrical release poster
Directed byWes Craven
Written byWes Craven
Produced byPeter Locke
Starring
CinematographyEric Saarinen[1]
Edited byWes Craven[1]
Music byDon Peake
Production
company
Blood Relations Company[1]
Distributed byVanguard[2]
Release date
  • July 22, 1977 (1977-07-22)
Running time
89 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$350,000–700,000[1]
Box office$25 million[3]

Following Craven's directorial debut, The Last House on the Left (1972), producer Peter Locke was interested in financing a similar project. Craven based the film's script on the legend of Scottish cannibal Sawney Bean, which Craven viewed as illustrating how supposedly civilized people could become savage. Other influences on the film include John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). The Hills Have Eyes was shot in the Mojave Desert. The film's crew were initially unenthusiastic about the project, but they became more passionate due to Craven's enthusiasm and came to believe that they were making a special movie.

The Hills Have Eyes earned $25 million at the box office and spawned a franchise. All subsequent films in the series were made with Craven's involvement. The Hills Have Eyes was released on VHS in 1988 and has subsequently been released on DVD and Blu-ray, while Don Peake's score for the film has been released on CD and vinyl. Reviews for the film were mostly positive, with critics praising its tense narrative and humor. Some critics have interpreted the film as containing commentary on morality and American politics, and the film has since become a cult classic.

Plot

The suburban Carter family is traveling on vacation towing a trailer enroute to Los Angeles. Parents Bob and Ethel are driving, accompanied by their teenage children Bobby, Brenda, eldest daughter Lynne, Lynne's husband Doug, Lynne and Doug's baby daughter Cathrine (Katy), and the family's dogs, Beauty and Beast.

In Nevada, they stop at Fred's Oasis for fuel, and Fred urges them to stay on the main road as they leave. Fred's truck suddenly explodes. Dismissing Fred's warnings as a crazy person's ramblings, the Carters get startled by overhead aircraft when driving near Nellis Air Force Range, and skid off the road and crash. The dogs become very panicky and start barking at the hills. Beauty then runs off into the hills. Chasing after her, Bobby finds her mutilated body. Frightened, he runs, falls, and knocks himself unconscious.

Bob walks back to Fred's Oasis to get help. As night falls, he finds Fred, who tells him about his son Jupiter. As a child, Jupiter killed the family's livestock and later murdered his sister. Fred attacked Jupiter with a tire iron and left him in the hills to die. However, Jupiter survived and had children with a depraved, alcoholic prostitute known as Mama. Together, they had three sons – Mars, Pluto and Mercury – and an abused daughter, Ruby. The family led by "Papa Jupiter" survives by cannibalizing travelers and stealing supplies. Papa Jupiter suddenly crashes through a window, kills Fred with a tire iron, takes Bob prisoner, and crucifies him.

Brenda finds Bobby, still shaken up about Beauty, and the two return to the trailer. Bobby does not mention Beauty's death to avoid frightening the rest of the family. Pluto sneaks to the trailer and signals Papa Jupiter to set Bob on fire as a distraction. Brenda stays in the trailer with Katy while Ethel, Lynne, Doug, and Bobby rush out to save Bob. The Carters eventually extinguish the fire, but Bob dies shortly afterwards.

As the Carters extinguish the fire, Pluto and Mars ransack the camper and Mars rapes Brenda. When Ethel and Lynne return, Mars shoots them both. Pluto abducts Katy and the brothers flee, intending for the family to eat her. Hearing their screams, Doug and Bobby rush back only to find Lynne dead, Ethel mortally wounded and Brenda traumatized.

Mars and Pluto return to their home, a cave. Beast pushes Mercury off a hilltop to his death. Mama chains Ruby outside the cave, torments her and forces her to eat Beauty as punishment for sympathizing with the Carters. The next morning, shortly after Ethel dies, Doug sets out to find Katy while Papa Jupiter and Pluto set out to kill the remaining family members.

Beast tears Pluto's throat out. Brenda and Bobby use Ethel's corpse as a trap to kill Papa Jupiter. Doug gets to the cave, where he sees Ruby knocking out Mama and carrying Katy away. Doug catches up with Ruby, but Mars follows and attacks Doug. Mars gains the upper hand, but Ruby interferes, enabling Doug to overpower him. Doug then savagely stabs Mars and continues long after he is dead, whilst Ruby weeps.

Cast

Production

Development

 
Steve Palopoli notes parallels between "Hansel and Gretel" and The Hills Have Eyes.

Wes Craven desired to make a non-horror film, following his directorial debut, The Last House on the Left (1972), because he saw the horror genre as constraining. However, he could not find producers interested in financing a project that did not feature bloody violence.[4][5] Craven's friend, producer Peter Locke, was interested in financing a horror exploitation film, and Craven decided to write the project due to his monetary issues.[4] Craven considered collaborating with Sean S. Cunningham on a horror children's film based on "Hansel and Gretel", but Locke wanted the film to be more in the vein of The Last House on the Left. According to Steve Palopoli of Metro Silicon Valley, the finished film still features elements of "Hansel and Gretel," specifically its portrayal of people getting lost in the wilderness and setting a trap for their tormentors. Palopoli also noted the witch from "Hansel and Gretel" and the villains from Hills both try to cannibalize children.[6] In writing the project for Locke, Craven decided he "wanted something more sophisticated than Last House on the Left." He added that he "didn't want to feel uncomfortable again about making a statement about human depravity."[5]

 
The Hills Have Eyes is based on the legend of Sawney Bean.

Searching for a story to film, Craven began looking up "terrible things" at the New York Public Library.[5] While going through the library's forensics department, Craven learned of the legend of Sawney Bean - the alleged head of a 48-person Scottish clan responsible for the murder and cannibalization of more than one thousand people. What interested Craven in the legend was how, after Bean's clan was arrested, they were tortured, quartered, burned and hanged. Craven saw this treatment of the Bean clan by supposedly civilized people as paralleling the clan's own savagery. Craven decided to base the film on the legend.[7][4] Another major inspiration for the project was Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974),[4] one of Craven's favorite films.[8] Bloody Disgusting's Zachary Paul says that both films center on a group of vacationers who are "stranded in the wide open nowhere and must protect themselves against a tightly knit family of cannibals" and feature an archetypal "gas station of doom".[4] Like The Last House on the Left before it, the film drew influence from the work of European directors such as François Truffaut and Luis Buñuel.[9]

Other inspirations for The Hills Have Eyes were Craven's neighbors and family, on whom the Carters where modeled,[4] the director's nightmares,[10] and John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (1940).[11] The original script was titled Blood Relations: The Sun Wars and was set in New Jersey during 1984, several years in the future.[12][1] As Locke's girlfriend, Liz Torres, often performed in Las Vegas during this period, Locke saw a lot of desert landscapes as the film was being written, and suggested that Craven set the film in the desert. Due to budgetary constraints, the film was written to have few roles and be set in few locations. Originally, the film was to end with the surviving members of the family reuniting at the trailer site, signifying that they could move on with their lives. Craven ultimately opted for an ending where Doug stabs Mars as a disgusted Ruby watches, as he liked the role reversal that this ending created.[13] Craven also wanted the two families in the story to be the "mirror images of each other," believing that this would allow him to "explore different sides of the human personality."[14]

Casting

Michael Berryman, who has twenty-six different birth defects, won the role of Pluto.[13] He was elated to be cast in a horror film due to his love of The Mummy's Curse (1944) and other black-and-white Universal Classic Monsters films.[15] The character of Ruby needed to be played by an actress who was a fast runner, so all of the actresses who auditioned for the part were required to race each other. Janus Blythe won the part partially because she outran all of the other auditioning actresses.[13] Locke wanted to make a cameo appearance in the film, and was given the role of Mercury, who appears briefly in the film. Locke was credited for the role under the name "Arthur King."[4] Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, was offered a part in the film and rejected it so that he could move to Maine and focus on his literary career.[16] He later came to regret not appearing in the film.[17]

Filming

 
The film was shot in Victorville, California.

Principal photography for The Hills Have Eyes began in October 1976.[1] The film was shot in Victorville, California[14] in the Mojave Desert[1] using 16 mm film on cameras that were borrowed from a Californian pornographic filmmaker.[4] The film cost between $350,000 and $700,000,[1] around thrice the budget of The Last House on the Left.[4] The film's actors were paid minimum wage, and the film's crew were non-union.[14] Locke was on the film's set every day of its shoot, making sure that Craven was being productive.[4]

The shoot was unpleasant for the actors, due to daytime temperatures of over 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius) which dropped to around 30 degrees (-1 degrees Celsius) during the night, as well as the fact that they played physically taxing roles twelve to fourteen hours a day, six days a week.[4] As Berryman lacks sweat glands, the heat was particularly hazardous to his health, and he had to be attended to after the filming of the film's action scenes.[13] Many cast members did their own makeup due to budgetary constraints. Wallace later joked that the dogs that appeared in the film were treated better than its human cast members. Most of the film's crew were veterans of Roger Corman films, and were initially unenthusiastic about The Hills Have Eyes. This changed weeks into production due to Craven's zeal for the project, and because the crew came to believe that the film was "something special."[4]

Robert Burns, the production designer of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, also served as the production designer for the film. He re-used many of the props from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to decorate the cannibal clan's lair, including animal hides and bones.[4] The sequence where Dee Wallace's character confronts a tarantula was not part of the film's script; it was added to the film after the filmmakers discovered the spider on a road. The tarantula was not harmed during the filming of the sequence.[13] During the sequence where the cannibals eat Big Bob, a leg of lamb stood in for human flesh. This was a relief for the hungry actors.[4] At one point, Craven considered having the character Papa Jupiter eat baby Katy, an idea which most of the cast disliked. Berryman refused to do the scene, and Craven allowed Katy to survive.[4] The carcass of the Carter's family dog, Beauty, was an actual dog carcass that the filmmakers purchased; Craven has refused to explain how exactly the filmmakers obtained the carcass.[13]

Post-production

The film was initially given an X rating by the MPAA due to its graphic violence. Due to this, significant material was removed from Fred's death scene, the sequence where Mars and Pluto attack the trailer, and the last confrontation with Papa Jupiter.[13] Out of one hundred possible titles for the film, The Hills Have Eyes was chosen. It tested well with audiences, though Craven did not like it.[4] Prints of the film were made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.[1]

Release

Marketing

Locke told the Los Angeles Times that he expected the film's marketing campaign to cost twice or thrice the film's budget. Advertisements for The Hills Have Eyes claimed that a copy of the film had been added to the permanent collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art; in actuality, the copy of the film had been added to the museum's "study" collection rather than its more prestigious permanent collection. One of the museum's curators told the Los Angeles Times that he would prefer that the film's advertisements not mention the museum.[1]

Box office

The film premiered on July 22, 1977,[18] in Tucson, Arizona, where it earned $2 million by October 1977, the same month the film gained a wider release.[1] The Hills Have Eyes ultimately earned $25 million,[3] and was a greater box office success than The Last House on the Left.[19] Craven noted that the film managed to break box office records at some of the individual theaters that it opened in. The film's gross was impeded by the financial success of the Burt Reynolds film Smokey and the Bandit (1977). Locke characterized the film as neither a huge hit nor a box-office bomb, and was pleased with the amount of money it generated.[20]

Critical response

Contemporaneous

The staff of Variety called The Hills Have Eyes "a satisfying piece of pulp," adding that "Gratifying aspects [of the film] are Craven's businesslike plotting and pacy cutting, and a script which takes more trouble over the stock characters than it needs. There are plenty of laughs, in the dialog and in the story's disarming twists."[21] In his review of Craven's later film Swamp Thing (1982), Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times criticized the film for being too "decadent" for his taste.[22] Tim Pulleine of The Monthly Film Bulletin stated that the film's story "had promise" but was "never fused into an effective narrative pattern, let alone an allegorical one."[23] Tim Whitehead of The Spectator deemed the film's "predictable" plot an excuse for "scenes of ghastly carnage in the horror vein of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," opining that Craven "maintains the tension throughout and occasionally manages to relieve the horror with elements of the ridiculous." Whitehead stated that he "simply found [himself] looking away from the endless stabbings, gougings and burnings."[24]

Retrospective

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, The Hills Have Eyes holds a 67% approval rating based on 27 critic reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The consensus reads: "When it's not bludgeoning the viewer with its more off-putting, cruder elements, The Hills Have Eyes wields some clever storytelling and a sly sense of dark humor."[25] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "Generally favorable reviews".[18] The film was included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, where Steven Jay Schneider said it "warrants consideration as one of the richest and most perfectly realized films of Craven's career".[26] Fangoria listed the film as one of the thirteen greatest horror films of the 1970s[19] while Film Journal International has cited The Hills Have Eyes as a classic grindhouse feature.[27] The film was nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills.[28] TV Guide gave it a three out of four stars rating, saying that it is "exhilarating" to watch the Carters become more savage.[29]

Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman wrote that the film is more imaginative than horror films made by major studios.[30] For the San Francisco Chronicle, Walter Addiego said that The Hills Have Eyes is the scariest movie he has ever seen, describing it and The Last House on the Left (1972) as "a turning point in horror... Suddenly, earlier horror—like the Universal classics (Frankenstein, etc.) and Roger Corman's Poe films—seemed like weak tea."[31] Comparing The Hills Have Eyes to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Zachary Paul of Bloody Disgusting found the former superior and praised its "overwhelming" tension.[4]

Slant Magazine's Eric Henderson called the film "effective" and praised its cast, particularly Robert Houston, whose performance is "more complex than your average male lead in a horror film." However, Henderson also deemed the film inferior to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and criticized the sequence where the Carters create booby traps for feeling like Looney Tunes cartoons about Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.[32] Dread Central's Jon Condit opined that The Hills Have Eyes is not one of Craven's best films.[33] In Empire, Kim Newman gave the film a three out of five star rating, saying, "Decades on The Hills Have Eyes no longer seems quite as breathlessly swift as it did."[34] A critic for IndieWire dismissed the film as middling.[35]

Accolades

At the 1977 Sitges Film Festival, The Hills Have Eyes won the Critic's Award.[36]

Home media

The Hills Have Eyes was released on VHS in July 1981.[37] It was released for the first time on DVD by Lionsgate Home Entertainment on September 23, 2003 as a two-disc special edition. On September 29 that same year, it was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment. Anchor Bay would release the film again in 2006. The film made its Blu-ray debut on September 6, 2011 by Image Entertainment, who also released the film on DVD that same day. In 2013, Anchor Bay released the film on Blu-ray as a "Double feature" with Re-Animator (1985) and on DVD as part of a four disc set which also includes Re-Animator, Sleepwalkers (1992), and Darkness Falls (2003). The film had its Canadian release on both DVD and Blu-ray by E1 Entertainment on January 10, 2013. The film was later released on Blu-ray by Arrow Video on October 11, 2016 and again on January 30, 2018.[38]

Analysis

Genre

In Men, Women, and Chainsaws, Carol J. Clover characterizes The Hills Have Eyes as a rape and revenge film.[39] Steven Jay Schneider classifies the film as a hybrid horror film, road movie, "siege film" and Western.[26] Christopher Sharrett of Film Quarterly sees the film as more akin to an Anti-Western.[11]

Moral themes

According to Steven Jay Schneider in Senses of Cinema, the sequence where Big Bob is crucified symbolizes "utter repudiation of" Judeo-Christian ethics. Schneider also views everyone in the film as guilty in some way.[40] Slant Magazine's Ed Gonzales characterized the film as "morally inconsequential," commenting that with the film's ending "Craven seemingly believes he's saying something about our instinctual need to kill for pleasure, but this philosophy doesn't hold water considering the context of [Doug's] situation....It's a cut-and-dry [sic] case of life-or-death self-defense."[41] In Wes Craven: The Art of Horror, John Kenneth Muir writes that the film is not saying that the Carter family are worse than their enemies, as the cannibal clan commits violent acts more horrific than anything the Carters do, but that the Carters must stoop to the level of barbarians to defeat barbarians. Muir also believes while the actions of Jupiter's family are inexcusable, they are understandable, as they are trying to survive.[42]

Political themes

Craven has said that the film expresses rage against American culture and the bourgeois.[43] John Kenneth Muir views the Carters as representing the United States, and that while The Hills Have Eyes has and can be interpreted as an allegory about the Vietnam War, this is complicated by the fact that the Carters defeat their enemies, unlike the American forces in Vietnam. Muir instead sees the film as being about the class divide in America, with the Carters symbolizing the wealthy and Papa Jupiter's family representing the poor. He supports this theory by noting that the Carters and the cannibals are both from America.[42]

Franchise

Craven directed a sequel to the film, The Hills Have Eyes Part II, which was released in 1985.[44] Craven made the film to turn The Hills Have Eyes into a series, in the vein of the Halloween and Friday the 13th series.[45] In the late 1980s, Craven considered making a film in the series set in outer space, but it never came to fruition.[46] The unrelated Craven project Mind Ripper (1995) was originally going to be a third The Hills Have Eyes movie, but it was re-written so that it never directly refers to The Hills Have Eyes or Part II. Mind Ripper still has the alternative title The Hills Have Eyes III.[47][48] Alexandre Aja directed a remake of The Hills Have Eyes in 2006, which Craven produced.[49] In 2007, Craven and his son Jonathan wrote the sequel to the remake, The Hills Have Eyes 2.[50]

Cultural impact

Legacy

 
Michael Berryman became a horror icon due to his role in the film.

Multiple critics have deemed The Hills Have Eyes a cult classic,[6][26][51] with Zachary Paul of Bloody Disgusting saying "In the 40 years since the film was released, The Hills Have Eyes has amassed quite the large following. It's hard to throw a rock at any decent horror convention without clocking someone involved with the film's production in the head."[4] Both Berryman and his character Pluto have become horror icons due to the film.[4][13] Dee Wallace became known as a scream queen due to her roles in The Hills Have Eyes, The Howling (1981) and Cujo (1983).[52] John Kenneth Muir writes that The Hills Have Eyes "was seen as a turning point in the horror genre" and inspired humorous, visceral horror films that were accomplished on a technical level, including Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), and Prom Night (1980).[19]

In popular culture

While watching The Hills Have Eyes, director Sam Raimi noticed a ripped poster for Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) in a scene of the film. He "took it to mean that Wes Craven...was saying 'Jaws was just pop horror. What I have here is real horror.'"[13] This inspired Raimi to include a ripped The Hills Have Eyes poster in his film The Evil Dead (1981), as a humorous way of telling Craven "No, this is the real horror, pal." Craven reacted to this by having Nancy Thompson fall asleep while watching The Evil Dead in his film A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Raimi responded to that by including Freddy Krueger's glove in a scene of Evil Dead II (1987). Later, Craven would have characters in his film Scream (1996) choose to watch a VHS of Halloween (1978) instead of the VHS of The Evil Dead (1981) that they had. Then, in a first-season episode of Raimi's television show Ash vs Evil Dead, Krueger's glove can be glimpsed, while a poster for The Hills Have Eyes can be seen outside a movie theater in an episode of the show's second season.[53]

The videogame Red Dead Redemption, set in the old west, includes a side mission called "American Appetites", where the main character investigates a series of disappearances of travelers near the fictional town of Armadillo. At the end, the player finds out that the disappearances are the work of a cannibal serial killer that lives in the hills.

"Home," a 1996 episode of The X-Files, is an homage to both The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.[54]

The title and lyrics of The Weeknd's song "The Hills" (2015) reference Craven's film.[55]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "The Hills Have Eyes (1977)". American Film Institute. from the original on September 25, 2018. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
  2. ^ Hogan 1986, p. 308.
  3. ^ a b Clint, Davis (August 31, 2015). "6 times Wes Craven reinvented horror". Kitsap Sun. from the original on September 23, 2018. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Paul, Zachary (July 22, 2017). "40 Years Later and 'The Hills Still Have Eyes'". Bloody Disgusting. from the original on September 18, 2018. Retrieved September 17, 2018.
  5. ^ a b c Hutson 2016, p. 32.
  6. ^ a b Palopoli, Steve. "There's Candy In Them 'Hills': Hansel and Gretel vs. mutants in 1977 cult shocker". Metro Silicon Valley. from the original on April 16, 2014. Retrieved April 16, 2014.
  7. ^ Maddrey 2004, p. 163-164.
  8. ^ Wood, Jennifer M. (October 21, 2014). "11 Things You Didn't Know About The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Esquire. from the original on January 26, 2018. Retrieved September 24, 2018.
  9. ^ Walker & Johnson 2008, p. 218.
  10. ^ Hutson 2016, p. 76.
  11. ^ a b Walker & Johnson 2008, p. 226.
  12. ^ Maddrey 2004, p. 55.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i Jackson, Matthew (July 22, 2017). "11 Terrifying Facts About The Hills Have Eyes". Mental Floss. from the original on September 18, 2018. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  14. ^ a b c Hutson 2016, p. 33.
  15. ^ Paul 2008, p. 25.
  16. ^ Pratt, Essel (November 8, 2015). "Gunnar Hansen Dead At 68, Texas Chainsaw Massacre Icon Starred As Leatherface In Cult Classic". Inquisitr. from the original on September 27, 2018. Retrieved September 26, 2018.
  17. ^ Harrigan, Stephen (July 2014). "A Double Date With Leatherface". Texas Monthly. from the original on September 25, 2018. Retrieved September 24, 2018.
  18. ^ a b "The Hills Have Eyes (1977) Reviews - Metacritic". Metacritic.com. Metacritic. from the original on August 12, 2018. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
  19. ^ a b c Muir 1998, p. 14.
  20. ^ Hutson 2016, p. 34.
  21. ^ "The Hills Have Eyes". Variety. December 31, 1977. from the original on October 6, 2018. Retrieved October 5, 2018.
  22. ^ Ebert, Roger (January 1, 1982). "Swamp Thing". Chicago Sun-Times. from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 24, 2015.
  23. ^ Pulleine, Tim (1978). "Hills Have Eyes, The". The Monthly Film Bulletin. Vol. 45, no. 528. British Film Institute. pp. 240–241. ISSN 0027-0407.
  24. ^ Whitehead, Ted (February 24, 1979). . The Spectator. p. 25. Archived from the original on October 13, 2018. Retrieved October 13, 2018.
  25. ^ "The Hills Have Eyes (1977) - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes.com. Flixer. from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  26. ^ a b c Schneider, Steven Jay, ed. (2008). 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Quintessence Editions (5th Anniversary/3rd ed.). Hauppauge, New York: Barron's Educational Series. p. 603. ISBN 978-0-7641-6151-3. OCLC 213305397.
  27. ^ "Film Review: Preservation". Film Journal International. January 8, 2015. from the original on October 6, 2018. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
  28. ^ "America's Most Heart-Ponding Movies" (PDF). afi.com. (PDF) from the original on July 6, 2011. Retrieved July 17, 2012.
  29. ^ "The Hills Have Eyes - Movie Reviews and Movie Ratings". TV Guide.com. TV Guide. from the original on September 20, 2018. Retrieved September 20, 2018.
  30. ^ Gleiberman, Owen (March 8, 2006). "The Hills Have Eyes". Entertainment Weekly. from the original on October 6, 2018. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
  31. ^ "Chronicle critics pick the scariest movies they've seen". San Francisco Chronicle. October 28, 2017. from the original on October 6, 2018. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
  32. ^ Henderson, Eric (September 10, 2003). "The Hills Have Eyes". Slant Magazine. from the original on September 21, 2018. Retrieved September 20, 2018.
  33. ^ Condit, Jon (February 10, 2006). "Hills Have Eyes, The (2006)". Dread Central. from the original on October 7, 2018. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
  34. ^ Newman, Kim (January 1, 2000). "Empire Essay: The Hills Have Eyes Review". Empire. from the original on October 6, 2018. Retrieved October 2, 2018.
  35. ^ "The Hills Have Eyes: Better viewed with the mentally challenged?". IndieWire. March 15, 2006. from the original on October 6, 2018. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
  36. ^ "1977 10ed. Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic i de Terror (1/10 - 8/10)". Sitges Film Festival. from the original on September 21, 2018. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
  37. ^ Variety's Complete Home Video Directory. R.R. Bowker. 1988. p. 181.
  38. ^ "The Hills Have Eyes (1977) - Wes Craven". Allmovie.com. Allmovie. from the original on October 3, 2018. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
  39. ^ Fahy 2010, p. 109.
  40. ^ Schneider, Steven Jay (March 2002). "The Hills Have Eyes". Senses of Cinema. from the original on September 23, 2018. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  41. ^ Gonzales, Eric (October 3, 2003). "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Slant Magazine. from the original on September 23, 2018. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  42. ^ a b Muir 1998, p. 69.
  43. ^ Walker & Johnson 2008, p. 219.
  44. ^ Wes Craven (Director) (1984). The Hills Have Eyes Part II (DVD). United States: Hills Two Corporation VTC.
  45. ^ Muir 1998, p. 18.
  46. ^ Muir 1998, p. 105.
  47. ^ Paul 2008, p. 27.
  48. ^ Coffel, Chris (August 21, 2018). "[Blu-ray Review] 'Mind Ripper' is Further Proof That We Were Too Harsh on 90's Horror". Bloody Disgusting. from the original on September 22, 2018. Retrieved September 21, 2018.
  49. ^ Alexandre Aja (Director) (2006). The Hills Have Eyes (2006) (DVD). United States: Dune Entertainment.
  50. ^ Martin Weisz (Director) (2007). The Hills Have Eyes 2 (DVD). United States: Dune Entertainment.
  51. ^ Koehler, Robert (March 2, 2006). "The Hills Have Eyes". Variety. from the original on September 20, 2018. Retrieved September 19, 2018.
  52. ^ Frevele, Jamie (April 28, 2011). "Scream: The Feminist-Friendly Horror Franchise". The Mary Sue. from the original on September 20, 2018. Retrieved September 20, 2018.
  53. ^ Squires, John (December 8, 2016). "The Long History of Wes Craven and Sam Raimi's Communication Through Film". Bloody Disgusting. from the original on September 27, 2018. Retrieved September 26, 2018.
  54. ^ Waddell 2006, p. 113.
  55. ^ Vozick-Levinson, Simon (August 21, 2015). "How the Weeknd Went From Broke in Canada to Sharing Stage With Taylor Swift". Rolling Stone. from the original on September 18, 2018. Retrieved September 18, 2018.

Bibliography

  • Fahy, Thomas (2010), The Philosophy of Horror, United States of America: The University Press of Kentucky, ISBN 978-0-8131-2573-2
  • Hogan, David J. (1986), Dark Romance: Sexuality in the Horror Film, Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, ISBN 978-0-7864-0474-2
  • Hutson, Thommy (2016), Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy: The Making of Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street, New York City: Permuted Press, ISBN 978-1-6186864-0-4
  • Maddrey, Joseph (2004), Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film, Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, ISBN 978-0-7864-1860-2
  • Muir, John Kenneth (1998), Wes Craven: The Art of Horror, Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, ISBN 978-0-7864-1923-4
  • Paul, Louis (2008), Tales from the Cult Film Trenches: Interviews with 36 Actors from Horror, Science Fiction and Exploitation Cinema, Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, ISBN 978-0-7864-2994-3
  • Waddell, Terrie (2006), Mis/takes: Archetype, Myth and Identity in Screen Fiction, London and New York: Routledge, ISBN 978-1-58391-720-6
  • Walker, Elsie M.; Johnson, David T. (2008), Conversations with Directors: An Anthology of Interviews from Literature/Film Quarterly, Lanham, Maryland, Toronto and Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., ISBN 978-0-8108-6122-0

External links

  • The Hills Have Eyes at IMDb
  • The Hills Have Eyes at AllMovie
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  • Through the Eyes of America: Wes Craven’s "The Hills Have Eyes"

hills, have, eyes, 1977, film, hills, have, eyes, 1977, american, horror, film, written, directed, edited, craven, starring, susan, lanier, michael, berryman, wallace, film, follows, carters, suburban, family, targeted, family, cannibal, savages, after, becomi. The Hills Have Eyes is a 1977 American horror film written directed and edited by Wes Craven and starring Susan Lanier Michael Berryman and Dee Wallace The film follows the Carters a suburban family targeted by a family of cannibal savages after becoming stranded in the Nevada desert The Hills Have EyesTheatrical release posterDirected byWes CravenWritten byWes CravenProduced byPeter LockeStarringSusan Lanier Robert Houston Martin Speer Dee Wallace Russ Grieve John Steadman Michael Berryman Virginia VincentCinematographyEric Saarinen 1 Edited byWes Craven 1 Music byDon PeakeProductioncompanyBlood Relations Company 1 Distributed byVanguard 2 Release dateJuly 22 1977 1977 07 22 Running time89 minutes 1 CountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishBudget 350 000 700 000 1 Box office 25 million 3 Following Craven s directorial debut The Last House on the Left 1972 producer Peter Locke was interested in financing a similar project Craven based the film s script on the legend of Scottish cannibal Sawney Bean which Craven viewed as illustrating how supposedly civilized people could become savage Other influences on the film include John Ford s The Grapes of Wrath 1940 and Tobe Hooper s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974 The Hills Have Eyes was shot in the Mojave Desert The film s crew were initially unenthusiastic about the project but they became more passionate due to Craven s enthusiasm and came to believe that they were making a special movie The Hills Have Eyes earned 25 million at the box office and spawned a franchise All subsequent films in the series were made with Craven s involvement The Hills Have Eyes was released on VHS in 1988 and has subsequently been released on DVD and Blu ray while Don Peake s score for the film has been released on CD and vinyl Reviews for the film were mostly positive with critics praising its tense narrative and humor Some critics have interpreted the film as containing commentary on morality and American politics and the film has since become a cult classic Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Production 3 1 Development 3 2 Casting 3 3 Filming 3 4 Post production 4 Release 4 1 Marketing 4 2 Box office 4 3 Critical response 4 3 1 Contemporaneous 4 3 2 Retrospective 4 4 Accolades 4 5 Home media 5 Analysis 5 1 Genre 5 2 Moral themes 5 3 Political themes 6 Franchise 7 Cultural impact 7 1 Legacy 7 2 In popular culture 8 References 9 Bibliography 10 External linksPlot EditThe suburban Carter family is traveling on vacation towing a trailer enroute to Los Angeles Parents Bob and Ethel are driving accompanied by their teenage children Bobby Brenda eldest daughter Lynne Lynne s husband Doug Lynne and Doug s baby daughter Cathrine Katy and the family s dogs Beauty and Beast In Nevada they stop at Fred s Oasis for fuel and Fred urges them to stay on the main road as they leave Fred s truck suddenly explodes Dismissing Fred s warnings as a crazy person s ramblings the Carters get startled by overhead aircraft when driving near Nellis Air Force Range and skid off the road and crash The dogs become very panicky and start barking at the hills Beauty then runs off into the hills Chasing after her Bobby finds her mutilated body Frightened he runs falls and knocks himself unconscious Bob walks back to Fred s Oasis to get help As night falls he finds Fred who tells him about his son Jupiter As a child Jupiter killed the family s livestock and later murdered his sister Fred attacked Jupiter with a tire iron and left him in the hills to die However Jupiter survived and had children with a depraved alcoholic prostitute known as Mama Together they had three sons Mars Pluto and Mercury and an abused daughter Ruby The family led by Papa Jupiter survives by cannibalizing travelers and stealing supplies Papa Jupiter suddenly crashes through a window kills Fred with a tire iron takes Bob prisoner and crucifies him Brenda finds Bobby still shaken up about Beauty and the two return to the trailer Bobby does not mention Beauty s death to avoid frightening the rest of the family Pluto sneaks to the trailer and signals Papa Jupiter to set Bob on fire as a distraction Brenda stays in the trailer with Katy while Ethel Lynne Doug and Bobby rush out to save Bob The Carters eventually extinguish the fire but Bob dies shortly afterwards As the Carters extinguish the fire Pluto and Mars ransack the camper and Mars rapes Brenda When Ethel and Lynne return Mars shoots them both Pluto abducts Katy and the brothers flee intending for the family to eat her Hearing their screams Doug and Bobby rush back only to find Lynne dead Ethel mortally wounded and Brenda traumatized Mars and Pluto return to their home a cave Beast pushes Mercury off a hilltop to his death Mama chains Ruby outside the cave torments her and forces her to eat Beauty as punishment for sympathizing with the Carters The next morning shortly after Ethel dies Doug sets out to find Katy while Papa Jupiter and Pluto set out to kill the remaining family members Beast tears Pluto s throat out Brenda and Bobby use Ethel s corpse as a trap to kill Papa Jupiter Doug gets to the cave where he sees Ruby knocking out Mama and carrying Katy away Doug catches up with Ruby but Mars follows and attacks Doug Mars gains the upper hand but Ruby interferes enabling Doug to overpower him Doug then savagely stabs Mars and continues long after he is dead whilst Ruby weeps Cast EditRuss Grieve as Big Bob Carter Virginia Vincent as Ethel Carter Susan Lanier as Brenda Carter Robert Houston as Bobby Carter Dee Wallace as Lynne Wood Martin Speer as Doug Wood Brenda Marinoff as Baby Katy Wood James Whitworth as Papa Jupiter Cordy Clark as Mama Lance Gordon as Mars Michael Berryman as Pluto Peter Locke as Mercury credited as Arthur King Janus Blythe as Ruby John Steadman as FredProduction EditDevelopment Edit Steve Palopoli notes parallels between Hansel and Gretel and The Hills Have Eyes Wes Craven desired to make a non horror film following his directorial debut The Last House on the Left 1972 because he saw the horror genre as constraining However he could not find producers interested in financing a project that did not feature bloody violence 4 5 Craven s friend producer Peter Locke was interested in financing a horror exploitation film and Craven decided to write the project due to his monetary issues 4 Craven considered collaborating with Sean S Cunningham on a horror children s film based on Hansel and Gretel but Locke wanted the film to be more in the vein of The Last House on the Left According to Steve Palopoli of Metro Silicon Valley the finished film still features elements of Hansel and Gretel specifically its portrayal of people getting lost in the wilderness and setting a trap for their tormentors Palopoli also noted the witch from Hansel and Gretel and the villains from Hills both try to cannibalize children 6 In writing the project for Locke Craven decided he wanted something more sophisticated than Last House on the Left He added that he didn t want to feel uncomfortable again about making a statement about human depravity 5 The Hills Have Eyes is based on the legend of Sawney Bean Searching for a story to film Craven began looking up terrible things at the New York Public Library 5 While going through the library s forensics department Craven learned of the legend of Sawney Bean the alleged head of a 48 person Scottish clan responsible for the murder and cannibalization of more than one thousand people What interested Craven in the legend was how after Bean s clan was arrested they were tortured quartered burned and hanged Craven saw this treatment of the Bean clan by supposedly civilized people as paralleling the clan s own savagery Craven decided to base the film on the legend 7 4 Another major inspiration for the project was Tobe Hooper s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974 4 one of Craven s favorite films 8 Bloody Disgusting s Zachary Paul says that both films center on a group of vacationers who are stranded in the wide open nowhere and must protect themselves against a tightly knit family of cannibals and feature an archetypal gas station of doom 4 Like The Last House on the Left before it the film drew influence from the work of European directors such as Francois Truffaut and Luis Bunuel 9 Other inspirations for The Hills Have Eyes were Craven s neighbors and family on whom the Carters where modeled 4 the director s nightmares 10 and John Ford s The Grapes of Wrath 1940 11 The original script was titled Blood Relations The Sun Wars and was set in New Jersey during 1984 several years in the future 12 1 As Locke s girlfriend Liz Torres often performed in Las Vegas during this period Locke saw a lot of desert landscapes as the film was being written and suggested that Craven set the film in the desert Due to budgetary constraints the film was written to have few roles and be set in few locations Originally the film was to end with the surviving members of the family reuniting at the trailer site signifying that they could move on with their lives Craven ultimately opted for an ending where Doug stabs Mars as a disgusted Ruby watches as he liked the role reversal that this ending created 13 Craven also wanted the two families in the story to be the mirror images of each other believing that this would allow him to explore different sides of the human personality 14 Casting Edit Michael Berryman who has twenty six different birth defects won the role of Pluto 13 He was elated to be cast in a horror film due to his love of The Mummy s Curse 1944 and other black and white Universal Classic Monsters films 15 The character of Ruby needed to be played by an actress who was a fast runner so all of the actresses who auditioned for the part were required to race each other Janus Blythe won the part partially because she outran all of the other auditioning actresses 13 Locke wanted to make a cameo appearance in the film and was given the role of Mercury who appears briefly in the film Locke was credited for the role under the name Arthur King 4 Gunnar Hansen who played Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was offered a part in the film and rejected it so that he could move to Maine and focus on his literary career 16 He later came to regret not appearing in the film 17 Filming Edit The film was shot in Victorville California Principal photography for The Hills Have Eyes began in October 1976 1 The film was shot in Victorville California 14 in the Mojave Desert 1 using 16 mm film on cameras that were borrowed from a Californian pornographic filmmaker 4 The film cost between 350 000 and 700 000 1 around thrice the budget of The Last House on the Left 4 The film s actors were paid minimum wage and the film s crew were non union 14 Locke was on the film s set every day of its shoot making sure that Craven was being productive 4 The shoot was unpleasant for the actors due to daytime temperatures of over 120 degrees Fahrenheit 49 degrees Celsius which dropped to around 30 degrees 1 degrees Celsius during the night as well as the fact that they played physically taxing roles twelve to fourteen hours a day six days a week 4 As Berryman lacks sweat glands the heat was particularly hazardous to his health and he had to be attended to after the filming of the film s action scenes 13 Many cast members did their own makeup due to budgetary constraints Wallace later joked that the dogs that appeared in the film were treated better than its human cast members Most of the film s crew were veterans of Roger Corman films and were initially unenthusiastic about The Hills Have Eyes This changed weeks into production due to Craven s zeal for the project and because the crew came to believe that the film was something special 4 Robert Burns the production designer of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre also served as the production designer for the film He re used many of the props from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to decorate the cannibal clan s lair including animal hides and bones 4 The sequence where Dee Wallace s character confronts a tarantula was not part of the film s script it was added to the film after the filmmakers discovered the spider on a road The tarantula was not harmed during the filming of the sequence 13 During the sequence where the cannibals eat Big Bob a leg of lamb stood in for human flesh This was a relief for the hungry actors 4 At one point Craven considered having the character Papa Jupiter eat baby Katy an idea which most of the cast disliked Berryman refused to do the scene and Craven allowed Katy to survive 4 The carcass of the Carter s family dog Beauty was an actual dog carcass that the filmmakers purchased Craven has refused to explain how exactly the filmmakers obtained the carcass 13 Post production Edit The film was initially given an X rating by the MPAA due to its graphic violence Due to this significant material was removed from Fred s death scene the sequence where Mars and Pluto attack the trailer and the last confrontation with Papa Jupiter 13 Out of one hundred possible titles for the film The Hills Have Eyes was chosen It tested well with audiences though Craven did not like it 4 Prints of the film were made by Metro Goldwyn Mayer 1 Release EditMarketing Edit Locke told the Los Angeles Times that he expected the film s marketing campaign to cost twice or thrice the film s budget Advertisements for The Hills Have Eyes claimed that a copy of the film had been added to the permanent collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art in actuality the copy of the film had been added to the museum s study collection rather than its more prestigious permanent collection One of the museum s curators told the Los Angeles Times that he would prefer that the film s advertisements not mention the museum 1 Box office Edit The film premiered on July 22 1977 18 in Tucson Arizona where it earned 2 million by October 1977 the same month the film gained a wider release 1 The Hills Have Eyes ultimately earned 25 million 3 and was a greater box office success than The Last House on the Left 19 Craven noted that the film managed to break box office records at some of the individual theaters that it opened in The film s gross was impeded by the financial success of the Burt Reynolds film Smokey and the Bandit 1977 Locke characterized the film as neither a huge hit nor a box office bomb and was pleased with the amount of money it generated 20 Critical response Edit Contemporaneous Edit The staff of Variety called The Hills Have Eyes a satisfying piece of pulp adding that Gratifying aspects of the film are Craven s businesslike plotting and pacy cutting and a script which takes more trouble over the stock characters than it needs There are plenty of laughs in the dialog and in the story s disarming twists 21 In his review of Craven s later film Swamp Thing 1982 Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times criticized the film for being too decadent for his taste 22 Tim Pulleine of The Monthly Film Bulletin stated that the film s story had promise but was never fused into an effective narrative pattern let alone an allegorical one 23 Tim Whitehead of The Spectator deemed the film s predictable plot an excuse for scenes of ghastly carnage in the horror vein of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre opining that Craven maintains the tension throughout and occasionally manages to relieve the horror with elements of the ridiculous Whitehead stated that he simply found himself looking away from the endless stabbings gougings and burnings 24 Retrospective Edit On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes The Hills Have Eyes holds a 67 approval rating based on 27 critic reviews with an average rating of 6 3 10 The consensus reads When it s not bludgeoning the viewer with its more off putting cruder elements The Hills Have Eyes wields some clever storytelling and a sly sense of dark humor 25 On Metacritic which assigns a normalized rating to reviews the film has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100 based on 4 critics indicating Generally favorable reviews 18 The film was included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die where Steven Jay Schneider said it warrants consideration as one of the richest and most perfectly realized films of Craven s career 26 Fangoria listed the film as one of the thirteen greatest horror films of the 1970s 19 while Film Journal International has cited The Hills Have Eyes as a classic grindhouse feature 27 The film was nominated for AFI s 100 Years 100 Thrills 28 TV Guide gave it a three out of four stars rating saying that it is exhilarating to watch the Carters become more savage 29 Entertainment Weekly s Owen Gleiberman wrote that the film is more imaginative than horror films made by major studios 30 For the San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego said that The Hills Have Eyes is the scariest movie he has ever seen describing it and The Last House on the Left 1972 as a turning point in horror Suddenly earlier horror like the Universal classics Frankenstein etc and Roger Corman s Poe films seemed like weak tea 31 Comparing The Hills Have Eyes to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Zachary Paul of Bloody Disgusting found the former superior and praised its overwhelming tension 4 Slant Magazine s Eric Henderson called the film effective and praised its cast particularly Robert Houston whose performance is more complex than your average male lead in a horror film However Henderson also deemed the film inferior to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and criticized the sequence where the Carters create booby traps for feeling like Looney Tunes cartoons about Wile E Coyote and the Road Runner 32 Dread Central s Jon Condit opined that The Hills Have Eyes is not one of Craven s best films 33 In Empire Kim Newman gave the film a three out of five star rating saying Decades on The Hills Have Eyes no longer seems quite as breathlessly swift as it did 34 A critic for IndieWire dismissed the film as middling 35 Accolades Edit At the 1977 Sitges Film Festival The Hills Have Eyes won the Critic s Award 36 Home media Edit The Hills Have Eyes was released on VHS in July 1981 37 It was released for the first time on DVD by Lionsgate Home Entertainment on September 23 2003 as a two disc special edition On September 29 that same year it was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment Anchor Bay would release the film again in 2006 The film made its Blu ray debut on September 6 2011 by Image Entertainment who also released the film on DVD that same day In 2013 Anchor Bay released the film on Blu ray as a Double feature with Re Animator 1985 and on DVD as part of a four disc set which also includes Re Animator Sleepwalkers 1992 and Darkness Falls 2003 The film had its Canadian release on both DVD and Blu ray by E1 Entertainment on January 10 2013 The film was later released on Blu ray by Arrow Video on October 11 2016 and again on January 30 2018 38 Analysis EditGenre Edit In Men Women and Chainsaws Carol J Clover characterizes The Hills Have Eyes as a rape and revenge film 39 Steven Jay Schneider classifies the film as a hybrid horror film road movie siege film and Western 26 Christopher Sharrett of Film Quarterly sees the film as more akin to an Anti Western 11 Moral themes Edit According to Steven Jay Schneider in Senses of Cinema the sequence where Big Bob is crucified symbolizes utter repudiation of Judeo Christian ethics Schneider also views everyone in the film as guilty in some way 40 Slant Magazine s Ed Gonzales characterized the film as morally inconsequential commenting that with the film s ending Craven seemingly believes he s saying something about our instinctual need to kill for pleasure but this philosophy doesn t hold water considering the context of Doug s situation It s a cut and dry sic case of life or death self defense 41 In Wes Craven The Art of Horror John Kenneth Muir writes that the film is not saying that the Carter family are worse than their enemies as the cannibal clan commits violent acts more horrific than anything the Carters do but that the Carters must stoop to the level of barbarians to defeat barbarians Muir also believes while the actions of Jupiter s family are inexcusable they are understandable as they are trying to survive 42 Political themes Edit Craven has said that the film expresses rage against American culture and the bourgeois 43 John Kenneth Muir views the Carters as representing the United States and that while The Hills Have Eyes has and can be interpreted as an allegory about the Vietnam War this is complicated by the fact that the Carters defeat their enemies unlike the American forces in Vietnam Muir instead sees the film as being about the class divide in America with the Carters symbolizing the wealthy and Papa Jupiter s family representing the poor He supports this theory by noting that the Carters and the cannibals are both from America 42 Franchise EditCraven directed a sequel to the film The Hills Have Eyes Part II which was released in 1985 44 Craven made the film to turn The Hills Have Eyes into a series in the vein of the Halloween and Friday the 13th series 45 In the late 1980s Craven considered making a film in the series set in outer space but it never came to fruition 46 The unrelated Craven project Mind Ripper 1995 was originally going to be a third The Hills Have Eyes movie but it was re written so that it never directly refers to The Hills Have Eyes or Part II Mind Ripper still has the alternative title The Hills Have Eyes III 47 48 Alexandre Aja directed a remake of The Hills Have Eyes in 2006 which Craven produced 49 In 2007 Craven and his son Jonathan wrote the sequel to the remake The Hills Have Eyes 2 50 Cultural impact EditLegacy Edit Michael Berryman became a horror icon due to his role in the film Multiple critics have deemed The Hills Have Eyes a cult classic 6 26 51 with Zachary Paul of Bloody Disgusting saying In the 40 years since the film was released The Hills Have Eyes has amassed quite the large following It s hard to throw a rock at any decent horror convention without clocking someone involved with the film s production in the head 4 Both Berryman and his character Pluto have become horror icons due to the film 4 13 Dee Wallace became known as a scream queen due to her roles in The Hills Have Eyes The Howling 1981 and Cujo 1983 52 John Kenneth Muir writes that The Hills Have Eyes was seen as a turning point in the horror genre and inspired humorous visceral horror films that were accomplished on a technical level including Halloween 1978 Friday the 13th 1980 and Prom Night 1980 19 In popular culture Edit While watching The Hills Have Eyes director Sam Raimi noticed a ripped poster for Steven Spielberg s Jaws 1975 in a scene of the film He took it to mean that Wes Craven was saying Jaws was just pop horror What I have here is real horror 13 This inspired Raimi to include a ripped The Hills Have Eyes poster in his film The Evil Dead 1981 as a humorous way of telling Craven No this is the real horror pal Craven reacted to this by having Nancy Thompson fall asleep while watching The Evil Dead in his film A Nightmare on Elm Street 1984 Raimi responded to that by including Freddy Krueger s glove in a scene of Evil Dead II 1987 Later Craven would have characters in his film Scream 1996 choose to watch a VHS of Halloween 1978 instead of the VHS of The Evil Dead 1981 that they had Then in a first season episode of Raimi s television show Ash vs Evil Dead Krueger s glove can be glimpsed while a poster for The Hills Have Eyes can be seen outside a movie theater in an episode of the show s second season 53 The videogame Red Dead Redemption set in the old west includes a side mission called American Appetites where the main character investigates a series of disappearances of travelers near the fictional town of Armadillo At the end the player finds out that the disappearances are the work of a cannibal serial killer that lives in the hills Home a 1996 episode of The X Files is an homage to both The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 54 The title and lyrics of The Weeknd s song The Hills 2015 reference Craven s film 55 References Edit a b c d e f g h i j k l The Hills Have Eyes 1977 American Film Institute Archived from the original on September 25 2018 Retrieved September 25 2018 Hogan 1986 p 308 a b Clint Davis August 31 2015 6 times Wes Craven reinvented horror Kitsap Sun Archived from the original on September 23 2018 Retrieved September 22 2018 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Paul Zachary July 22 2017 40 Years Later and The Hills Still Have Eyes Bloody Disgusting Archived from the original on September 18 2018 Retrieved September 17 2018 a b c Hutson 2016 p 32 a b Palopoli Steve There s Candy In Them Hills Hansel and Gretel vs mutants in 1977 cult shocker Metro Silicon Valley Archived from the original on April 16 2014 Retrieved April 16 2014 Maddrey 2004 p 163 164 Wood Jennifer M October 21 2014 11 Things You Didn t Know About The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Esquire Archived from the original on January 26 2018 Retrieved September 24 2018 Walker amp Johnson 2008 p 218 Hutson 2016 p 76 a b Walker amp Johnson 2008 p 226 Maddrey 2004 p 55 a b c d e f g h i Jackson Matthew July 22 2017 11 Terrifying Facts About The Hills Have Eyes Mental Floss Archived from the original on September 18 2018 Retrieved September 18 2018 a b c Hutson 2016 p 33 Paul 2008 p 25 Pratt Essel November 8 2015 Gunnar Hansen Dead At 68 Texas Chainsaw Massacre Icon Starred As Leatherface In Cult Classic Inquisitr Archived from the original on September 27 2018 Retrieved September 26 2018 Harrigan Stephen July 2014 A Double Date With Leatherface Texas Monthly Archived from the original on September 25 2018 Retrieved September 24 2018 a b The Hills Have Eyes 1977 Reviews Metacritic Metacritic com Metacritic Archived from the original on August 12 2018 Retrieved June 17 2018 a b c Muir 1998 p 14 Hutson 2016 p 34 The Hills Have Eyes Variety December 31 1977 Archived from the original on October 6 2018 Retrieved October 5 2018 Ebert Roger January 1 1982 Swamp Thing Chicago Sun Times Archived from the original on March 29 2015 Retrieved February 24 2015 Pulleine Tim 1978 Hills Have Eyes The The Monthly Film Bulletin Vol 45 no 528 British Film Institute pp 240 241 ISSN 0027 0407 Whitehead Ted February 24 1979 Diversions The Spectator p 25 Archived from the original on October 13 2018 Retrieved October 13 2018 The Hills Have Eyes 1977 Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes com Flixer Archived from the original on December 1 2017 Retrieved January 11 2022 a b c Schneider Steven Jay ed 2008 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Quintessence Editions 5th Anniversary 3rd ed Hauppauge New York Barron s Educational Series p 603 ISBN 978 0 7641 6151 3 OCLC 213305397 Film Review Preservation Film Journal International January 8 2015 Archived from the original on October 6 2018 Retrieved October 6 2018 America s Most Heart Ponding Movies PDF afi com Archived PDF from the original on July 6 2011 Retrieved July 17 2012 The Hills Have Eyes Movie Reviews and Movie Ratings TV Guide com TV Guide Archived from the original on September 20 2018 Retrieved September 20 2018 Gleiberman Owen March 8 2006 The Hills Have Eyes Entertainment Weekly Archived from the original on October 6 2018 Retrieved October 6 2018 Chronicle critics pick the scariest movies they ve seen San Francisco Chronicle October 28 2017 Archived from the original on October 6 2018 Retrieved October 6 2018 Henderson Eric September 10 2003 The Hills Have Eyes Slant Magazine Archived from the original on September 21 2018 Retrieved September 20 2018 Condit Jon February 10 2006 Hills Have Eyes The 2006 Dread Central Archived from the original on October 7 2018 Retrieved October 6 2018 Newman Kim January 1 2000 Empire Essay The Hills Have Eyes Review Empire Archived from the original on October 6 2018 Retrieved October 2 2018 The Hills Have Eyes Better viewed with the mentally challenged IndieWire March 15 2006 Archived from the original on October 6 2018 Retrieved October 6 2018 1977 10ed Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantastic i de Terror 1 10 8 10 Sitges Film Festival Archived from the original on September 21 2018 Retrieved October 6 2018 Variety s Complete Home Video Directory R R Bowker 1988 p 181 The Hills Have Eyes 1977 Wes Craven Allmovie com Allmovie Archived from the original on October 3 2018 Retrieved October 3 2018 Fahy 2010 p 109 Schneider Steven Jay March 2002 The Hills Have Eyes Senses of Cinema Archived from the original on September 23 2018 Retrieved September 22 2018 Gonzales Eric October 3 2003 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Slant Magazine Archived from the original on September 23 2018 Retrieved September 22 2018 a b Muir 1998 p 69 Walker amp Johnson 2008 p 219 Wes Craven Director 1984 The Hills Have Eyes Part II DVD United States Hills Two Corporation VTC Muir 1998 p 18 Muir 1998 p 105 Paul 2008 p 27 Coffel Chris August 21 2018 Blu ray Review Mind Ripper is Further Proof That We Were Too Harsh on 90 s Horror Bloody Disgusting Archived from the original on September 22 2018 Retrieved September 21 2018 Alexandre Aja Director 2006 The Hills Have Eyes 2006 DVD United States Dune Entertainment Martin Weisz Director 2007 The Hills Have Eyes 2 DVD United States Dune Entertainment Koehler Robert March 2 2006 The Hills Have Eyes Variety Archived from the original on September 20 2018 Retrieved September 19 2018 Frevele Jamie April 28 2011 Scream The Feminist Friendly Horror Franchise The Mary Sue Archived from the original on September 20 2018 Retrieved September 20 2018 Squires John December 8 2016 The Long History of Wes Craven and Sam Raimi s Communication Through Film Bloody Disgusting Archived from the original on September 27 2018 Retrieved September 26 2018 Waddell 2006 p 113 Vozick Levinson Simon August 21 2015 How the Weeknd Went From Broke in Canada to Sharing Stage With Taylor Swift Rolling Stone Archived from the original on September 18 2018 Retrieved September 18 2018 Bibliography EditFahy Thomas 2010 The Philosophy of Horror United States of America The University Press of Kentucky ISBN 978 0 8131 2573 2 Hogan David J 1986 Dark Romance Sexuality in the Horror Film Jefferson North Carolina and London McFarland amp Company ISBN 978 0 7864 0474 2 Hutson Thommy 2016 Never Sleep Again The Elm Street Legacy The Making of Wes Craven s A Nightmare on Elm Street New York City Permuted Press ISBN 978 1 6186864 0 4 Maddrey Joseph 2004 Nightmares in Red White and Blue The Evolution of the American Horror Film Jefferson North Carolina and London McFarland amp Company ISBN 978 0 7864 1860 2 Muir John Kenneth 1998 Wes Craven The Art of Horror Jefferson North Carolina and London McFarland amp Company ISBN 978 0 7864 1923 4 Paul Louis 2008 Tales from the Cult Film Trenches Interviews with 36 Actors from Horror Science Fiction and Exploitation Cinema Jefferson North Carolina and London McFarland amp Company ISBN 978 0 7864 2994 3 Waddell Terrie 2006 Mis takes Archetype Myth and Identity in Screen Fiction London and New York Routledge ISBN 978 1 58391 720 6 Walker Elsie M Johnson David T 2008 Conversations with Directors An Anthology of Interviews from Literature Film Quarterly Lanham Maryland Toronto and Plymouth UK The Scarecrow Press Inc ISBN 978 0 8108 6122 0External links EditThe Hills Have Eyes at IMDb The Hills Have Eyes at AllMovie The Hills Have Eyes at Rotten Tomatoes Soundtrack details on Discogs Through the Eyes of America Wes Craven s The Hills Have Eyes Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title The Hills Have Eyes 1977 film amp oldid 1114541992, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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