The Hills Have Eyes
By Kit Macdonald
After his 1972 debut feature, The Last House On The Left, Wes Craven was looking to break free of what he then saw as the constraints of the horror genre by making a different type of film altogether. Instead, driven largely by financial problems and what work was on the table for him at the time, he ended up making one of the genre's crown jewels, 1977's The Hills Have Eyes.
The film plays on the idea of civilisation (and civilised people) clashing with lawless savages and is based on the story of the 16th-century cannibal Sawney Bean and his 45-member clan, though interesting parallels have also been drawn with the tale of Hansel and Gretel. A suburban family, the Carters, get stranded in the Nevada desert and are targeted by a family of cannibal savages. The film attained cult-classic status thanks to its mix of intense suspense, raw horror and humour, and rightly cemented Craven's reputation as a master of the horror genre.