Hills Have Eyes, The (1977)

... aka: Blood Relations
... aka: Quadrilha de Sádicos (Sadistic Gang)
... aka: Slagterbanden (Butcher Boys)
... aka: Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes

Directed by:
Wes Craven

When your directorial debut is a film as notoriously graphic and shocking as The Last House on the Left (1972), audiences expect a lot from you. With Hills, Craven was able to give those who enjoyed Last House the gritty realism, brutality and shocks they wanted plus edge himself a little closer to the mainstream in the process with a more commercial, better-made, less alienating film. Conceived as Blood Relations (the initial script title), this was originally going to be a modern retelling of the Sawney Bean legend set in the future; an idea Craven happened upon while reading a true crime book at the New York Public Library. According to the legend, Bean led a incestuous cannibal clan in rural Scotland who robbed, murdered and ate “over 1000” people in the late 15th / early 16th Century. Since they lived deep within an undiscovered sea cave, they were able to hide out there during the day and only attacked at night. After a reign of terror lasting upwards of 25 years, their crimes finally caught up with them. A manhunt was organized by the King James VI and they were located, captured and executed in ways every bit as ghastly and sadistic as what the clan did to their victims. (This irony of violence and how it debases victim, perpetrator and vindicator alike would be an elemental theme in both Last House and Hills).

Sawney Bean art; the man (above), the Bean cannibal clan having dinner (below).

Scholars to this day still debate on whether or not the Sawney Bean story has any validity, but most seem to think it's a work of complete fiction designed to move copies of a travel journal (James Boswell's 1785 book The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.) and allow the Brits to smear the Scots during a time there was a lot of friction / class distinction between the two. Either way, it seems highly unlikely that if it did occur that the earliest printed account of the events wouldn't be until 100 years after it happened!

Once the Blood Relations script was reworked for the slim budget, with a change of location and a much smaller number of cannibals than originally planned, Hooper turned to Tobe Hooper's masterpiece The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) to fill in the gaps. A huge fan of the film, Craven stated in interviews that he intended Hills to be a partial homage of sorts. He even hired Chainsaw's production designer Robert A. Burns, whose brilliant work on Hooper's film was robbed of an Oscar nomination for Best Art Direction if you ask me. Unlike with Last House (which had an X-rated print working the rounds along with its heavily cut R-rated version), Craven decided to go ahead and appease the schmucks at the MPAA by removing numerous gory moments from the film to secure the R for its release. As a result, the film did fairly well at the box office and its status as a cult classic only grew into the video revolution.

Hills appears to have been very successful in Japan, going by these very cool posters.

Detective Big Bob Carter (Russ Grieve) has just retired from the Cleveland police force early due to a heart condition and decided to take his All-American extended family on vacation to California. Since he and his wife Ethel (Virginia Vincent) have recently come into possession of a plot of land where there used to be a lot silver mining (but is now being used as a nuclear testing site by the military), they decide to take a detour through the Nevada desert to check it out. First stopping at a run-down gas station to refuel, they're warned by jittery old attendant Fred (John Steadman) to stay on the main road, but naturally don't listen. Fighting over being lost, noisy aircraft overhead and a hare running out into the middle of the road send their vehicle into a ditch, breaking the car's axle. Now stranded out in the middle of nowhere, Big Bob and his son-in-law Doug (Martin Speer) decide to hike in different directions to try to find someone to help, leaving younger son Bobby (Robert Houston) to look after his wife, daughters Brenda (Susan Lanier) and Lynne (Dee Wallace) and baby granddaughter Katy (Brenda Marinoff). They will soon have worse things to worry about than roasting in the sun and becoming “human french fries...” namely that they'll be the burger instead.

Bob arrives back at the gas station just in time to catch Fred nearly hanging himself. Fred then tells the story about the misfortunes that befell his own family. His first son was born “weighing twenty pounds and as hairy as a monkey” and grew to be a vicious child who'd torture and kill animals. At ten years old, the boy burned their house to the ground, killing his wife and daughter. Fred split his face open with a tire iron and drove the boy out into the desert and left him, thinking the heat would finish him off. Instead, the boy lived. He eventually went and got himself a whore from the nearest city and raised his own cave-dwelling family of savages who do whatever it takes to get by. That includes robbing, murdering and eating any travelers passing through that they can get their hands on. After all, Papa Jupiter (James Whitworth) has his own family to take care of. Besides, he takes great pleasure in “fixing people good.”

After murdering Fred, Jupiter and his three sons; Mars (Lance Gordon), Mercury (“Arthur King“ aka producer Peter Locke) and Pluto (Michael Berryman), orchestrate an unexpected nighttime attack on the terrified sleeping family. Using Bob as a fiery distraction, they invade the waylaid camper, raid the fridge for raw ground beef, steal what they can, eat a parakeet, rape one of the girls, steal the “fat and juicy” baby (and plan on eating the “young tenderloin” later on) and take off, leaving two of the family members dead and one nearly dead. The following day it's a clash of the two very-different families, with the more normal and civilized family having to tap into their own primitive savagery in order to survive and rescue the baby. A pair of dogs – Beauty and Beast – also factor heavily into the action, as does Ruby (Janus Blythe), the cannibal clan's daughter, who is sickened by her family's ways and wants out.

Almost 40 years after it was made, Hills holds up surprisingly well even after scores of later imitations. It's tense, scary, well-directed, atmospheric and suspenseful, with moments that still rattle viewers, a palpable sense of isolation, enough subtext to keep things interesting under the surface and that wonderfully gritty 70s low-budget feel many of us would take any day of the week over today's more “polished” product. In fact, this may be Craven's best film ever. It's certainly one of my favorites of his.

Cast with mostly unknowns (aside from veteran actress Vincent), many of the cast members went on to do bigger (though not necessarily better) things. The memorable-looking Berryman, who suffers from a rare, incurable condition called Hypohidrotic Ectodermal Dysplasia, which prevents the formation of hair, fingernails, teeth, and sweat glands, became the poster boy for the film and began his long career in horror flicks right here. After starring in a few other junky films like Cheerleaders Wild Weekend (1979), Houston gave up on acting and became an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker instead. The biggest success was the talented Wallace, who was starring in the likes of The Howling (1981), E.T. (1982) and Cujo (1983) soon after.

The Hills concept has proven to have legs over the years. Prior to the career-altering success of Elm Street, Craven was desperate enough for money to make the awful THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART II (1984); which brought back Houston and Blythe to reprise their roles and is perhaps the worst film of the director's entire career. Into the remake-heavy 2000s, Craven produced a popular yet dumbed-down and extremely gory remake directed by Alexandre Aja. (For the record, a lot of people seem to think the remake is better than the original... I just don't happen to be one of those people.) A few years later, Craven got on board to produce and write a sequel to the remake, but the second Hills II (God... what an age we live in!) disappointed fans and failed to match the box office. The official films stopped right there.

★★★1/2

Deadly Blessing (1981)

... aka: A Bênção do Anjo Negro (Blessing of the Black Angel)
... aka: Hämnd från andra sidan (Revenge from the Other Side)
... aka: La ferme de la terreur (Farm Terror)

Directed by:
Wes Craven

This is an interesting film from Craven's big transitional period or, what I like to refer to as his B.F. (Before Freddy), period. After getting his feet wet in cinema helping to produce Sean Cunningham's obscure faux sex documentary Together (1971), which gave some their first look at future adult film superstar Marilyn Chambers, Craven took his first stab at directing the following year with The Last House on the Left (1972). The film quickly garnered a reputation as one of the most vile, graphic and shocking films made up to that point. Many critics felt it was beneath contempt, but a few (including, most famously, Roger Ebert) came to its defense. Though a profitable film that proved to have legs at the box office both domestically and abroad, the controversial House didn't exactly have Hollywood beating down Craven's door right away. Instead he ended up in the world of hardcore porn for awhile, directing The Fireworks Woman (1975) under the alias “Abe Snake,” editing other features and even appearing in small non-sexual roles. Because of the frequent use of aliases in adult films, the full extent of his career in hardcore porn may never be known. Craven himself had no qualms admitting his involvement but never went into much detail about it.

The director's connections with the adult industry came in handy once he was ready to shoot his next movie; The Hills Have Eyes (1977), as he was able to cheaply rent film equipment from a California porn producer. Like Last House (which was initially rated X and played theaters either unrated or in a heavily-cut R version), Hills faced ratings problems due to explicit violence and had to be trimmed in order to get an R rating. The gritty, bloody film received mixed reviews but did fairly well at the box office. Two noteworthy genre efforts in a row landed Craven the opportunity to direct the Linda Blair vehicle Stranger In Our House aka Summer of Fear in 1978. Released on Halloween on NBC, it was beaten in the ratings by rival network's Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell, but managed to be profitable, thanks in part to playing theatrically in Europe. It wouldn't be until three years later that Craven made Deadly Blessing, his fourth genre offering and his highest-budgeted movie to date at 2.5 million dollars. He likely got the gig because Stranger executive producer Max A. Keller (who also backed this film) was pleased with the work he'd previously done and because of the rising cult popularity of his previous films.

Strange things are afoot in a small farming community. The area is home to an ultra-strict religious sect called the Hittites, who are so by-the-book they “make the Amish look like swingers” and spend all their days farming the land by hand. Ex-Hittite Jim Schmidt (Douglas Barr) broke tradition, went away to college in the big city and returned with new wife Martha (Maren Jensen) in tow, which not only infuriated his father Isaiah (Ernest Borgnine) but also got him kicked out of the community and disowned by his entire family. As the young couple look forward to an upcoming child and celebration of their one year wedding anniversary, Jim is killed in a freak “accident” in a barn when a tractor crushes him. Now ostracized by nearly the entire community, who've labeled her an “incubus” (a devil who seduces the faithful), Martha has no one to turn to for comfort. Two of her friends from L.A.; Lana Marcus (Sharon Stone) and Vicky Anderson (Susan Buckner), show up in the nick of time to help her through the ordeal.

Martha is set to inherit the land and farm from her deceased husband, which doesn't sit too well with Isaiah and the rest of the Hittite community. Seeing how the Hittite's have already tried numerous times to drive out the only other non-Hittite's in the vicinity; white trash widowed waitress Louisa Stohler (Lois Nettleton) and her surrealist painter tomboy daughter Faith (Lisa Hartman), who knows what lengths they may go to get Martha out and get their hands on the land? The Hittite's also don't take too well to the sexual temptations the nice-looking, free-spirited city gals, who do things like answering the door in their negligee and jogging in short shorts and flimsy t-shirts minus a bra, are bringing to the devout menfolk. Jim's younger brother John (Jeff East) finds himself drawn to Vicky, but since he's set to be married to a "sound woman;" his uptight cousin Melissa (Colleen Riley), Isaiah forbids him from even talking to her. When he doesn't listen to orders, daddy starts beating him with a stick, calls him “a stench in the nostril's of God!” and banishes him from the home.

With all of the bitterness, hostility and religious / sexual repression going on, someone's bound to snap and that's exactly what happens. Mentally-stunted “retard” voyeur William Gluntz (Michael Berryman) is first on the killer's hit list after sneaking one too many peaks into Martha's windows late at night. His body is later strung up in the barn and, naturally, the sect blame the city girls and won't even allow the cops to perform an autopsy to find out the real culprit. In addition to the flesh-and-blood killer on the loose (who also likes to terrorize the ladies by doing such things as sneaking a snake into the bathtub and filling a milk carton full of blood), something supernatural appears to be going on. Lana starts having a recurring nightmare about an ashen-skinned man and spiders and eventually begins to think death itself is after her.

Look familiar? Craven recycled this same scene nearly shot-for-shot for his most-famous hit; 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street, except instead of Freddy's glove emerging from the water we get...

This!

I grew up in a rural farm area not unlike the small town featured in this movie and saw Amish around all of the time. There were Amish furniture stores, Amish bakeries and we even had Amish buggy signs on most of the back roads. Now these people can be scary, especially to a child who doesn't know any better. All I knew when I was young was that they were solemn, seldom said anything and lived apart from everyone else in their own little sheltered, secretive world. The Amish children my age were very quiet and obedient and the adults always looked humorless and stern. When I got a little older, my girlfriend at the time's father actually helped the Amish. He'd drive them to McDonalds and Wal-Mart and the hardware store so I'd interact with them from time to time. It was then I realized they weren't so much scary as they were extremely guarded in regards to those outside their circle. There always seemed to be some whispered communal secret among them and they kept pretty much everyone, including my ex's father, at arm's length. Even through amiable faces and smiles, I still always felt an amount of coldness, disapproval and distrust underneath the surface.

Though the Hittites in this film aren't Amish and they make a point to explicitly say they aren't Amish, they may as well be in regards to how they're portrayed here. Either way, setting a horror film in this kind of hush-hush, repressive, ultra-religious environment was an excellent idea. Craven does a fine job with the atmosphere here and in authentically capturing the feel of this reticent community, particularly from an outsider's point of view. Some interesting things happen along the way and a few of the horror scenes deliver, but this lacks focus and that catches up to it by the end. The supernatural elements here are only present in a few scenes and one wonders why they're even here in the first place. And after a pretty good build up, the unintentionally funny finale goes completely off the rails with several surprise revelations (the most memorable being a silly sexual identity problem) and no less than four characters seemingly going off the deep end at the same exact time for various reasons. The studio imposed a new “shock” ending against Craven's wishes and it too is terrible.

The Omen-inspired score was by busy James Horner, who also did the music for The Hand and Wolfen this same year. Always shot from a low angle to appear more menacing, Borgnine bugs his eyes out with the best of them playing a hate-filled religious nut who does things like whipping a child's hands bloody with a switch for going into a barn. He received a Worst Supporting Actor Razzie nomination for his work. In her first major role, Stone looks gorgeous but clearly wasn't quite there yet with the acting, though she did end up on the poster. Very small roles are played by Larry Buchanan film regulars Annabelle Weenick and Neil Fletcher.

Always an easy to find / watch title, Deadly Blessing was shown on TV frequently throughout the 80s and 90s, has been issued on VHS and DVD numerous times and made its Blu-ray debut courtesy of Shout! Factory in 2013.

★★1/2