November 22, 2018
Written by: Wes Craven
Starring: Michael Berryman, Dee Wallace, Suze Lanier-Bramlett
Budget: $350,000 - $700,000
Quote: "Baby's fat. You fat... fat and juicy."
Trivia: The movie is based on the legend of Sawney Beane and his family, a feral clan who inhabited and roamed the highlands of Scotland, in the early 1400s. They captured, tormented and ate several transients. They were eventually captured and the executions of the Beane clan all allegedly involved grotesque tortures, inspiring the aspect of the film that the Carter family become as brutal as their attackers when they seek revenge.
Wes Craven had made a name for himself within the exploitation genre with his 1972 film, The Last House on the Left, a brutal rape-revenge movie that did surprisingly well at the box office despite its extreme content (it made $3 million over its $87,000 budget). Despite the film's success, Craven found it difficult to make a second movie as producers and distributors were nervous about working with "the rape" movie guy. However, five years later, in 1977, Craven was finally able to make what is in my humble opinion, his best movie, The Hills Have Eyes. I was stoked to discover that this movie was the second film in Joe Bob Briggs' Dinners of Death Thanksgiving horror marathon on Shudder (the first was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre).
So as I proceeded to throw beers on top of an already full Thanksgiving stomach, I thought back to when I first watched this movie fifteen or so years ago. My friends and I used to have a horror club where, about once a month, we would invite friends over to watch two or three horror movies while drinking beers. The Hills Have Eyes was one of the movies we watched (so was The Last House on the Left which absolutely killed the party) and I remember being shocked at its brutality while being taken in by the film's atmosphere. I remember thinking the movie had broken several unwritten movie rules. Wait, they can't kill a dog! Wait, they can't crucify a person! Wait, they can't shoot a grandma! Wait, they can't eat the dog now! Now there's a rape?! Now they're going to eat a baby?! Like Last House on the Left, this movie goes way too far, ignoring any notions of decency. It is both a statement about America in the 1970's and an homage to the great exploitation films of the time. While the movie was overlooked by "serious" critics in the 70's, this movie easily makes my top 5 horror movies of all time list. Bring on the horror Mr. Craven!
The movie follows a suburban middle class family, The Carters (two parents, two daughters, a son, a daughter's husband, and their baby), as they are driving out to Los Angeles on vacation. Stopping along the way in Nevada, the Carters are warned by a gas station attendant about driving through the area but the family's grandfather, Bob, ignores the warnings. Right afterwards, the family RV goes off the road and crashes into the desert. Walking back to the gas station, Bob stops the attendant from hanging himself and is told the story of a family of cannibals that live in the surrounding hills. The story abruptly ends when one of the cannibals, Jupiter, breaks through the window killing the attendant with a tire iron, and then crucifying and burning the grandfather. While the family members go out to investigate the noise and fire (which to their terror discover is the burning body of Bob), two of Jupiter's sons, Pluto and Mars enter the trailer, rape the daughter before killing her sister and the grandmother. The hill people then steal the baby before the son and husband arrive to discover the dead bodies and raped girl. The final third act has both groups hunting each other. The family dog kills Mercury and Pluto while Papa Jupiter is killed in a trap the family make out of their dead grandmother. Finally, the husband is able to overpower Mars with help from a rattlesnake bite that Mars' sister helps him with and kill him. The movie ends with the husband continually stabbing the Mar's body while his sister cries as the screen fades to red.
I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again, the 1970's were by far the darkest period in American cinema. The movies were both a reflection of the times and a comment on them. The excitement of the 1960's gave way to a type of cultural hangover in the 1970's. With the Flower Generation's hopes dashed, the 1970's had the violent conclusion of the Vietnam War, the complete distrust in the American government with the Watergate scandal, the overdose deaths of so many sixties heroes, and the economic stagflation of the American economy. You're damn right, people had a lot to be angry about in the 1970's! It was through this lens that The Hills Have Eyes was made. I've read theories that the film is an allegory for the Vietnam War itself, with the hill family representing the Viet Cong. Others claim that the movie is a statement about class with the Carter family representing the bourgeois and the hill people representing the exploited underclasses. Parallels can be made between both theories with the class theory probably coming closest to the mark (I think I read somewhere that Craven said the Carter family was a symbol of the bourgeois and styled after his own family). Either way, this movie is an expression of seventies American rage.
More than just a cannibal film or a proto-slasher, The Hills Have Eyes is very much a revenge film like The Last House on the Left (even with its own, albeit tamer, rape scene) where the characters are transformed through the savagery they must endure. While most of the family is killed, the three that survive are forced adopt the barbarism of their attackers in order to survive thus themselves becoming barbarians. This cannot be more clearly shown than in the film's final moments as the husband continually stabs at the corpse of his former victimizer while the film fades to red. The husband we knew in the beginning of the movie has by this point been transformed into a brutal killer himself. The final fade to red also tells the viewer know that there is no "living" for the characters after this ordeal. No happily ever after. Revenge has been achieved, but at a cost.
I could go on and on about this movie, but to be honest I got shit to do, and I'm behind on my reviews (I have six other movies that I've watched that I need to write about), so I'm going to end this with a couple final thoughts. First, I love that the producers convinced Wes Craven to have the film take place in the desert (it was originally going to be in a forest). There is something really apt about the savagery taking place in such a desolate and grim environment. The tough desert environment forces the plants and animals that call it home to fight for survival which is mirrored by the movie's characters. There is also a slight connection to Charles Manson and his grisly murders since the Manson family's last located was on a ranch in Death Valley vaguely resembling the Nevada deserts in the film. Lastly, Michael Berryman. I love this actor! Born with 26 birth defects, the actor has an unforgettably unique face perfect for horror movies (there's a reason why it is his face on the cover of the movie). He does a great job acting in this film as Pluto and is by far the most memorable of the hill people. During the Dinners of Death, Joe Bob gets to interview Berryman, who has aged extremely well since the film. Besides getting some behind the scenes trivia from Berryman, what the viewer learns most is what a sweet and kind man he is. A look at his IMDB page will also show that this guy has not slowed down a bit. As I am writing this, the seventy year old actor has twelve projects in production and I can't wait to see all of them!
...this movie is one of my top five favorite horror movies. Does it make your list?
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