All of Wes Craven's best work has an edge that separates it from the more mainstream pop horror of the times, but this is one of his early film's that's almost all edge. An almost idealistic, all American family are driving through the desert in their camper and run across another family. This one's dirt poor and isolated to the point that they've practically gone feral, and certainly homicidal. It doesn't help that the military seems to have been using their land for nuclear testing. The two sides brutally go to war against each other - even the family dogs - and that's basically the entire plot. It's just a savage tale of survival at any cost.
Few films, let alone the official sequel and remakes, have managed to live up to the raw ferocity of the original (although, as modern studio horror remakes go, you could do a lot worse than the 2006 Hills Have Eyes). But it is dated in a way that will turn off some audiences. Like, immature audiences might be distracted by the 70s fashions; but it can be hard for even serious horror aficionados not to find it a little silly that the killer family are dressed just like those old Roger Corman cavegirl movies, especially poor Laura Ortiz, in her Flintstones necklace and little fur booties. But the rough, high stakes drama and the moving tragedy these people experience should pull you past that or any other little hang-ups you might get caught up on in a lesser film. I mean, I won't spoil it, but the mother in the chair scene? Oof. You're not gonna find that in your little Goosebumps books.
Anchor Bay's 2003 2-disc special edition enjoyed a long reign as the definitive Hills Have Eyes release. Even when Image put out a blu-ray in 2011, I can't say I felt compelled to budge. I did manage to borrow a copy of their DVD edition, though, just to flesh out the comparison a little more, though. But now Arrow has issued a brand new, limited edition blu-ray that's ready to take the crown from all contenders. For one thing, Arrow finally lets you watch the film with either ending, and I kinda dig the darker, alternate one.
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2003 Anchor Bay DVD top; 2011 Image DVD mid; 2016 Arrow blu-ray bottom. |
Now, for audio, the new blu preserves the original mono track in uncompressed PCM, but that's it. I can see some fans being disappointed that they ditched the 5.1 remixes that the previous releases had, but I don't miss 'em. Admittedly, it would've been nice to have the two 5.1s and the stereo tracks from the AB DVD as additional options. If you've got an expensive, high-end surround sound set-up, sometimes you wanna fire it up even if it isn't strictly purist. But the original audio mix is what's important, and that's here. Plus, Arrow's blu is the first release of this film to provide subtitles.
Interestingly, Image's DVD is barebones, with nothing but the trailer and a bonus trailer for Hellraiser. But their concurrent blu-ray and the previous Anchor Bay set had a lot, including a great audio commentary by Craven and producer Peter Locke and a thorough hour-long 'making of' doc, featuring Craven, Locke, Michael Berryman, Janus Blythe, Robert Houston, Susan Lainer, Dee Wallace and DoP Eric Saarinen. On top of that, it did have the alternate ending trailers, TV spots and photo galleries. It also included the Wes Craven episode of the rather good documentary series The Directors, and a booklet of artwork and notes by DVDManiac's Jon Putnam. And by the way, except for the booklet, the Image blu had exactly the same extras as the AB set, and in standard def, too.
Arrow's blu imports almost all of that over, including the commentary, doc, trailers, TV spots, gallery, and the alternate ending (this time in HD). The notable loss is The Directors, but that's not such a terrible loss because it's available elsewhere, including its own DVD release Winstar, and those DVDs sell on Amazon for pennies. And everything else made it, plus Arrow enlisted Red Shirt Pictures to come up with a bunch of new stuff. They've got an all-new, more on the light-hearted side cast commentary with Berryman, Blythe, Houston, Lainer and Martin Speer, and an academic commentary by Mikel J. Koven, which is quite good and informative, as opposed to some of the more self indulgent "I'll treat this like my personal podcast and prattle on about my childhood" commentaries we've had on films last week's Chopping Mall, or even previous Arrow discs like Nightmare City, The Black Cat or Slaughter High. Then there's new on-camera interviews with Speer and composer Don Peake, and almost 20 minutes of unreleased outtake footage. And, as you can see on the left, this limited edition also comes with a bunch of extra physical goodies, like a big, double-sided fold-out poster, six postcards of awesome vintage artwork, and a 40-page book, with notes by Brad Stevens and Ewan Kant. It comes in a nice, thick slip-box, and the blu-ray case has reversible artwork.
So I'd say this is hands down the ultimate edition of The Hills Have Eyes: best transfer, watchable with either ending, the most and best special features, plus subtitles. And Hills is a title that belongs in every serious horror fan's collection, which you can't say for all, or even most, of Craven's titles to be honest. Don't throw away your Image blu-ray or Anchor Bay DVDs, though, unless you've got a copy of The Directors: Wes Craven somewhere else. But whatever you do or don't already have, this is an upgrade worth double-dipping for.
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