The Hills Have Eyes [4K Ultra HD Blu-ray]

Overview

Horror auteur Wes Craven followed his threadbare but horrifically compelling cult classic Last House on the Left with this wonderfully demented morality fable about a bloody war of attrition between two extremely different families. The story opens on the journey of the Carters, a mildly dysfunctional extended family led by patriarch "Big Bob" Carter (Russ Grieve), as they travel across the California desert in search of an inherited silver mine. When a broken axle leaves them stranded in the middle of a former nuclear testing site, their attempts to find help lead them unwittingly into the territory of a savage family of cave-dwelling cannibals, the apparent progeny of the bearlike Jupiter (James Whitworth) and an abducted prostitute. Jupiter's eldest son Pluto (professional movie weirdo Michael Berryman) leads the first brutal attack on the defenseless Carters who, through necessity, are driven to equally extreme measures in order to survive. Though the film is not overtly bloody, the scenes depicting this confrontation are rendered with an unflinching directness, and the violations visited on the Carters are so brutal as to make the survivors' regression into savagery all the more convincing. No one is spared from the nightmare: Jupiter's boys have even kidnapped the youngest member of the Carter family -- a mere infant -- to serve as fodder for their next barbecue, and the baby becomes the main point of contention between the rival clans. Craven nevertheless refuses to take the easy way out by depicting his "monsters" as soullessly evil; parallels between either family's "values" are clearly drawn as the differences between the two clans begin to blur.

Product Details

Release Date:	03/22/2022
UPC:	0760137821694
Original Release:	1977
Source:	Arrow Video
Language:	English
Time:	1:30:00
Format:	Blu-ray
Sales rank:	10,559

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Susan Lanier	Brenda Carter
Robert Houston	Bobby Carter
Martin Speer	Doug Wood
James Whitworth	Jupiter
Virginia Vincent	Ethel Carter
Russ Grieve	Bob Carter
Dee Wallace Stone	Lynne Wood
Brenda Marinoff	Katie Wood
Cordy Clark	Mama
Janus Blythe	Ruby
Michael Berryman	Pluto
Lance Gordon	Mars
Arthur King	Mercury
John Steadman	Fred
Stricker	The Beast
Flora	Beauty
Don Peake	Composer

Technical Credits

Wes Craven

Wes Craven	Director,Screenwriter
Peter Locke	Producer
John Frazier	Special Effects

Editorial Reviews

Like an episode of Married With Children on crack, this early Wes Craven effort serves up a colorful clan of social renegades and pits them against a family of middle-class snivelers. This being a horror film from before the age of pervasive irony, of course, the audience is supposed to identify with the itinerant Carter brood rather than the territorial mutants who relentlessly stalk them through the desert. But half the fun is in watching the wholesome, Winnebago-riding Carters get picked off one by one and whine about it. Horror perennial Dee Wallace, hot off a bit part in The Stepford Wives, is the most recognizable face among the supposed good guys, and she hits every catatonic "dingoes ate my baby" mark that's required of her. Pallid golden boy Robert Houston, however, is the most irritatingly sheltered of the lot. Unfortunately, he never gets what's coming to him. Films as varied as Breakdown and The Hitcher have played up the dangers that face ordinary people when they hit the highway; in terms of production quality and psychological acuity, The Hills Have Eyes falls somewhere below those two films, but its exploitation thrills are more potent by half.