The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
★★★ — The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
Wes Craven made The Hills Have Eyes two years after Last House on the Left (1972), the brutalising debut that had already marked him out as one of American horror's more uncompromising voices. Produced on a reported budget of around $350,000 through the small independent outfit Blood Relations Co., it arrived at the tail end of the 1970s exploitation cycle, a period when low-budget horror was finding surprisingly large audiences through drive-ins and grindhouse theatres. Craven loosely based the premise on the legend of Sawney Bean, the Scottish outlaw said to have led a cave-dwelling clan of cannibals in the 15th or 16th century. The film went on to gross an estimated $25 million, a return that comfortably confirmed Craven's commercial instincts well before A Nightmare on Elm Street made him a household name.
The Hills Have Eyes (the original 1977 one)... My dad did the same when I was about 12, and I still haven’t fully recovered. Directed by Wes Craven at his most raw and gritty, it’s classic old-school B-movie horror: cheap sets, shaky camerawork, zero filter, and a whole lot of dread. The story’s simple (decent family stranded in the desert, stalked and picked off by a family of inbred cannibals) but it works because it feels mean. There’s no glamour, no cool kills, just grim survival and a real sense of helplessness. It’s not great, exactly. The acting’s rough, the pacing lurches, and some of the dialogue is laughably bad (“I’m not gonna eat no more white meat!”). But there’s something unsettling about it that sticks with you. The atmosphere, the isolation, the way the violence feels personal and ugly, not flashy. And yeah, it’s supposedly inspired by the legend of Sawney Bean from Scotland. As a film, it’s ok. Not scary by today’s standards, but historically important in the horror world, Craven was laying groundwork here. It’s more disturbing than thrilling now, and definitely a product of its time. Watchable, nasty, and a solid entry in the “grindhouse nightmare” category.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 1977 | Watched: 2025-09-05
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Wes Craven: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) · Scream (1996)
More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More horror: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Viy (1967) · Nightmare City (1980) · Angst (1983)
