ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - July 22nd
"THE HILLS HAVE EYES" released in 1977
Watch The Hills Have Eyes trailer below!
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Bob and Ethel Carter (Russ Grieve and Virginia Vincent) are travelling to California with their teenage children Bobby (Robert Houston) Brenda (Susan Lanier), eldest daughter Lynne (Dee Wallace), Lynn's husband Doug (Martin Speer), and Lynn's newborn baby, Katie. Stopping at Fred's Oasis gas station, they meet Fred (John Steadman), who himself is the middle of packing his truck to leave, and warns them to stay out of the surrounding desert. Ignoring the old man's warning, the Carter's venture onto a deserted road where they RV skids off the road and crashes. Leaving his family at the site, Bob walks back to Fred's Oasis to get help. Once there, Bob stops Fred from hanging himself and Fred relates to Bob the story of his son, Jupiter (James Whitworth); as a child Jupiter killed Fred's livestock and eventually his own sister before Fred attacked with a tire iron and left him to die in the hills. Jupiter somehow survived and raised a family of depraved cannibal children - Mars (Lance Gordon), Pluto (Michael Berryman) and Mercury (Arthur King), and an abused daughter, Ruby (Janus Blythe) - with an alcoholic prostitute Mama (Cordy Clark). After Fred relates his story, Jupiter himself appears, killing Fred and taking Bob captive. Back at the RV, the family murder Bob as a distraction while Pluto and Mars ransack the trailer, killing Brenda and Lynn and taking the baby with them back into the hills. Enraged, Doug and his dog Beast venture into the hills to rescue his child and kill the murderous Papa Jupiter and his children, helped by an unlikely ally Ruby who also seeks to avenge herself on the family.
Ethel Carter: [while looking at a road map] We are not lost, we're right here somewhere on this little blue line.
Lynne Wood: This road is not a blue line, it's a dotted line, if it's even on the map at all!
Top: The Carter family become stranded in the Nevada desert;
Above: Papa Jupiter (James Whitworth) and his own murderous family
watch their victims from the hills above
Five years after Wes Craven's directorial debut, The Last House on the Left (which had also been produced by Friday the 13th director, Sean S. Cunningham), The Hills Have Eyes was originally concieved as a futuristic retelling of the Sawney Bean story, set in 1994 and taking place in a forest. Originally called Blood Relations, producer Peter Locke however disliked the title, and chose the strongest tested title instead The Hills Have Eyes, although Craven himself admitted at the time he disliked the replacement title. According to Craven the idea of actually having the baby killed in the film was considered. However the cast and crew strongly opposed the idea saying they would leave the project if that was written into the script. According to actor Robert Houston (playing the young Bobby Carter), Craven chose most of the actors for the carter family based on whether they could cry on cue. Susan Lanier accepted the role of Brenda over the objections of her agent (who feared the film would ruin her career opportunities), mainly as she liked Wes Craven and was a fan of the horror genre. Conversely, Janus Blythe's audition required her to have an actual footrace with the other actresses - when Craven started the race, Bythe apparently stood back for a moment before racing off and ended up beating all the other actresses to the finish line!
Mars: Baby's fat. You fat... fat and juicy.
Top and Above: The brutal Mars (Lance Gordon) and brother Pluto
(Michael Berryman) attack the trailer
The locations for the film was over 30 miles from civilization in Victorville, California and the cast and crew had to cram themselves into a few Winnebago's to be driven to location. Conditions in the desert were extremely difficult with the rocky terrain making it difficult to walk, let alone run through, and the temperature would reach up to 120 degrees during the day - and then plummet to a cold 30 degrees at sunset. Tensions were also high when the crew prepared to film the rape scene in the trailer. So as a gag to break the ice for everyone, Lanier and Michael Berryman started making out during the first take causing the crew to laugh hysterically. Throughout filming, Craven kept insisting that Janus Blythe be covered with more and more dirt, believing she looked too pretty to have been living in a desert all of her life. During filming the final fight scene between Martin Speer (Doug) and Lance Gordon (Mars), Blythe refused to pick up the rattlesnake until producer Peter Locke would pick it up first. Interestingly, the rattlesnake used in the film actually escaped while preparing to shoot a scene in a narrow mountain crevasse. The entire crew fled at once from the scene until the snake wrangler managed to recapture it!
[on the radio]
Pluto: This is air force rescuewwwwww, what's up ?
Bobby Carter: We're being attacked. I don't know who. We have one gun with 2 bullets. We're sitting ducks!
Pluto: We recommend that until we can get to you, you stand on your heads, with your thumbs up.
Top: Ruby (Janus Blythe) grabs a rattlesnake;
Above: The Carter's dog, Beast about to kill Pluto!
The Hills Have Eyes was initially given an X rating by the MPAA, relegating it to the pornographic circuit only and severely hurting it's box office. After Craven cut the film significantly enough to satisfy an R-rating, the original director's cut is thought to be no longer in existence. Originally the ending of the movie wasn't as abrupt as it is on screen. There was additional footage shot after Doug kills Mars where we seeing the surviving Carters coming back together with Doug and Ruby. They embrace and Brenda takes Ruby by the hand and they walk away. The footage however was never used in the film in favor of a conclusion that was more shocking and bleak. Michael Berryman said he was once watching the film in a theater when a woman in front of him said aloud 'this movie is sick and depraved!' Berryman then thought it would be funny to lean over her and say 'you're damn right lady this movie is sick!'
Brenda Carter: We're gonna be french fries! Human french fries!
Top and Above: Ruby (Janus Blythe) helps Doug (Martin Speer) avenge his
wife's death by killing Mars
The Hills Have Eyes did reasonably well in its initial release (grossing $25 million on an estimated $230,000 budget) and today enjoys a large cult following. Austin Chronicle wrote, "Inventive story ideas and humorous touches give this horror picture an enduring relevancy and stylistic flourish." TV Guide wrote "though not particularly bloody, The Hills Have Eyes is an extremely intense and disturbing film. As is the case with Sam Peckinpah's classic, Straw Dogs, it becomes oddly and distressingly exhilarating to watch the nice family become increasingly savage in their efforts to survive. Not for the squeamish."
Above: Director Wes Craven (right) lines up a shot on location
Craven would of course go on to great success with A Nightmare on Elm Street, but would return for the sequel The Hills Have Eyes II in 1985. The sequel was panned by critics on release, with Craven later disowning the film. In 2005, after seeing the successful remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror, Craven and producer Marianne Maddalena selected Alexandre Aja (who had previously made the French slasher film Haunte Tension) to helm The Hills Have Eyes remake. Released in 2006, this The Hills Have Eyes was just as successful as it's predecessor and spawned another sequel The Hills Have Eyes 2 the following year (the script being written by Craven and his son Johnathan Craven). When asked in 2014 if there will be another The Hills Have Eyes film, Craven said, "There’s discussion about a possible Hills 3 and we’ll take it in a totally different direction. I’m not interested in doing straight-to-video. If it can’t make it in theaters then...". Sadly, Wes Craven would pass away the following year, and is still greatly missed by horror fans all over the world.
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 64%
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