THE HILLS HAVE EYES. Against the Rules of Horror Cinema

A remake of a classic 70s horror released right in the middle of summer can hardly promise anything worthwhile – that’s the iron law of the silly season. Nor does the phrase “young, promising director” bode well – that’s an old trick of big studios. And really, no one should have expected revelations from a horror film without big names in the cast, with late Wes Craven in the producer’s chair, and with a distributor delaying the press screening until the very last moment. The Hills Have Eyes fit perfectly into this system of rules, with only one caveat: it was an exception.

In The Hills… you can genuinely get scared – and for fans of the genre, that should be the only recommendation needed. The greatest unease comes at the beginning, when the enemy exists only as a shadow, slipping menacingly through the frame. A nervously moving camera, intriguingly sketched characters, a lonely gas station, and its demonic owner make up a very promising opening to a horror film. At this stage, Craven’s production feels surprisingly balanced: excellent execution pairs with smart use of what frightens most in horror – suggestion. The film makes creative use of the unknown, excelling especially in the sound design.

A theater with a good sound system becomes essential. Creaks, gasps, knocks, and moans coming from all around the room heighten tension, particularly since their cinematic source is rarely revealed. Unfortunately, the adrenaline quickly peaks, only to come crashing down in the second half of this macabre spectacle, signaling the end of fear. Terror disappears the moment the creators abandon suggestion and move into blunt literalness.

The second half of the film is nothing more than a high-budget, efficiently executed Hollywood slaughterhouse. Out come the axes, pickaxes, hatchets, screwdrivers, shotguns, baseball bats, knives, and revolvers. The mysterious foes are revealed: mutants cast out of civilization, cannibals born as the grotesque byproduct of reckless nuclear testing. To survive in the desert, they’ve created their own grisly tradition – lure unsuspecting tourists into the wasteland, puncture their tires, immobilize them, hunt them down, and turn them into steaks.

Once the camera lingers on the first cannibal, once the impressive arsenal of weapons comes into play, once the blood and guts are on full display – it ceases to be frightening. It becomes distasteful. And though it’s never so revolting that one couldn’t snack on a banana during the gore scenes (as some veteran critics do), the spell is nonetheless broken for good. After a brilliant opening, The Hills Have Eyes devolves into a run-of-the-mill American fright flick. It feels as though the filmmakers had energy only for the first half, with the rest shot out of necessity, following the universal Hollywood formula and tapping into generous supplies of fake blood.

Still, none of this changes the fact that Wes Craven and his “young, talented directors” had not only eyes but also a nose for the material. The Hills… rises significantly above the average American horror, surpassing in both quality and execution the mass-produced teen slasher fare. The film has many bright and dark sides, yet never once does it veer into parody or unintentional nonsense. And in today’s Hollywood horror cinema, that alone is already quite an achievement.