When you look back at the life of beloved horror director Wes Craven, born in Cleveland in 1939, and the first two movies he ever directed, you could just picture decades of repression exploding into one man’s desire to make the ultimate sick shock masterpieces. Wes was raised in a Baptist family that prohibited him from seeing any movie other than Disney films, he lost his father when he was only 4 years old, he lived in constant fear of a bully named Kruger, and he was stuck teaching humanities and pursuing a PhD at NY's Clarkson College. After helping out on a student film project and having an advisor question his priorities, he decided to break free by quitting his job, moving to New York City, and seeking a life in making movies. You had all the elements there for a man who spent over 30 years just holding the skeletons in his closet, until he was finally given permission by producer Sean S. Cunningham to let it all out. The Last House on the Left was the result of Wes Craven taking Ingmar Bergman and infusing it with all the depravity he could muster, and the result was a shocking, successful slice of horror nostalgia that still makes you wince and squirm even today.

Shot in Connecticut and New York in just a little over a month in 1971, and on a budget of a garage sale lawnmower (in actuality, $87,000), "Last House" came before Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, setting the stage for a new wave of independent horror shockers built on imagination and unparalleled horror. It was the ruthless story of four vulgar criminals, including a couple of sick fugitives, who lured two young girls to their death, but not without having some fun first. However, they received their comeuppance when the parents of one of the girls, who was celebrating her 17th birthday, discovers who they are once the quartet seek refuge in their home.

Craven was fascinated by the lengths to which a civilized person would sink when they realize that their loved ones were murdered, akin to what Sam Peckinpah accomplished with the faintly similar "Straw Dogs," released after shooting wrapped on Craven's flick. The teenaged lady’s mother and father decided to exact a bloody revenge that matched in terms of carnage and madness the evil which the quartet unleashed upon their lives. In one of the more memorable scenes, a moment that predates the queasy bathtub castration in I Spit on Your Grave, Cynthia Carr, who plays the matriarchal Estelle Collingwood, lures one of the thugs, Fred Lincoln's Weasel, out to a marsh so that she can offer oral pleasure. However, she ends up biting off more than she can chew, and Weasel suffers one of the most painful indignities of any character in horror film history. The middle-class residents probably never realized just what animal instincts were kept inside them until it was all over, and both they, as well as everyone in the audience, felt absolutely drained.

THE HILLS HAVE EYES didn't revel in sex crimes as "Last House" did, nor was it as outrageous in its resolution. Instead, Wes Craven's second feature was somewhat restrained, yet still the work of a man who wanted to do everything in his power to drop the jaws of moviegoers around the country. One of the most legendarily unspoken aspects of the movie is that we see a poster of the movie "Jaws" in the trailer where our protagonists live in, torn apart later on by one of the villains. It marked the beginning of an in-joke battle royale between Craven and director Sam Raimi, who ripped a poster of THE HILLS HAVE EYES and hung it in the cellar of the cabin in "The Evil Dead." Raimi mentioned that he believed that Wes wanted to make "Jaws" look like "pop horror," and the "Evil Dead" was to make Craven's own film look tame. The feud continued with further references: "The Evil Dead" trailer playing in "A Nightmare on Elm Street"; the Freddy glove hanging in the background in "Evil Dead II"; the appearance of Sam's younger brother Ted in Craven's own "Shocker."

But whilst "The Evil Dead" can be seen today as a cartoonishly gruesome series of off-the-wall special effects, THE HILLS HAVE EYES lives up to its legacy as a brutal saga of everyday people left to die in the desert by a group of malicious prowlers, and the "flight or fight" response they must decide upon in order to survive. And Anchor Bay Entertainment finally dug up this classic for a two-disc special edition set that should endear this film to anyone who appreciate the winking movie-geek adoration of Quentin Tarantino or Eli Roth's respective recent movies.

In fact, the story and the characters of THE HILLS HAVE EYES seems to have been recycled recently by three current horror films: "Wrong Turn," "Cabin Fever," and the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)." A group of people in the wrong place at the wrong time end up being picked off until the survivors have to do whatever they can in order to live another day. But Wes Craven's film, unlike any of the three movies I mentioned, is no mere slasher film. There is a deeper, more horrific threat in this film, and the characters aren't nubile youths but an actual family on their way to the silver deposits in the rocky No Man's Land in the Southwest.

The WASP Carter clan is celebrating the 25th anniversary of family heads Bob and Ethel (Russ Grieve, Virginia Vincent), driving from Cleveland to L.A., stopping around Nevada in order to look at the abandoned silver mine presented to them as a wedding gift on their silver anniversary. Bob himself has recently retired from his job as a detective due to stress and heart problems, with Ethel constantly having to remind him not to get too agitated. They have brought along their immediate family as well: their son Bobby (Robert Houston), daughters Lynne & Brenda (Dee Wallace, Susan Lanier), Lynne's husband, Doug (Martin Speer), and the young couple's infant daughter, Katherine. Also along for the ride are the two pets, German Shepherds named Beauty and the Beast.

The desert is a vast, barren area, dry and sweltering in the day time, but blisteringly cold and black in the night. The family stop off at the gas station of elderly resident Fred (John Steadman), asking for directions and the quickest route possible. But all Fred can do is tell them to stick to the main roads and avoid searching for minerals he's sure they will not discover, warning them there's people out there they wouldn’t dare want to meet. It's those same people who keep Fred from leaving his pit stop by blowing his getaway truck to kingdom come.

But as what befalls most characters in this situation, and has been a contrivance used and abused numerous times, they ignore the obviously sensible advice, and take the path towards the mine. The family accidentally pass through an Air Force testing base, where Bob is riled up by the loud sounds of zooming F-16 aircrafts and speeds the car up in tension, unable to slow down in time to avoid hitting a jackrabbit. He swerves the car and crashes, damaging their axle and stranding them out next to the hills. And the hills have eyes.

They are the eyes of a group of cannibalistic savages, cave dwellers who call the desert their home and devour the flesh of any tourist in their sight. Occasionally they go out and rob military bases as well, receiving whiskey and CB radios. However, they swoop down like vultures upon the camped-out civilians, laying waste to their food supply, wrecking all of their belongings, murdering and feasting upon the unlucky Bob, killing both Ethel and Lynne in cold blood, and kidnapping their "young tenderloin Thanksgiving dinner" (in other words, they stole the baby).

The clan is led by Papa Jupiter (James Whitworth), who was an abnormally-born child who had his face split open with a tire iron by Grandpa Fred, and was abandoned in the hills. Jupiter grew up mean and vicious, finding a haggard wife (Cordy Clark) to bear his children, two monstrous sons named Pluto and Mars (Michael Berryman, Lance Gordon), one idiot son named Mercury (producer Peter Locke in a cameo), and a black sheep daughter named Ruby (Janus Blythe).

When the only survivors left are Bobby, Brenda, Doug, and the Beast, all four family members must band together in order to protect themselves and protect their kidnapped child from the sinister cave dwellers, who will be returning to kill them all in time.

Craven and Locke, who had a small budget over $200,000 to make the film on, were two ordinary New York men who, when they scoured the Victorville for locations, got lost themselves in the Mojave desert around Apple Valley. There, they had to endure the 125°F weather themselves as well as a car that refused to start, prompting the old response of "We're gonna die!" If that didn't warrant them the opportunity to shoot out in the real San Bernardino hills with a 16mm camera, I don't know what else would. Both this setting, combined with Craven's plot treatment, were the building rocks of these "Hills." Craven studied upon the legend of the Sawney Bean family, led by Alexander Bean of Edinburgh, born sometime in the 14th Century. He and his "wife" had settled in at a cave in the County Galloway, where they had numerous children, who would eventually have in-bred brood of their own. The family had stranded, robbed and murdered all passers-by in their way, and even decided to keep the bodies of the dead as food for their family. Supposedly, at least a thousand people died at their hands, but since no one heard of them and there weren't any survivors, the family were safe. That was until one man, who lost his wife to the clan, was saved by a crowd of people on their way home from a fair. The Beans were discovered, captured, and sentenced to execution without trial. They were even taken to London and used for torture.

Craven's original idea was for a movie to take place in an apocalyptic 1984 world where a family who lived next to nuclear bomb testing points attacked another clan on a vacation in the desert. But with a small budget, the whole futuristic subplot was fortunately scrapped. Craven's final movie seems more natural, primitive and beautiful in this manner, where a real life modern setting provides the type of "this can happen now" fear that makes for plausible and great horror movies. And in true Craven fashion, he wrote the script from bits and pieces of his life, especially his childhood. He managed to channel his mother's grief over the loss of her husband, who was buried on Wes' birthday, into the moment where Ethel comes across the charred body of her own husband, burned alive by the diabolical Jupiter. The real Bob and Ethel Carter were some neighbors he used to know, Bob and Ethel Balmer, the husband being the man who turned Wes on to super 8 movies as a younger person. And this movie's Ethel was fashioned in a very loose manner after Craven's own mother, Caroline, a religious type who asked the family to pray to God so He could watch over them.

So what does all these facts add up to? They make THE HILLS HAVE EYES not only more personable, but also more potent. These types of characters allowed for Wes Craven, a smart man with generally more worthwhile ideas about setting up horror movies, to build up lots of prominent interaction and develop somewhat of an affection for the family in this movie. I'm pretty sure that Wes probably had secrets he didn't tell his mother in his youth, so there comes as no surprise that characters such as Bobby and even the sons of Jupiter eventually cower in the face of confessions.

Bobby, for instance, is mortified by the sight of seeing his pet dog, Beauty, having been mutilated by Pluto after she scampered off into the hills. The man has a shock that lingers into him, and he understandably avoids wanting to cause hysterics to the women left behind. On one occasion, he almost breaks out into sadness over telling Doug what happened to Beauty, but this is when he returns from his hike for rations, and he is kept from speaking when the rest of the family come out to talk to him. It isn't until the most pivotal moment in the film, when the threat becomes real, when Bobby bursts into tears and tells both Doug and Lynne the truth after he's been locked out of the camper, particularly by Beauty's murderer. And we even sense dysfunction amongst both Pluto and Mars, who are intimidated by Papa Jupe on several counts, and Ruby herself also has a longing to escape from the lonely desert. But when she seeks Fred's help, he turns her down because he feels she doesn't stand a chance of living in the modern world. This sets one of the movie's many underestimated social commentaries, as we later see in the way the Carter family progresses from white bread tourists to desperate warriors.

As a simple allegory, a scary story full of frightening developments and a courageous finale, Wes Craven shows that he's just as keen with a concept as other horror filmmaking legends like John Carpenter and George A. Romero. Once again, I turn to the both Craven's knack for cathartic replication of the personal and the mythical, as well as his idea in that there's a part of society than can be just as disturbing as the criminal psyche. People tended to focus too much on the more degrading and unattractive aspects of "Last House," classifying it as senselessly violent and exploitative. But even though these descriptions obviously fit, and I wouldn't deny them for a half-second, Wes Craven has more than just what meets the eye and the ear.

Wes Craven plays of humanity's mercurial dreaded nightmares, of being stuck in a lonely place with no outside contact and a homicidal force pushing its way towards you. However, the desert is perhaps the most ideal setting imaginable. There's no rural or urban civilization for miles, no lakes or streams to gather water for drinking or cleaning, and a climate that is taxing no matter side of the temperature the setting may be. Craven isolates the characters in this setting and focuses on them for the first half of the film, showing the villains preparing themselves for the kill.

And there's moments when we rely on the old standby in that the noises outside show the family drawing closer and closer, and we also see the cruel mind games played on the traveling family. Mars, in particular, has an array of animal impersonations he uses to trick the unwitting bobby, and Pluto has a penchant for using the CB radios to make obscene calls. This certainly isn't the first movie that keeps things at a crawl until the hell breaks loose in the middle, but it works here, because Wes Craven is simply that skilled of a director, he makes it all seem like nothing, especially when nothing's virtually what he's been given.

When these citizens finally prepare themselves for vengeance, there's a poetic justice to how they seek the death of the deformed cannibals. The Beast, who barked up a fury once he stumbled upon the remains of Beauty, and was also responsible for the death of Mercury, gets the chance to go after Pluto. Brenda and Bobby, targeted by Jupiter, the man who butchered their father, exploit his family's taste for human flesh by having the body of their dead mom lure him into a trap, not unlike the contraptions you've seen in Craven's "Last House" or "Nightmare on Elm Street." And Doug, who has nothing to lose after his wife was shot to death and his only daughter threatened to be eaten by the astrologically-named monsters, is pitted against Mars, who killed both Ethel and Lynne. It's a reversal of fortune, in that the civilized threaten the trespassers, but now they're the hunters.

The movie introduced us to two of the most beloved character actors of the 1980s: Dee Wallace and Michael Berryman. This was Wallace's second film, before she married Christopher Stone and had appeared in memorable early-in-the-decade roles in both "The Howling" and "E.T." She's very endearing, and probably the only female cast member in the movie who is the most consistent performer. Both Virginia Vincent and Susan Lanier, whilst at times doing believable turns, often cross over into melodramatic excess, especially in Lanier's case. Her shrill, exaggerated screaming goes too far in the final moments of the film. I was watching "Cabin Fever" on Cinemax, and I could swear both Jordan Ladd and Susan Lanier scream in the exact same manner. As for the remaining male cast members making up the heroes, both Robert Houston, a Harvard grad and trained gymnast, and Martin Speer, who has a Sonny Bono look to him, have low-key yet suitably strong performances. Only TV veteran Russ Grieve, who died a few years after this movie's release, is underwritten and somewhat unimpressive as Big Bob, the most ornery of the group.

As for Mr. Berryman, who like Wallace was late in his twenties when this film came out, this movie made him a cult hero. Having previously starred in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," this L.A. native was born with 26 birth defects, the result of parents who dabbled in prescription drugs, and had reconstructive skull surgery that gives him his unique and recognizable face. He was also deprived of all bodily hair, sweat glands, fingernails and teeth, thanks to a rare condition known as "hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia." His face graced this movie's promotional images, and he eventually starred in dozens of B-movies (like Ruggero Deodato's "Cut and Run"), had a few small mainstream roles (a biker in "Weird Science"), and was also prominently featured in mid-1980s Motley Crue videos. But he's a capable, amazingly gifted performer no matter if he's special or not, and his work in this movie easily stands out amongst Wallace's. Ex-stunt performer Lance Gordon is viciously superb as the greasy Mars, Janus Blythe is admirably physical and naïve as Ruby, and James "Papa Jupiter" Whitworth chews scenery like the leg of lamb he eats in one of his more memorable scenes.

Like "Last House" before him, Craven had to face the terrors of the MPAA when he completed a cut of this movie. He admits in the DVD commentary that he had to censor a lot of violence out so as to avoid the "X" rating, the stigma of porno movies. The supposed cut footage seems to have been lost for good. And in the UK, which can be just as puritanical, if note more so, about cutting violent images from films, scenes like the image of the gutted Beauty and Mars placing a gun in the mouth of Brenda were edited out for their "18" certificate. Don't feel so bad, though, since there's some more gore to contend with. Fred gets a stake in his chest, Big Bob gets burned alive and eaten, two characters have some slightly gruesome gun wounds, a bird gets its head bit off and its blood drunken by Mars, Mars gets stabbed in the kneecap, and Pluto suffers a nasty death kicked off by a tasty wound to his Achilles tendon. And Wes Craven, in true fashion, defied the censors by sneaking in more shots of Doug stabbing Mars. Still, one of Craven's strong suits is to occasionally take the violence away off the screen, so that you can picture the horrific images in your mind. And a moment like when Jupiter confines Big Bob by driving rocks through his hands as he's held against a Joshua tree are well-played moments of shock.

Still, I have to have some things to say about this movie not being a five-star horror film. I already mentioned that some of the acting isn't up to par, mostly because there's a fine share of overacting that is at times grating. If anything else, this movie obviously wears its age on its sleeve. This is especially 1970s material, with the type of threads, appearances, and fake blood that looks obviously tacky and/or bland. And I wasn't all that interested in the villains as I hoped I would be, mainly in Mama and Mercury because they have so little to do, and Jupiter for sure has a backstory, but it just feels like a device. Mars and Pluto are the most charismatic of them.

But I've said enough about the movie as it is, so let's talk DVD specifics. I had rented a nice copy of THE HILLS HAVE EYES from its original Vanguard video format at the Movie Gallery, and I specifically remember watching a movie so ugly looking that it made me question my already poor vision a week after my last eye exam. The colors were horrifically blown out, print damage cluttered every second, and the soundtrack sounded tinnier than a sardine can. When I saw the work Anchor Bay put into restoring this movie, which can be seen in the 4-minute Restoration Demo extra on the second disc, I was quite relieved. Presented in its original 1.85:1 OAR, anamorphically enhanced, the quality has been spiffed up look more polished than any other print known to man. Still, when your movie's shot in 16mm and blown to 35mm, and considering the age and cost of the film, restoration can only go so far. You can spot the obvious scratches, shimmers, and vertical tear lines, and the grainy stock this film was shot on still retains its obvious charms. And the oft-erratic detail leaves very much to be desired in some places, especially in the low-light sequences. But God bless Anchor Bay for the extensive work they bestowed to cleaning up this sucker, especially since the edge enhancement and artifacts are zero to zip. Color quality is also a sign of the times, looking as good as they possible can. The colors can be either drab and flat, or bold and textured, yet they still show a palette that hasn't exactly got the Kodachrome feel. Some unfortunate bleeding gets in the way, but other than that, it’s also another step up the ladder compared to what's been out there. Black levels are concise if quite inky at times, and shadows on a whole are consistently defined. It's a technically-bolstered transfer that merits some due praise.

Like with their "Day of the Dead" special edition, Anchor Bay have crammed this disc with more soundtracks than you can shake a knife at. You can hear the original monaural mix, a Dolby Digital 2.0 surround track, or two brand new, full-blown home theater-shaking Dolby 5.1 EX and DTS 6.1 mixes. Okay, maybe they’re not home-shaking. They couldn’t even shake the bread crumb next to the player. But the 5.1 mix was alright, showing speech that would occasionally stray from the frontal speaker (often times in a rather awkward manner) and vocals that would enforce the rears as ambience. And that's all the rears did for the mix: ambience. The dialogue is understandable, but there''s a thinness all the same, and the music sounds rich despite getting no attention from the rear channels. Just like the visual restoration, there is no absolutes other than moderate improving of the source.

The movie also contains an audio commentary with Wes Craven and Peter Locke. The duo are relaxed and witty throughout this entire track, mostly just nostalgic about the cast, the setting, the low-budget limitations and the post-production struggles. Wes Craven distinctly recalls that the b-tch about editing your film on a low-budget is that you tend to jump the musical cues in an obvious fashion, and he also diverges on all the wonderful self-performed stunts the actors engaged in, especially when the actors playing Doug and Mars were actually fighting and using a real knife. I was also fascinated by some of the cast and crew information, such as the employment of the art director from the "Chainsaw" and the real live dead dog they used as Beauty’s stunt double. Ughhh. Granted, Wes and Peter are light-hearted old men who helplessly riff on some of the film's cheesy qualities, and dead spots arise from time to time. Still, I have to say this commentary was a kick.

Disc two contains a smattering of sweet little bonus features. Looking Back on THE HILLS HAVE EYES takes 54:33 of your time, but it's time well spent. Craven and Locke are featured in interview sections, with Craven as intelligent and humorous as we've seen him before. However, we also hear from cinematographer Eric Saarinen and stars Dee Wallace-Stone, Michael Berryman, Janus Blythe, Robert Houston & Susan Lanier. Opening well enough with Wes discussing how he got into films from the moment he was finally able to watch them, and Craven recalls the Shawnee Bean legend inspiring this movie's excellent thematic parallel between the civilized and the cruel. Although some information featured in the commentary is at times recycled, this just goes to show the expansiveness of the documentary. This is how a documentary should be done, where the anecdotes fly fast and furious (Berryman's screening story is priceless), the information never seems overtly fluffy, the descriptions of all aspects of the film are satisfying, and where the fans get exactly what they want.

Some of my favorite things which I learned about this film from this retrospective: 1) The audition consisted of nothing but showing your tears; 2) People stranded in the desert are damn lucky to escape alive without dehydration or heatstroke; 3)A film set in a realistic location will get your cast and crew focused; 4) It's always better to have simulated sex before shooting a rape scene so that a level of comfort is achieved; 5) If you even ponder having an infant child murdered in your movie, you've just lost everyone involved with the film.

At one time previously released on DVD, The Directors: Wes Craven (58:33) is one of those career-highlighting specials that play on the Encore/Starz pay TV channels. Profiling the life and filmography of the great director, Craven is featured alongside many of the stars of his motion pictures: Adrienne Barbeau & Ray Wise ("Swamp Thing"), Robert Englund ("A Nightmare on Elm Street"), Kristy Swanson ("Deadly Friend"), Bill Pullman ("The Serpent & The Rainbow"), Mitch Pileggi ("Shocker"), Neve Campbell & David and Courtney Cox Arquette ("Scream"), and Meryl Streep ("Music of the Heart"). Whilst most of Craven's movies are given heavy attention they deserve ("Nightmare," "Scream"), some of the movies are largely under-discussed ("Last House," "Hills"), overly discussed ("Music," "Vampire in Brooklyn"), or not even given any attention at all (the dreadful "Hills Have Eyes Part 2," the underrated "People Under the Stairs"). Furthermore, TV movies he made such as "Invitation to Hell" and "Summer of Fear" get the cold shoulder completely, although who cares about them anyway? Still, the comments are often times intriguing, if sometimes in the vicinity of puffiness, and provides a quality tribute to his legacy.

An alternate ending of the film, at 10:18, re-edits the confrontations in the conclusion to separate, running order, as well as ending the film on a rather blah note of whimsy. You’re happy they left it behind, and that this had to have been taken from an obscure videotape source. Theatrical trailers from both the U.S. and Germany are featured, as well as four TV spots divided amongst the U.S. and the U.K. Anchor Bay provides another one of their lovingly extensive biographies for Wes Craven, crammed with biographical information, photographs, and personal quotes. Finally, three separate still galleries are featured pertaining to behind-the-scenes photographs in both b&w and color (77 in all), advertising/promotional items (28), and storyboards (35). The middle section contains an interesting letter from the University of South Florida to New Line concerning the audience reaction to the movie, which varied for cheerful to fearful.

Anchor Bay have outdone themselves well with the 16-page booklet, containing an extensive and dedicated essay by fellow DVD reviewer Jon Putnam at DVDmaniacs.net, color reproductions of the international theatrical trailers, and the always welcome chapter listing. Popping the second disc into a DVD-ROM player allows you access to the original screenplay (featuring the hilarious title “Blood Relations - The Sun Wars”) and a few neat screen savers.

Anchor Bay are the premier company in terms of repackaging classic horror movies, and their awesome special edition package of THE HILLS HAVE EYES is just another cherry in the catalog. The movie itself is an intense, if flawed, dissection of innocents facing their darkest instincts in the American Southwest, pitted against some hungry creatures who own the desert in the palm of their hands. It showed that Wes Craven, who gained popular attention with his "Last House," was no one-trick pony, even if people still thought he was utterly wicked. And by cult standards, it remains one of the most defining true horror movies of the decade. "They burned the father, killed the mother, and raped the sister! And the lucky ones died first." Now the you can watch THE HILLS watching you, and, please, don't see the sequel!

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age