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.

skybrick736 When surfing the internet, horrible opinions are often seen about Wes Craven's "The Hills Have Eyes" but it's pretty apparent that these people are diehards for Aja's remake. In my opinion, this is a fabulous horror movie that still demonstrates a high level of brutality and grittiness. There is a realness and nerving appeal to seeing a big, religious family tortured by hideous mutants. Michael Berryman and James Whitworth are frightening and realistic and really set the ruthless tone of the film Also, the setting of the open hilly desert is a great location and creates the chilling atmosphere of being completely alone. The big downside of the film is the acting from the protagonist and supporting cast of the film. With some more defined characters and better acting, Craven's Hills Have Eyes could have been his best film, which is ultra-disturbing with some really good gore scenes.

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.

dougdoepke Boy, the American family barely got through this one, and not without casualties. I've seen our moms and dads, buds and sis's, menaced by lots of critters, but this is first time they almost ended on a dinner table. Not that the cannibal primitives that menace them use anything like a table. Looks like they prefer big rocks instead. Okay, with names like the planets we don't expect the queen's court. But this grotesque clan makes you wonder about evolution itself. So, can our all-American family survive this trip to the desert and the cannibals that live there.Great horror flick. Director Craven not only builds suspense, but also shocks the bejesus out of us. And what about Berryman as the deformed Pluto. His no-makeup close-ups are really jarring, making the whole deal seem real. No doubt about it, he really deserved a big payday. In fact the whole cast deserved combat pay. What with crawling all over that lunar landscape, the bandage concession must have been huge. Kudoes too to the normal folks, who get to do a lot of screaming and running, uphill and down. And I like the way the helpless girl turns it around at the last minute. Should please feminists in the audience. Too bad the old gas station coot is often overlooked. He's enough to make you want to run out of gas. Plus, Virginia Vincent is the most realistic looking corpse I've seen in decades of movie viewing. I hope it was just makeup.No doubt about it, the 90-minutes really delivers the goods for horror fans. The result amounts to a triumph of directing and staging, though the acting does wobble at times. Meanwhile, I'm canceling my trip to the desert, in fact, make that any desert, any time.