On the way to California, a family has the misfortune to have their car break down in an area closed to the public and inhabited by violent savages ready to attack.
Set in the Nevada desert, the story follows the Carter family as they move from Ohio to California. They pull over at a small rest-stop, Fred’s Oasis, for gas, and while talking to Fred, he urges them to stay on the main road and head straight to California. After leaving, they turn onto a backroad as the parents, Bob and Ethel, want to visit some local silver mines but the car crashes and ends up in a ditch in the middle of nowhere. As night falls, one by one, they fall victim to a family of inbred cannibal savages. As the night progresses, they must band together and try to come up with a plan to fight back, before it’s too late.
Over the years, many filmmakers have stolen Craven’s idea and made it their own; “Cabin Fever,” the “Wrong Turn” series, “Motel Hell,” just like Craven was obviously inspired by Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic, “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” and while Craven’s film manages to elicit, at times, a genuine sense of fear and dread, it falters with its central performances. Probably the most recognizable actor is Dee Wallace, who would go on to star in “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Cujo,” and Peter Jackson’s “The Frighteners.” She is the only actor involved who appears genuinely authentic in her role while everyone else’s performances all feel artificial and contrived.
While the desert setting is brutal and unforgiving, the movie could have benefited from scarier antagonists, instead of amateurs dressed up like extras from “One Million Years B.C.” Snarling and growling do not bad guys make. While the story itself was sufficient for a 1970s low-budget horror film, the acting and generally cheap production quality bring down the overall atmosphere. Unsurprisingly, characters observe typical horror film tropes; in the middle of the night, while under attack, a character wanders off into the pitch-black desert to search for their dog, when an old local tells the family to get back on the main road, they decide instead to take a dirt road into the middle of nowhere, when someone has a gun and the opportunity to shoot a bad guy but waits just a little longer, allowing said bad guy to disappear into the darkness. Granted, we have to allow characters a certain amount of leeway in order for them to be responsible for some tropes, otherwise, we wouldn’t have a horror movie but the extent to which they act here, is just plain ridiculous.
Craven would go on to direct a sequel in 1984, “The Hills Have Eyes Part II,” but it was so bad, he disowned the film altogether. By 1984 though, his seminal masterpiece, “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” was released so he was able to direct the kinds of films he wanted to make moving forward. This new 4K transfer of the movie is absolutely terrible, I’ve seen clips from the various Blu-ray releases over the years that had much better quality but there are some good extras that were interesting to watch. I would only recommend “The Hills Have Eyes” for die-hard Craven fans, otherwise, I would recommend the 2006 remake by director Alexandre Aja instead, everything about it was so much better than the original but it is very violent and, at times, hard to watch.
Available on 4K Ultra HD for the first time ever from Arrow Video November 9th
