The Hills Have Eyes (1977) on Netflix
The Carter family is crossing the Nevada desert toward Los Angeles when their vehicle breaks down. In the hills, a family of cannibals survives on travelers and stolen supplies.
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- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.3/1043,181 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes67%
Trailer
Plot summary
The Carters are driving to Los Angeles for a vacation, towing a trailer through the Nevada desert. Big Bob and Ethel sit up front; Bobby, Brenda, Lynne, Lynne's husband Doug and the baby Katy travel with them, along with the family dogs, Beauty and Beast. Both dogs grow restless and bark at the hills around them. Beauty bolts, and when Bobby chases her he falls and knocks himself unconscious. He comes back to the trailer badly shaken but says nothing about what he saw. With the vehicle broken down, Big Bob sets out on foot for Fred's Oasis, hoping to bring back help.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Wes Craven found the story for The Hills Have Eyes while researching "terrible things" at the New York Public Library, where he learned of Sawney Bean, the alleged head of a 48-person Scottish clan said to have murdered and cannibalized more than 1,000 people.
- Wes Craven considered having Papa Jupiter eat baby Katy, an idea most of the cast disliked, and Michael Berryman refused to play the scene, so Craven let the baby survive.
- Sam Raimi put a ripped The Hills Have Eyes poster in The Evil Dead (1981) as a humorous way of telling Wes Craven "No, this is the real horror, pal," and Craven replied by having Nancy Thompson fall asleep watching The Evil Dead in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
- Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, was offered a part in The Hills Have Eyes and turned it down so he could move to Maine and focus on his literary career; he later regretted not appearing in it.
- The Mojave Desert shoot saw daytime temperatures over 120°F (49°C) dropping to around 30°F (-1°C) at night; because Michael Berryman, who played Pluto, lacks sweat glands, he had to be attended to after filming the action scenes.
- The MPAA initially gave The Hills Have Eyes an X rating for graphic violence, so material was cut from Fred's death scene, the Mars and Pluto attack on the trailer, and the final confrontation with Papa Jupiter.
- All the actresses auditioning for Ruby had to race each other because the character needed a fast runner, and Janus Blythe won the part partly because she outran every other actress who tried out.
- Advertisements for The Hills Have Eyes claimed a print had been added to the permanent collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art, but it actually went into the museum's "study" collection, and a curator asked that the ads stop mentioning the museum.
