lordgodyahweh Wes Craven did a great job making this film make the audience cringe. Pros: Suspenseful, disturbing and good story Cons: Blood could be more realistic and acting could be improved

inspectors71 This is garbage, but it's quality garbage. Just when I thought Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes is about to drift into the totally incoherent lane, he saves it by giving us something imaginative. It's the oft-told story (I threw "oft-told" in there just for the fun of it) of a well-adjusted family on the way to California for a vacation. Daddy's got a bum ticker and needs to rest. Mom warns him about said ticker. There's a couple of girls, a baby, and a son-in- law, and derned if they don't get a warning to stay on the highway, and off the moors. Wait, that's another movie.Sure enough, the Ohioan doofi get themselves stranded out there in the desert, and are almost immediately set upon by a bunch of blood- thirsty half-wits who live up in the rocks, use surplus walkie- talkies, and like to kill almost anything that has the bad fortune to wander in front of them. Craven gives you just enough information about the hill people to keep you from being totally bewildered. When you have enough 411, he starts disemboweling German Shepards, crucifying retired police detectives, and shooting mom and sis (Dee Wallace, just out of the back of the station wagon with her hubby), raping, pillaging, and kidnapping a baby for, apparently, the bad guys' holiday dinner.It's sick, twisted crap, but I kept jumping when I got something I didn't expect.I guess I should jump right now because I liked The Hills Have Eyes. I also like Mandingo, so you know I have no taste.Catch it on Flix.

Leofwine_draca Unusually, this is one film that I ended up watching long after I've already seen the remake; I always try to see the original films first but this Wes Craven chiller slipped me by. Sadly, I was left feeling disappointed and let down once it was over, mainly because the remake is, surprisingly, superior in every way: the actors are better, the gore better, the direction better, and the music better. The remake also sticks VERY closely to the plot of this film, so all of the surprises and twists were well choreographed in advance and there was little to intrigue me here.For a '70s horror film, it's not a bad effort: there are some good chills and the film makes a horror star out of Michael Berryman, the bald bad guy who traded on his appearance here for the rest of his career. The problem is that the low budget hurts the proceedings somewhat, with the rest of the cannibal family resembling hippies rather than mutants. Despite the savagery of their actions, they end up laughable instead of frightening. Another problem is Craven's direction – it feels insipid rather than inspired and in light of Alexandre Aja's excellent job on the remake, I can't help but feel it's lacking. Some of the cast don't help, with Susan Lanier standing out as one of the most irritating screamers in horror history (the dog's great, though). Back in the day, THE HILLS HAVE EYES was a shocking and depraved horror flick; today it's a dated intrigue that doesn't stand up alongside fellow '70s movies like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It's okay but I'd recommend the remake over this any day.

Michael_Elliott The Hills Have Eyes (1977) **** (out of 4) Raw terror at its finest as a family from Ohio are traveling to California but they decide to go down a closed road in the deserts hoping to find a mine. They eventually end up wrecking their car and soon a group of cannibals from the hills are attacking them.Wes Craven's THE HILLS HAVE EYES is to me one of the greatest horror films of the decade and also one of the rawest. Craven had previously made THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and when you compare the two films it's easy to see a certain vision on the screen. Craven's ability to make both film seem real and make both of them so raw and powerful really speaks to his talent and especially when you consider the budgets that he was working on. LAST HOUSE is a real mixed film as far as I'm concerned but everything came out perfectly with HILLS and that's why it remains so powerful no matter how many times you see it.There are a few sequences here that are so full of terror that you can't help but get curled up or be on the edge of your seat. The first time is when the attack finally happens on the family. When you really sit back and think about this sequence it's really amazing how much stuff is going on and how well the editing brings it all together. You've got stuff going on outside the trailer as well as inside the trailer. In both cases multiple things are happening and with so much going on it just keeps building the tension level.The second sequence happens during the extended ending where the family must fight for their lives. Again, multiple things are going on at once and the way Craven plays this sequence and the earlier one just makes things so suspenseful that you can't help but feel the terror.Of course, the terror only works if you care for the people you're watching. There's quite a bit of character development here as the start of the film gives you plenty of time to get to know this family, care for them and want to see them survive. Caring about the family really helps once they come under attack. It also helps that the performances are so good. Dee Wallace, Susan Lanier, John Steadman, Robert Houston are all extremely good as are the "other" family played by James Whitworth, Michael Berryman and Janus Blythe. It also doesn't hurt that we're given some realistic cinematography that puts you right there in all the action and the music score is one of the best out there for a horror movie.THE HILLS HAVE EYES is in my opinion Craven's masterpiece. Yes, there are a few flaws here and there but the power of the film is unquestionable and it's this terror that makes the film so memorable.