The Hills Have Eyes (1977 film)

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The Hills Have Eyes
Film poster
Directed by	Wes Craven
Produced by	Peter Locke
Written by	Wes Craven
Starring	Susan Lanier Robert Houston Martin Speer Dee Wallace-Stone Michael Berryman
Music by	Don Peake
Cinematography	Eric Saarinen
Editing by	Wes Craven
Distributed by	Vanguard
Release date(s)	July 22, 1977
Running time	89 min.
Language	English
Budget	$230,000 (estimated)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Hills Have Eyes is a 1977 horror film, directed by Wes Craven and starring Michael Berryman. Wes Craven has stated that the film was inspired by the Scottish legend of the "Sawney" Bean family.

Taglines:

• The lucky ones died first...

• A nice American family. They didn't want to kill. But they didn't want to die.

• The story of an American family who lost everything, except the will to survive.

• The story of one family's refusal to die.

• They wanted to see something different;but something different saw them first.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Trivia 3 Hills Have Eyes Series 4 External links

[edit] Plot

A family of five, Bob and Ethel Carter, and their teenage kids Bobby, Brenda and Lynne are traveling on vacation. Lynne also is with her husband Doug, and their little baby girl Katie. They pull over at a rest stop titled "Fred's Oasis". Later, they skid off a desert road and break an axle bolt. Bob leaves Bobby a handgun and goes to find help. As night falls, Bob is ambushed at Fred's Oasis and is taken to be burned by a mysterious man. Doug and Lynne go inside the family car while everyone else stays in the large camper. Bobby gets locked out and asks Doug for his set of keys. What Bobby does not know is that a strange deformed man, Pluto, is inside the trailer looking at their vaulables while Ethel and Brenda are asleep in the next room. Bobby gets the keys and goes inside, when Bob is set ablaze on a stake out in the distance. Ethel, Lynne, Doug, and Bobby rush to Bob, while Brenda is left inside with the strange man. Everyone tries to help put out the fire on Bob while Pluto rapes Brenda. Another strange man, Mars, jumps down from the top of the trailer and goes inside. He pulls the other man away and rapes Brenda. Pluto gets the valuables and leaves Mars inside. The family puts out the fire on Bob, but he dies shortly after. When Ethel and Lynne go inside to get water, Pluto jumps out and runs away. Lynne goes inside to find Mars taking her baby. She tries to hit the man, but he pushes her to the floor and reaches for a gun. Ethel steps in, and tries to hit Mars with a broom, but is shot. Brenda throws Lynne a knife on the floor. Lynne grabs it, but is also shot. She stabs Mars in the leg, and is shot again. Pluto comes back and takes the baby, while Mars follows.

Only Brenda, Bobby, and Doug survive. Doug sets out to find his baby, while Bobby and Brenda make a trap to catch one of the men. One of the cannibals, 'Ruby' helps Doug get his baby, while Bobby and Brenda catch and kill Papa Jupiter, one of the men.

It is a follow-up of sorts to Craven's Last House on the Left, expanding on the earlier film's theme of the "traditional" American nuclear family being threatened by a twisted version of itself.

The film did reasonably well in its initial release and today enjoys a large cult following. Craven later made a sequel in 1985, which he later disowned. Alexandre Aja made a remake in 2006, which Craven both endorsed and reportedly enjoyed.

[edit] Trivia

• In Evil Dead, during the scene in the basement, a torn poster for The Hills Have Eyes can be seen in the background.
• This film was #41 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.
• "You bet your life because the hills have eyes......." is a line in the chorus of the Misfits song "Earth A.D." off of the 1983 album of the same name.

[edit] Hills Have Eyes Series

• The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
• The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1985)
• The Hills Have Eyes III also known as The Outpost or Mindripper (1995)
• The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
• The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007)

[edit] External links

• The Hills Have Eyes (1977) at the Internet Movie Database
• The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1985) at the Internet Movie Database
• The Outpost(1995) at the Internet Movie Database
• The Hills Have Eyes (2006) at the Internet Movie Database
• A Review of the 2006 version, which acts to place the original film in context and explore the thematic content of these films.
• The Hills Have Eyes Official Movie Site
• 2,000 people singing Happy Birthday to, and then a brief interview with, Michael Berryman on the podcast The Future And You (beginning at 1:07:44)
• Wes Craven interview for The Hills Have Eyes

The Hills Have Eyes Series
Original Series: The Hills Have Eyes | The Hills Have Eyes Part II The Hills Have Eyes III aka Mind Ripper Remake Series: The Hills Have Eyes (2006) | The Hills Have Eyes 2