Review of Hills Have Eyes, The

Introduction

From the much vaunted "Master Of Horror" Wes Craven comes a digitally remastered release of his second film, The Hills Have Eyes. Before the likes of Scream and Nightmare On Elm Street, Wes Craven directed this film. Set in the American Desert, the Carter family are on their way to a new life in California however they`ve been left the deeds to a silver mine so decide to stop off there on the way. Unfortunately as a result of their little detour they run into a sadistic family of cannibals with predictably disastrous results.

Video

The film quality has been extensively remastered to clean up a lot of the visual deterioration associated with this age of film. The quality of the DVD print is excellent, unfortunately it just serves to highlight the poor quality of the original film. There is notable dirt on the camera lens, special effects are poor (bright red blood etc.) and it`s mostly dull, uninteresting scenery to look at.

Audio

The film comes with a DD5.1 remastered soundtrack which restores the films audio quality no end. Unfortunately the original quality wasn`t all that great to begin with, the music grates and the sound samples used smack of the low budget variety. Voice quality is generally quite good but when the dialogue is poor in the first place then that hardly matters.

Features

When the original film isn`t terribly awe inspiring you`d expect to get the bog standard selection of extras…this however pleasantly surprises by offering a wide range of extras.

Audio Commentary - The commentary by Wes Craven and the producer, Peter Locke, quite interesting and goes into a fair amount of detail.

Looking Back At The Hills Have Eyes - This is actually quite an interesting look at the making of the film through a series of interviews with Wes Craven and most of the original cast members. Newly filmed for the DVD release this makes for interesting viewing if you`re into horror films.

The American Nightmare - Again quite interesting, this is a documentary which looks at modern horror films and their impact on cinema and indeed the things that made an impact on the directors. Features a series of interviews with horror director and stars detailing their inspirations for the films they made ranging from the films they watched to experiences in Vietnam, one of the best extras I`ve seen in a while and indeed quite disturbing at times.

Alternate Ending - Probably the most pointless of the extras included. It`s not remastered though so it serves as a good way to judge the original vs remastered film quality but that`s about it.

Also included is the usual assortment of Trailers, TV Spots, Still Galleries, Biographies, DVD-ROM etc.

Conclusion

Bit of an odd one really to sum up, the easiest way to sum it up really is a poor feature film that comes with some excellent extras. Indeed the oddest part of it is it`s probably worth getting the DVD for the excellent "American Nightmare" documentary more than it is getting it for the film itself, the film is probably more of the bonus feature.

Despite being remastered well the original film is one of those cult classics people look back at fondly…er, well as fondly as you can look back at a horror movie at any rate! Anyway much like The Exorcist and others of its ilk; they`re never quite as good as people remember them and The Hills Have Eyes is no exception to this group. Low budget film quality, predictable story, sloppy dialogue, poor special effects combine to make a feature film that`s somewhat lacking by today`s standards. Let`s not even mention the fact it has one of the most abrupt endings I`ve seen in a while, something the alternate ending doesn`t do much to solve either. It`s one of those films that was daring and controversial for its time but relatively tame by today`s standards.

The extras are the DVD`s saving grace; the aforementioned documentary of the history of the modern variety of horror films is very in depth with some very interesting interviews. The look back with the original cast etc is also very good as is the audio commentary.

I`d recommend getting this if only to see the documentary which is a must for all horror fans, the original film however is for horror die-hards who love these cult classic type of films only.