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Our
film opens with ominous music as we slowly
pan over the hills of the desert. Day
breaks on a lonely gas station just left
of the middle of nowhere, where Old Fred (John
Steadman), it's former proprietor,
frantically loads his meager belongings
into his pick-up. In a desperate hurry,
fearfully mumbling that, if they even knew
he was trying to leave, they’d surely
kill him, we
get our first clue who "they"
are when the slightly feral looking Ruby (Janus
Bluth) appears out of nowhere and
begs to go with him. Scared
to be out in the open, where others are
watching, they retreat into the station.
Fred
says
he can’t take her along, and asks
if Jupiter, her father, knows she’s here.
He’s leaving because more and more
people are poking around because Ruby’s
family robbed the PX at the nearby Air
Force base. When they hear voices outside,
Fred hides Ruby in an adjoining room.
Outside,
he finds the Carter Family Expedition in
need of gas, and we’re introduced to the
Carter clan as they spill from the station
wagon and camper. Family patriarch Bob (Russ
Grieve), and his wife, Ethel (Virginia
Vincent), daughter, Lynne (Dee
Wallace -- before she got Stoned),
her husband, Doug (Martin Speer),
and their baby daughter, Kathy. Lynne's
brother, Bobby (Robert Houston),
little sister, Brenda (Susan
Lanier), and a pair of German
Shepherd’s, Beauty and the Beast, round
out the family unit. Sensing something
else is around, the dog’s are a bit
uneasy with their surroundings...
There
is something out there. Sinister eyes --
via the camera -- are watching them.
Old
Fred gives them all the gas he has left,
and while the plot expositions itself, we
find out Big Bob is a retired policeman
from Cleveland who's moving his entire
family to California, and they're so far
off the beaten path to find a silver mine
given to them as an anniversary present.
Fred says the silver is all gone and warns
where they're headed is dangerous because
it’s now an Air Force gunnery range. He
strongly suggests they just forget about
it, head back to the main highway and on
to California, but Big Bob can’t be
swayed.
As
the family loads back up and leaves, Doug
swears he heard strange voices, and Bobby might
have seen someone moving amongst the
garbage, but they figure it’s nothing.
As they go, Fred warns them again to stay
on the main road. (Uh-oh.)
Then, just after they leave, Fred’s
truck explodes -- and we see Ruby and her
brother, Mercury (Arthur King),
running away. Terrified, Fred draws his
pistol and retreats into the gas station,
bemoaning the fact that "There'll be
hell to pay now."
While
the Carter’s make their way down the
road, we find out that Big Bob rules his
family with an iron hand, is bad tempered,
and a bigot. Ethel’s map skills have
gotten them lost, and to make matters
worse, they’ve wandered onto the test
range and are buzzed by a couple of
fighter jets. This causes Bob to lose
control and run the car off the road,
breaking the back axle. Everyone survives
the wreck pretty much intact. But, unknown
to them, more sinister eyes have them
under constant observation. Whoever they
are, they communicate with stolen handheld
radios using a bizarre military lingo --
probably picked up from listening in on
Air Force chatter. Brother Pluto (Michael
Berryman) reports the traveling
family "Is stuck real good."
Back
at the wreck, Bob divvies up his arsenal.
He takes one gun and starts walking back
to the gas station for help, leaving the
other gun with Bobby to protect the
womenfolk. Unarmed Doug follows the road
in the other direction, hoping to find the
base where the planes came from. After
Bob and Doug leave (take off you
hosers!), Beauty gets out of the
trailer and heads up into the hills. Bobby
goes after her and calls for the dog to
come back. But Pluto calls for her to keep
on coming, then Bobby hears the dog attack
something followed by a whelp of pain.
Calling for her, the only answer he gets
is stumbling over Beauty's gutted corpse.
But he doesn’t have time to be nauseated
as something in the bushes causes him to
run -- too fast, as he trips and tumbles
down the hill into the darkness below.
Back
in the camper, Ethel tries to use the CB
radio to call for help. When Lynne takes
over, the only response they get is some
obscene breathing. Worried, Brenda takes
the Beast and goes out to find Bobby.
After a few suspenseful turns, Bobby comes
out of the darkness, battered and bruised,
but doesn’t say anything about the dead
dog.
Meanwhile,
Big Bob makes it back to the gas station.
He finds a phone, and there is a dial tone
for a brief second before it dies. Then,
someone takes a shot at him. Bob returns
fire and breaks into the side room,
finding Fred trying to hang himself. Bob
stops this and helps him down. It was Fred
who shot at him, thinking it was Jupiter.
After Bob tells him about the wreck, Fred
grows very concerned about his stranded
family. Bob assures they’re safe, but
the old man insists they're not; because
there is an evil running loose in the
hills, and there’s something Bob should
know:
You
see, Fred used to be a happily married man
-- had a daughter, a new gas station, and
another baby on the way -- but something
went wrong. His baby came out sideways,
and this complication killed his wife. The
baby was huge and covered with hair, and
as the baby grew older, bad things
started happening: The family dog got
dumped down the well, and all the chickens
got their heads bit off. Then, one day,
Fred returned home and found his house
burnt to the ground -- with his daughter
still inside. Knowing
his deviant son lit it, Fred took a tire
iron to the boy’s skull and split it
open; but it didn’t kill him. He dumped
the boy in the desert, hoping he’d die
of exposure. But he didn’t. He kidnapped
a whore "that no one would miss"
and sired a clan of feral kids who are now
running loose in the hills, killing and
pillaging.
Thinking
the old man crazy, Bob doesn’t believe
him -- until Jupiter (James
Whitworth) crashes through the
window, seizes Fred, and hauls him back
outside where he returns the tire iron
favor to Fred’s head, killing him, then
disappears into the darkness before Bob
can even get a shot off. Bob, slowly
realizing the old man’s story was true,
and the true gravity of the situation
sinks in, runs back to protect his family.
Back
at the campsite, the Beast breaks loose
from his chain and heads into the desert
to find Beauty. On the road, Bob
(who
has a bad heart) is having trouble
keeping up his pace. From the darkness,
Jupiter taunts him on until Bob has a
seizure and collapses. As the voice
continues to taunt, Bob fires blindly into
the dark until his gun clicks empty. Then,
Jupiter shows himself and calls to the
rest of his clan over the radio and asks
"We about ready?" (For
what? Whatever -- it can’t be good for
Bob.)
Meanwhile,
the Beast finds Beauty’s body and howls
at the moon in despair. Back in
Jupiter’s camp, Ruby and Mama (Candy
Clark), listens to the dog’s
pain. (Ruby is chained up so she
can’t try to run away again.) In
the Carter's camp, Bobby hears something
outside the trailer, takes the gun and
investigates, but it’s only Doug. He
followed the road until it ended at an old
surplus dump. He hauled back several
spools of wire, hoping it might help get
the car unstuck. Bobby hoped it was his
dad, still worried, he is about to tell
Doug about the dog when the womenfolk come
out. They’re happy to see Doug, but are
disappointed that he didn’t find any
help.
Out
in the desert, (in
the film’s most brutal scene)
Jupiter crucifies Bob on a Joshua Tree. He
drives wooden stakes through his hands and
gags the old man with a prickly pear. (Jeez.)
At the camper, Doug ignores
Bobby’s concerns but promises if Bob
isn’t back in an hour, they’ll go and
look for him. Doug and Lynne retreat to
the station wagon -- despite Bobby’s
protests of sticking together. Time passes,
Ethel and Brenda are asleep, Doug and
Lynne are making nookie in the station
wagon, and Bobby hears the Beast and goes
out to look for him; but doesn’t realize
it’s only Mercury impersonating the dog,
and it's all a ruse to get him -- and the
gun -- further away from the others and
out of the campsite. With him gone,
Pluto sneaks in and drains the gas from
the station wagon into a jug, lustfully listening
in on Doug and Lynne going at it.
I'll
pause to point out that the Jupiter clan
appears to have this down to a science,
so obviously they’ve done this before.
Realizing
he’s been had when the dog starts
mooing and clucking, Bobby quickly heads
back to the camp, where everything seems
all right -- except that he's locked
himself out of the camper. When he tries
the door, we switch perspectives and are
shocked to see Pluto inside the trailer,
gathering all the food and ammo on the
table -- but is soon distracted by the
sleeping Brenda. Bobby interrupts the
lovebirds in the wagon and asks to
borrow Doug's keys. He also finally
breaks down and fesses up about the dog.
Doug calms him down, saying they’ll
get a flashlight out of the trailer and
check it out. As they start to unlock
the door, Pluto radios the others to
"Do it," and then jumps on
Brenda, clamping his deformed hand over
her mouth.
Jupiter
uses the stolen gas to ignite the tree
he nailed Bob to. The campers see the
explosion and hear Bob’s resultant
screams. Doug gathers up a fire
extinguisher and along with Bobby, Lynne,
and Ethel, head out to help. None the
wiser, on the way out, he tells Brenda
to watch the baby. After Doug leaves,
Pluto starts to assault her in earnest.
After
the others clear out, the last of
Jupiter’s clan, Mars (Lance
Gordon), enters the trailer. He
pulls Pluto off of Brenda -- not to save
her, he just wants to go first, and
hears baby Kathy; and we get the first
hint of the family’s cannibalistic
tendencies as he smacks his lips over
the discovery.
The
others manage to douse the fire and pry
Bob off of the tree. As Ethel goes into
shock, Doug sends Lynne and Ethel back to
the trailer for blankets, water, and
whiskey. Bobby cocks the gun, swears to
avenge his father, and disappears in to
the dark. Doug stays to help Bob, but he
expires. (Unintended
laughs here as Big Bob smokes like
Yosemite Sam after Bug's blows him up.) When
Lynne
finds Mars in the trailer, they fight.
Ethel snaps to and beats him off with a
broom until Mars shoots her in the
stomach. Bloodied Brenda manages to slide
Mars's discarded knife to Lynne, and
though Mars shoots the eldest sister in
the side, she still manages to drive the
knife deep into his leg. Mars howls in
pain and shoots Lynne again, this time
fatally. Pluto comes back in, warning that
the men are coming. Mars gives him the
baby while he grabs for Brenda. She
manages to get away, but Mars promises to
come back for her later. Bobby shoots at
the fleeing killers but misses. Doug finds
his dead wife, but has no time to mourn
when he realizes they’ve stolen his baby
girl. He curses the darkness and demands
that they give his baby back.
The
retreating Mars and Pluto brag about their
catch -- and how they made off with all
the spare ammunition. They call Mercury on
the radio and tell him to come home. He
gives a big 10-4 and looks forward to
eating the baby’s toes (it
sounds like something he’s dined on
before), but the Beast has other
ideas. The dog charges, knocking him off a
cliff and Mercury falls to his death. The
dog then picks up his field radio and
heads back to the camper. (The
Beast is Rin-Tin-Tin all of a sudden?)
When
Jupiter returns to his camp, he feels like
celebrating and this calls for a feast.
Turning his eyes ominously on the baby, he
tells Mars to call in Mercury, but he
doesn’t answer. Sending Pluto out to
find him, Jupiter then begins
interrogating Mars; did he actually kill
everyone like he was supposed to?
Back
at the camper, the surviving three try and
formulate a plan when the battery picks
that inopportune time to run out of juice,
plunging them into darkness. Brenda
panics, and it’s compounded by Mars's
voice outside the door calling for
Mercury. Bobby shoots through the door.
Silence. Doug cautiously goes outside and
finds the Beast with Mercury’s radio,
which crackles
as Pluto reports that he found Mercury's
body at the bottom of the cliff -- with
dog prints pounded into his chest. The
surviving Carter's congratulate the dog
and their first victory, and begin to
formulate a plan.
Back
in Jupiter’s camp, his mood spoiled, the
patriarch rants to Bob’s corpse about
how he will kill all his family and eat
their brains. Then, we slowly discover
that it’s only Bob’s head he’s
talking to -- meaning the meat he’s
munching on IS Bob. (To me,
this is the most disturbing scene in a
movie filled with disturbing scenes.)
Ordering Mars to stay in camp to watch the
baby, sure Doug will come looking for her,
Jupiter takes Pluto to go and kill the
other two.
Dawn
breaks, and we find Doug and the dog out
looking for Kathy. He crosses paths with
Jupiter and Pluto, but they don’t see
him. He tries to warn the others with the
hand held, but Bobby's trying to use the
CB to call for help. He thinks he’s
gotten through to the Air Force base, but
it was only a trick by Pluto to reveal how
much ammo they have left. When Doug
finds the cannibal’s camp, he hears Mars
talking to the others about the plan to
wipe out the camper. Since he can’t get
through on the radio, he sends the dog
back to help Brenda and Bobby.
Back
at the camper, Bobby tries to build a
signal fire but Brenda tells him to stop;
their only chance to get out of this is by
themselves, and, using the wire cable Doug
found, they both hit upon a plan to turn
the tables and lay a trap for the
attackers. Speaking of, Pluto falls behind
Jupiter because he smells something -- the
Beast, who attacks and savages his leg.
Jupiter comes back and chases the dog off.
Enraged, he radios Mars and tells him to
kill the baby. Doug overhears this and
springs into action. Mars
tells the recalcitrant Ruby to give him
the baby. She reluctantly surrenders it
and runs into the tent. Taking the
squirming toddler, Mars unwraps the
blanket revealing a small pig (stolen
from Fred earlier in the film if you were
paying attention.) Mars storms into
the tent and finds Mama with a bloody bump
on her head, but no Ruby -- or the baby.
Ruby
has the baby and runs into Doug -- who's
surprised that she willingly gives Kathy
back. They hear Mars coming, and run away
together. With
his bum leg, Pluto falls behind Jupiter
again, leaving him vulnerable as the Beast
circles back to finish the job. And Pluto
admits to killing Beauty -- right before
Beast rips his throat out.
Meanwhile,
Bobby and Brenda use Ethel’s corpse as
bait for their trap. Brenda spots Jupiter
coming, and tells Bobby to start the
station wagon. He does, and, as the
cannibal approaches Ethel, Bobby kicks the
car into reverse and floors it. The wire
begins to spool onto the axle. (Wasn’t
it busted?) And as it pulls taught
and closes the snare-loop around
Jupiter’s feet, the wire drags him
violently towards the car. They cheer but
the car runs out of gas (-- Pluto
drained it, remember?), and they
only appear to have pissed Jupiter off.
But that was only part one of their plan:
They
retreat into the camper where the propane
bottles are sitting with the valves wide
open. As the gas escapes Bobby tapes some
matches to the bottom of the door; then he
and Brenda retreat out the back window and
run a fair distance, and then turn and
watch.
Jupiter
cautiously approaches the door, and turns
the knob...
Bobby
and Brenda cheer as the camper explodes,
but she tries to stop him from going back.
But he says they have to make sure
Jupiter's dead. They search the wreckage
and, sure enough, Jupiter survived. (It
appears to me that he smelled the gas.)
Grabbing Bobby, he begins to throttle him
as Brenda grabs a discarded axe and whacks
away at Jupiter's backside. This gives
Bobby a chance to draw his gun and spend
the rest of the ammo into Jupiter's chest
-- who finally falls dead.
Back
in the desert, Doug decides to finally
make a stand. He gives the baby back to
Ruby and tells her to hide. Unfortunately,
he decided to make his stand in a
rattlesnake den. Mars has him trapped, but
Ruby distracts her brother until they hear
the baby crying. Mars heads for the baby,
but Doug catches him and they fight over a
knife. Managing
to get a hold of one of the snakes, Ruby
thrusts it at her brother, fangs first.
Pushing the poisonous barbs into her
brother’s back gives Doug the break he
needs. He takes the knife and savagely
stabs Mars to death.
As
Ruby mourns her brother, the camera
freezes on Doug’s blood rage as the
screen fades to red.
The
End
I
mentioned on the intro
page that I didn’t feel Wes Craven made
horror movies anymore. I believe that statement
has been a little misleading, so I'd like
to clear that up.
Wesley
Craven used to make what I feel were true horror
films. Today, he just makes scary
movies that have a few frightening, jump
out of your seat, moments. I guess that's
okay, but he used to make REALLY scary
movies: Jump out of your seat, crap in
your pants, holy &*#% didn’t see
that coming, scary movies. His early films
had the fright moments, but they also had
a remarkable sense of dread, helplessness,
and scenes of brutality that just breeds a
sense of uneasiness that I have difficulty
shaking.
To
me, that is horror.
The
best example of how far he's fallen off
is this film's dreadful sequel, The
Hills Have Eyes II;
most infamous for filmdom's first canine
flashback sequence. Craven admitted that
film was made to make a quick buck. Then,
he became entangled with Freddy Krueger,
which started strong but quickly fell
into parody. After that, he spun his
wheels for awhile. But during the first
twenty-minute sequence of Scream,
I thought he was back in form, but then
that film, too, quickly trailed off and
it's sequels are just dreadful.
Films
like this bug me because I really do have
a problem shaking them. This isn’t a bad
thing. I enjoy any film that can pull that
strong of an emotion out of me, whether it
be a comedy, drama, or horror film, and I
tip my hat to the creators who manage it.
Craven
based this story on the Sawney Bean clan.
Seems several travelers back in 17th
Century Scotland mysteriously disappeared
without a trace in the same general area.
Then, when a husband and wife were
attacked and the husband escaped, he got
help and found a cave with about 25 inbred
cannibals that were snatching unwary
travelers for food. (Several
body parts were found pickled in
saltwater.)
The cannibals were hauled off to London
and put to death. Scrapped due to budget
constraints, the
original draft was set not in the past but
in the near future: The Carter clan, in an
attempt to escape some calamity, try to
sneak into California after the border is
closed. Along the way they run into a
tribe of radiated mutants led by one of
the FBI’s most wanted who worship his
wanted poster. It was scrapped due to
budget restraints.
The
film owes a lot to Night
of the Living Dead
-- nobody’s safe, any character can
die at any time -- and The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
-- a nightmare situation that you
can’t escape, can't reason with, and
defies rationalization -- but the main
gist of the film
is the role reversal of the families. We
watch uncomfortably as the civilized
family is pushed to the breaking point,
becoming as savage as the cannibals
they’re fighting. (I
find it interesting that the only
characters that remain on an even keel in
the film are the dogs.)
This point is driven home when Ruby
cries for her brother Mars; more emotion
than anyone showed in the Carter clan
while they all dropped like flies.
Craven
is so good at this because he is a
craftsman who knows how to pull the
audience's strings. He makes you think; if
you’re paying attention, plot
conveniences like the radios are explained
satisfactorily. He can be subtle; building
tension as each POV-cannibal-shot gets
closer and closer to the campsite. He can
make you laugh; Ethel’s preoccupation
with 20 ft. long rattlesnakes. He can make
you jump; Jupiter crashing through the
window. He can make you wince; Bob’s
crucifixion. And he can make you squirm;
Bob’s pleas for help while he burns. He
also makes no excuses and refuses to turn
the camera away, making us squirm more.
And most importantly, he can make your
stomach turn without resorting to too much
gore; like when you realize Jupiter is
munching down on Bob extra-crispy corpse.
The
funny thing about all the director’s in
our little retrospective is this: It
appears to me, that their films become not
necessarily worse but definitely less
effective as their budget’s increased.
What’s
disappointing is, I don’t think we’ll
ever see films like this or the original Texas
Chainsaw Massacre
ever again. These films were different: No
cookie cutter plots, and no clichés. (Well,
they did start a few.) They took
the time to let you get to know the
characters. (No matter how annoying
some of the characters can be.) The
characters don’t do anything stupid that
screams "kill me!" and behave as
one might expect when attacked by
cannibals. And best of all, that means
we’re still identifying with the
victim’s, here, and not rooting the
killers on to a massive body count of
people we want to see get killed.
The
Hills Have Eyes
has something seldom seen in horror films
today; atmosphere, and a ferocious energy.
It’s amazing how Craven can make the
open desert feel claustrophobic. The
scenes with the feral cannibals inside the
clean and brightly-lit trailer are just as
disturbing. Craven just has a knack for
pacing, building tension, and screwing
with the viewer, I wish he’d dump the
mainstream stuff he’s trying to do,
ditch the "scary" movies, and go
back to making brutal horror films that
disturb the heck out of me.
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