Ok, The Hills have Eyes is another one I’ve been looking for for ages. Believe or not, I hadn’t seen this one before. I’m a big fan of Wes Craven, and I have to admit even a fan of the remakes (also directed by Craven) but somehow managed to avoid seeing the original.
THE PLOT OF THE HILLS HAVE EYES
This is a really cool movie. The plot, dialogue and cinematography is really cool. Craven is a quality director. The plot is basically the same as the more modern remakes.I’m sure you know what I mean. All American extended family goes on holiday. They ignore advice from the local petrol station owner not to go the back way. Of course, then they break down, get stuck in the desert. There’s a whole bunch of cannibalistic desert folk floating around and that one by one start taking the family down.
This is not pretty stuff. As far as the late 70’s goes this would have been pretty full on horror. Craven brought the most extreme mainstream horror to the screen with this and “Last House of the Left”. This one has a fair gore content, but by todays standards, it’s hardly considered extreme. With the benefit of being old myself, and having see the remakes before I saw this one, I’m glad Craven elected to remake this movie. This is a great movie. There’s no denying that. But it needed to be re-made with Craven at the helm. For my money if i was going to see one of the films over the other, I’d pick the remake.
THE VERDICT
There’s some B grade star power in this film, Michael Berryman and Dee Wallace. Berryman is at his usual deformed and demented glory. The movie itself is quite convincing. I have to say everything in this movie is cool. The Hills have Eyes is a great movie. It just doesn’t compare to the remake. This is my opinion and I know a lot of you will disagree with it. Either way it helped cement Craven’s place in the annals of horror history and produced a fair box office return at $25 million, from a less than $1 million investment.
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