Simply Perfect

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Wes Craven did a great job making this film make the audience cringe. Pros: Suspenseful, disturbing and good story Cons: Blood could be more realistic and acting could be improved

The film itself is about a family who are travelling to California but decide to look for silver mines that are off the beaten track. The family's car and mobile home attached to it swerve off the road and the family find themselves stranded. Unfortunately they also find themselves under the unwanted gaze of a local group of mutant cannibals who have grown up in the area which is used by the Army to test nuclear capabilities. The film then develops into a battle between the All- American family and the cannibals.On watching this film again for this review the strongest feeling I got was just how outrageous the film is. It certainly goes the extra mile in terms of plot and grittiness. In fact the film goes even further than director Wes Craven's previous film Last House on the Left. At one point during Hills a baby is kidnapped by the cannibals for food. If that isn't pushing the horror envelope then I don't know what is! But whilst the film and it's plot may be extreme there is never a sense that the film is ever gratuitous or sensationalistic but still sets precedents. A good point of comparison here is with the godawful remake from 2006. In this original version of the film there is a rape scene that is signified by the eyes of the victim widening. And thats enough for the audience to know whats going on. The same sequence in the remake is much more drawn out, unnecessary and involves the victim getting her face licked by her cannibal attacker. And thats just for starters. Enough said.Speaking of Last House on the Left, the artistic leap between these two films seems huge. The Hills Have Eyes is positively polished by comparison to Last House in terms of technical ability, acting and direction. However, The Hills Have Eyes still feels gritty, subversive and downright dangerous- like watching a renowned video nasty classic for the first time. Both Last House and Hills use their low budgets feels to their advantage. It seems like Wes Craven believed that a lower budget just means you adapt to this and rise to the challenge creatively without sacrificing quality. Both films have a documentary and realistic feel to them rather than just being examples of exploitation cinema awash with bad acting.In fact, one of Hills' many strengths is the acting. As soon as you see the name Dee Wallace on a cast list you know that the film will have a certain level of prestige and integrity. She is amazing as are all of the cast. In fact there are pieces of acting within Hills that seemingly exceed the horror genre. One example of this is when Doug gets back to the mobile home to find that family members have either been raped, shot or killed. And on top of that his baby daughter has been kidnapped. His acting on seeing his dead wife is incredible and extremely poignant.The movie also made a horror icon of Michael Berryman. Even the poster for the film featuring Mr Berryman's face was iconic. Imagine seeing that poster outside a cinema in 1977. Even if you didn't know anything about the film you'd still go and see it as the poster and tagline are so brilliant. Another example of The Hills Have Eyes as a cult classic is that it is endlessly quotable. It also goes to show that they might be nuclear mutant cannibals but they have some great oneliners. 'Whats the matter? You don't like dog anymore?!'Craven has some very perceptive insights to convey regarding issues such as the family, the relationships within the family, the differences between the two families but also the less obvious similarities between them. I could go into these in much more depth along with my other theories about the film but this will be done soon in a separate article about the movie.For me, The Hills Have Eyes isn't just a stunning piece of horror cinema it feels like an innovative and genre-defining film that is just as important as The Exorcist, Halloween or Night of the Living Dead.The Hills Have Eyes will always be in my Top 10 list of favourite films.

Through the first half, more or less, it held my attention. A family turns off the main highway onto a dirt road in search of a diamond mine in them thar hills. Their car breaks down, stranding them in a lonesome desert with no way to communicate their SOS. We're in daylight, to begin with. But as day turns to night, their plight turns creepy: strange noises, not knowing what's out there. Yet someone or something is watching them. This not knowing ups the suspense factor. Unfortunately ...A certain character conveys the essence of the menace; and soon thereafter we actually see the menace. What a letdown; sheer Hollywood lack of imagination. From this point on, the plot goes downhill, so to speak, as the family does battle with the villains. There's lots of yelling, screaming, shrieking, running around, and physical contact; also lots of gore.The film's first half is not a segment one should watch right before a wilderness camping trip, as it is creepy, spooky, suspenseful. Yet the second-half plot is so stupid and so Hollywood contrived, by the time the film is over, if one has the patience to sit through it, that prospective camping trip doesn't look so fearful after all.Casting is acceptable. Acting is okay, though in a horror movie like this, acting really isn't that important. Color cinematography is pretty good. Sound quality in the copy I watched seemed substandard, with the dialogue slightly muffled."The Hills Have Eyes" will appeal to horror fans, no doubt. I'm not one of them. And so for me, despite a reasonably good first half, the second half is so banal, so trite and unimaginative, the film goes in my trash file of films I wish I had never wasted time on. Score of 3.5 out of 10.

Wes Craven is one of those filmmakers who loves including material that pushes the limits of movies that have already been made. Two of his best efforts represent this method of thinking. The ever popular A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) was a clever horror film that changed the game of how slasher films could be made to be even scarier and probably this was probably his most inventive creation. The other film being his debut with The Last House on the Left (1972), which has developed a following of its own. I'm not sure why though, it is a film filled with a repulsive story. And then, there's this movie which also has its own following. For this particular work of Craven, it was difficult to say how good this horror film really was. It has moments that work and other parts that showed no improvement from Craven's film debut.When a simple family looking to move permanently to California become stranded in the middle of a desert, they start being hunted by a group of cannibalistic savages. This is really all that the plot is and like most contemporary horror films, these events take place all in one day. The cast to represent the main characters are mostly unknown in today's time because their careers got as far as Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1984) and were never seen from again. The sequel to this movie also is much worse according to many. The only actors that are memorable are Janus Blythe as one of the savages (who can't hide her beauty behind all that dirt), Dee Wallace as the mother of the traveling family and Michael Berryman as also one of the savages. This is Berryman's 3rd film as an actor and although he plays an antagonist, at least he entertains when possible. The animal actors perform well too.For the family of savages, a parallel can be drawn to that of Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). The family's traits are mentally unhinged, are physically disfigured, live in shoddy conditions and live off of what they can get. The difference between the two is that Hooper looked to horrify his viewers without giving away too much. He let the imagination run wild to what his antagonists could do. Craven on the other hand enjoys exploiting that to the fullest extent. An example of this is rape. It isn't as graphically shown like it was in The Last House on the Left (1972) but it still is nothing that was needed to be filmed. Why does Craven enjoy portraying these scenes in such a tasteless manner? However, the one plus that Wes Craven always includes in his direction are his characters' ability to fight back.Yes, this family gets damaged to an extent that is irreversible, but they also don't back down. When the family begins to fight back, that's when things become entertaining. Although a character may scared, watching them have the courage to retaliate is always more enjoyable that always watching them suffer. The only issue with this, is that the characters aren't that memorable to begin with. With this, the ability to like or feel anything for these characters feels too late in the running time. As for the cannibalistic family, there is some background given by an old farmer but even then, it isn't disclosed in a clear manner. Something about a monster baby that was left out in the desert to die but didn't die? That's what I got, and if I didn't miss anything, who exactly turned out to be the monster baby all grown up?The acts of violence that are depicted here are also in the Wes Craven format where everything is a response to primal instinct. An eye for an eye. Speaking of primitive, the musical score by Don Peake wasn't very effective. At points it had tracks that sounded like they wanted to build tension, but much of it was underdeveloped. The one specific element that viewers should get a stronger understanding for is the feeling of isolation. Being stranded in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by dangerous people will not have you sitting comfortably. Eric Saarinen's cinematography helps reinforce that feeling getting steep shots of mountain peeks. This is effective at making the audience feel like the hills are literally watching your movements. It's unsettling. But to expect it to be anything more than sending a strong message of fear, probably isn't the case. It has a few cast members that stand out and has some OK elements to its story, one of them being fear caused by isolation. As a whole though, it's just another film where Wes Craven makes you sit through a bunch of classless violence.