THE HILLS HAVE EYES: THEN AND NOW
In a career spanning more than three decades, Wes Craven has become a worldwide cultural phenomenon in film, television, and literature. He reinvented the youth horror genre in 1984 with the classic A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, which he wrote and directed, and in the next decade, he deconstructed the genre again with the mega-successful SCREAM trilogy. These two franchises alone have earned nearly a billion dollars and serve as a powerful demonstration of Craven's profound understanding of the often-unconscious desires and fears roiling in the human psyche.
"He's a terrific storyteller, a compelling writer and a wonderful director," says HILLS producer Peter Locke, who produced, financed and distributed the original film in 1977. "He's the master of the horror genre because he had early success in it and he's figured it out probably better than anyone around."
Craven's success in probing the nature of fear began in 1972 with his first film, THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, and was taken to a whole new level of mastery with his second film, THE HILLS HAVE EYES which quickly became part of the cultural zeitgeist with its unflinching tale of a mutant family preying on travelers in a government atomic zone.
Craven wrote the script after being inspired by the infamous true tale of Scotland's 17th Century Sawny Beane family, who ambushed travelers on lonely village roads, killed them in unspeakable ways and then, shockingly, cannibalized their victims, living off their remains. The story is that through inbreeding the Sawny Beane family numbered as many as 48 members and murdered countless travelers. King James I of Scotland ultimately sent in some 400 soldiers and bloodhounds to hunt down the family's hiding place: a blood-soaked cave of horrors. After they were captured, the King had the entire family executed in the same manner as they had killed their victims.
For Craven, this powerful ancient story seemed to tap right into our most resonant modern fears - fears about the clash between our yearning for civilization and our human propensity for unthinkable brutality and mad behavior. Moving the story into 20th century America, Craven also saw an opportunity to explore what he terms "the shadow side" of the American family - as his suburban clan faces off against the far more primal members of the mutant family.
These were the days before big-budget horror movies and the original version of THE HILLS HAVE EYES was made with a skeleton crew of just 15 members for a paltry $325,000 in the desert community of Victorville, CA. Things were so tight that producer Peter Locke drove the cast to locations in a beat-up Winnebago and the crew wore garbage bags for rainslickers when the weather turned stormy. Props were scavenged from Tobe Hooper's horror classic THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and an abandoned gas station was found to create the film's key set. The film was shot with a handheld 16mm camera, lending it a gritty look that only heightened the terror.
Despite its humble production, THE HILLS HAVE EYES broke box-office records when it was released in the summer of 1977. Audiences were literally stunned by what they saw and critics were shocked and baffled. Unlike conventional horror films of the time, with their predictable monsters and comprehensible killers, this film boldly pushed the farthest edges of cinematic horror past long-held taboos and opened the way for today's unflinching cinematic investigations of fear. It became a classic, influencing numerous future horror films and jarring viewers with its emotional fever pitch well into the DVD age.
Flash forward 30 years . . . now, intrigued by the astonishing success of such horror remakes as THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and AMITYVILLE HORROR, Craven and his producing partners began pondering the possibility of revisiting THE HILLS HAVE EYES - but with the heightened storytelling power of today's far more advanced cinematic tools. Craven explains: "Because the original had been produced on such a minuscule budget, there were many aspects of the story I simply couldn't afford to explore. Fortunately, the new version has a much bigger budget so we were able to greatly expand the production's scope and take more time and care in shooting."
In order to re-introduce this horror classic to contemporary audiences, Craven knew it would take up-to-the-minute verve and style, so he and his production team began to look for a rising young director to bring fresh perspective to the project. The position was going to be extremely tough to fill. It would require an authentic visual innovator -- someone with not only a dark and distinctive imagination but a unique talent capable of revisiting the dynamic action, gallows humor and edge-of-your-seat terror of the landmark film, while fusing them into an entirely new experience.
Ever on the lookout for exceptional filmmakers, Wes Craven's longtime producing partner Marianne Maddalena was dazzled when she saw Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseurs' 2003 French film HIGH TENSION, a blood-drenched tale of serial murder and mayhem that served as an ode to 1970s American horror/slasher movies. After viewing the film, Maddelena called Craven and Locke to tell them they must see it at once.
Locke, Craven and his entire production team were equally impressed by HIGH TENSION and its provocative, fresh approach to the frequently over-worked genre. "We all agreed it was brilliant," says Marianne Maddalena. Moreover, the independently produced, low-budget film had exemplary production values, demonstrating to Craven, Maddalena and Locke that Aja and Levasseur were savvy filmmakers who could be highly creative within severe financial constraints.
Often credited with a keen eye for spotting burgeoning talent, and having previously discovered such screen luminaries as Sharon Stone and Johnny Depp, Craven took little convincing that Aja and Levasseur were the right filmmakers to rework his classic film.
"With HIGH TENSION, Alex and Gregory demonstrated a multi-faceted understanding of what is profoundly terrifying," comments Craven. "After viewing the film and then meeting the film makers, I knew I wanted to work with them."
Only 27 years old, Alexandre Aja had spent his formative years assisting his director father Alexandre Arcady on exotic locations around the world. At 10, he met his best friend and long-time collaborator Gregory Levasseur, who would become a visionary screenwriter and art director. At 18, Aja and Levasseur's OVER THE RAINBOW received a Cannes Film Festival nomination for Best Short Film. Three years later, their first feature, FURIA, was nominated for a Fantasporto International Fantasy Award for best film. Then, the pair caused a sensation at the Toronto and Sundance Film Festivals with HIGH TENSION, resulting in a wide U.S. release and broad popularity for the small French film.
Aja and Levasseur immediately responded with excitement and passion to the unique proposition of approaching the story of THE HILLS HAVE EYES with their own fresh vision. For these two cinema addicts, it was a dream come true -- the chance to re-imagine one of their favorite films, under the supervision of its original creator yet with the freedom to take it in new directions. They had come as close to nirvana as horror fanatics can get.
"Wes Craven was one of our childhood heroes," Aja notes. "We grew up watching all of his movies and that was really what got us into horror movies in the beginning. Greg and I actually bonded over one of his movies, SHOCKER, and THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT served as a huge inspiration when we made HIGH TENSION. So given all that, we couldn't possibly have been happier."
The filmmaking duo was especially thrilled at the prospect of going even further with the story's graphic probing of fear and even deeper into the character's individual struggles for sheer survival than had been possible before. Further inspired by such American survival classics as DELIVERANCE, Aja saw the film as a chance to look at human nature under the most extreme pressure. "For us this film was the perfect follow-up after HIGH TENSION because it was a chance to go another step beyond in the fear process," Aja says. "I love it when you are watching a movie and it's impossible to drink a soda or eat popcorn because you are too into the story. THE HILLS HAVE EYES is exactly that kind of movie."
Additionally, Aja and Levasseur were drawn to the film's evocation of family - with its diametrically opposed portraits of a relatively normal, if typically flawed, suburban family trying to come together and their literally deformed, depraved, instinct-driven, mutant counterparts. "The idea of making a survival/horror movie about a family and not a bunch of teenagers was very attractive," says Aja. "When you have a family like the Carters, you have an opportunity to explore so many different characters with so many different behaviors facing the danger. That was very interesting and allowed us to build some very different scenes with each of them. I think that members of the audience will each identify with the mother, sister, brother or son-in-law - and the experience is always more real and more disturbing when you really care for the characters."
Aja and Levasseur began by reworking the original HILLS script, pulling it into 2006. Aja remembers, "Wes was a perfect gentleman and said, 'I already made my movie and I really respect your vision so I want you to make your own movie.' Instead, he asked us to find a new approach to the original. I think it was just a week later when we came in with some ideas about working the nuclear testing into the fabric of the story. "
Aja and Levasseur's vision for the nuclear test site - with its eerie facsimile villages, family mannequins, and radiated ruins - and for the authentic radiation-caused deformities of the mutant family began to imbue a whole new level of gnawing realism to the already shocking story. Comments Craven: "The theme of nuclear radiation on humans is very timely. The general population today has little idea how dangerous nuclear fallout can be."
Another aspect of HILLS that intrigued Levasseur was the brief but extremely eventful time span the film covers. "When you're dealing with a very short amount of time - just one night of action -- you get a very interesting arc," says Levasseur. "You start at a point where everyone is clean and good looking and you finish with all the clothes distressed, covered with blood, and the people wounded, barely alive. The evolution is really big and I think it's very exciting whenever there is such a big contrast between the beginning and the end of the film."
From there the story evolved over a period of months, as Aja and Levasseur dove deeper and deeper into the film's alarming and disquieting themes. "Our version is a remake, but at the same time it is more about fear, more about a real struggle for survival, more about a family facing something terrifying unknown. We tried to update the film while making everything even more and logical and realistic," says Aja. "The object of making a horror movie is always to do your best to scare the audience, so I wanted this version to be even scarier and gorier than the original."
For Aja, the key was finding the right mix between originality and homage, between updating and expanding the original setup of HILLS without in any way diluting its uncompromised raw energy. "We disliked many of the remakes of classic horror films made in the last few years because they're too much like music videos, too clean and not as scary and graphic as they should be," Aja explains. "With this film, we were able to make exactly the movie that we wanted to see."
Aja was particularly pleased to be directing his very first American production. "For me, going to Hollywood is a dream come true," he says. "With the kinds of films we are making, being French isn't important. If you know how to frighten people, you can do it in any language."

THE CARTER FAMILY HEADS TO THE DESERT
From his very first thoughts of remaking THE HILLS HAVE EYES, Alexandre Aja knew that the most essential component to bringing the audience directly into the Carter family's terrifying survival ordeal would be bringing to life a fully believable and realistic group of modern characters. It was the only way to draw the audience viscerally into the experience, to fray their nerves and get their adrenaline pumping overtime, as if they were watching their own friends in the throes of deepest darkness. So once the screenplay was completed, the focus quickly turned intensively to casting.
"Our concept was always to make the movie feel as real as it possibly could feel," says Aja. "So during casting, we looked for actors who could bring these characters to life in a very natural and authentic way. The rule from the beginning was to stay away from any campy actors and from big names, people with too much personality and star appeal so that you just see the actor, rather than relating to the character."
The casting process began with the central figure of authority in the Carter family: "Big Bob," the gruff yet loving patriarch and newly retired cop, who starts the trip confident in the idea that he's a match for any trouble the family might encounter on the road. To play Bob, Aja sought out an actor who could evoke both a familiar macho swagger and the deeper essence of a caring family man - all in just a few key sentences of dialogue. He found what he was looking for in veteran actor Ted Levine, whose previous roles include Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, in the hit television series "Monk" and Buffalo Bill in Jonathan Demme's Oscar-winning SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.
Levine seemed to exude the quintessential "American dad" quality. Says Aja: "Ted Levine matched the qualities of Big Bob point per point and I knew he would bring even more depth and nuance to the character on screen."
A fan of HIGH TENSION, Levine was intrigued by the role of Big Bob, despite all the horrible events it would entail, including being burned at the stake. Perhaps because it marks such a departure from the typical role of the villain in which Levine is often cast, he immediately felt sympathetically drawn to Bob. "I liked this character a lot because he's very real and very normal, which I think can actually be one of the biggest challenges for an actor to play," says Levine. "It can be kind of easy to play evil people because you can always justify their behavior. But to play a straight forward guy like Bob dealing with a set of moral ethics in the face of total fear was very interesting to me."
Bob's stoic faith in himself, even when he discovers what the family has stumbled into, was also attractive to Levine. He continues: "Bob is the kind of guy who always believes that if you've got lemons you make lemonade. He's a can-do guy forging ahead after his retirement and . . . now this happens. He's sort of a tragic character in that way."
Most of all, once he read the screenplay, Levine felt certain that THE HILLS HAVE EYES would appeal to anyone who appreciates the cutting edge in the horror-thriller genre. "This is one of those movies that tickles that part of your brain that deals with the conflicting emotions of desire and fear," he observes. "I think people will be very scared by the Carter family's journey."
For the matriarch of the Carter family -- Ethel Carter, a one-time 60s flower power girl turned protective suburban mom - the filmmakers turned to Academy Award nominee Kathleen Quinlan (APOLLO 13) who takes an unusual turn with this role of a sunny mother facing the grimmest circumstances. For Aja, it was Quinlan's acting skills that were the draw. "I've always loved Kathleen's work as she is a very believable and natural actress. I thought she was perfect for playing this very real American mother," he says.
Quinlan was intrigued by HILLS because she had never starred in a horror film before - and, after being won over by the artistry and commitment of Aja and Levasseur, the deal was sealed. "Horror is really the only genre I haven't touched yet, so I just had to give it a try," states the actress. "I was also really impressed with Alex and Gregory - they are so young and so passionate about what they're doing. I think they are visionaries."
In playing Ethel, Quinlan evokes the inner drama of a woman who has always lived her life in deference to her husband and children's needs - and now must watch as her family is terrorized in every conceivable way by a mysterious desert clan. "Ethel's a really interesting character in that she doesn't seem at all like a typical character in a horror film," says Quinlan. "She's a loving wife and mother, but she also has an edge at this point in her life, after he her husband has just retired. She's someone who has her complaints, who is aware of her family's various weaknesses and flaws, but she also is the one person in the Airstream on that fateful night who has faith that everything will work out."
When Ethel comes face to face with the blood-curdling and brutal mutants, Quinlan had to face a unique acting challenging: creating a portrait of pure, unadulterated fright. "The key to doing that is totally committing to believing this is happening to you while you're in the moment," she says. "I had to put myself in Ethel's situation as if it was completely real and actually happening. It was very, very to do that -- and hopefully that comes across."
With Bob and Ethel cast, finding an actor to play their son-in-law Doug Bukowski posed the next major challenge. A pacifist cell-phone salesman, Doug undergoes the most radical transformation of anyone in the Carter family as he attempts to rescue his infant child from the clutches of the mutants. After an extensive search, the filmmakers found their man: Aaron Stanford, best known for playing the role of Pyro in X MEN 2, and an actor capable of turning from meek and frightened to furious and heroic in the course of one night.
"Aaron was a wonderful choice to play Doug," says associate producer Cody Zwieg, "especially because the audience relates so strongly to him right up front. Then, they have a chance to completely savor his powerful transformation into a man who will stop at nothing to get his family back."
Stanford was immediately attracted to the role because it was like absolutely nothing he'd done before. He also found himself taking a liking to Doug's eccentricity - and the way the events in the New Mexico desert push him to discover unseen sides of himself. "Doug is an odd duck, this sort of very uptight creature of comfort," observes the actor. "But what's so interesting about him is that he's this guy who's very much about being comfortable and in control and then these horrific events push him completely out of his comfort zone and he is forced to respond as he never has before."
He continues: "Doug is completely changed by what happens on this night. In a matter of minutes, everything he thought he knew and understood about his universe is ripped open and turned upside down - and he realizes he's living in a kind of hell and he's going to have to rise to the occasion. He becomes a kind of reluctant hero, but it's really thrust upon him, and in a way he discovers the savage side himself. One of the things Alex and I talked about is that, in the end, Doug isn't all that distinguishable from the hill people in what he has to do to survive."
Stanford's intensity for the role was sparked even more by the enthusiasm of Aja and Levasseur on the set. "They were like kids in a candy store - just having such a great time and so invested and so passionate," he recalls. "When people care that much about what they're doing you just have a lot of confidence that it's going to turn out to be very exciting."
Finally, when it came to battling the mutants of the atomic test site, Stanford asked that he not see the mutant's final makeup until they were actually shooting the scene. This way, real abject terror came rushing to the fore. "When I finally saw the mutants and their incredible makeup, with their Toxic Avenger faces, it was pretty easy to reveal Doug's fear because it was truly frightening!" he says.
Playing Doug's more even-tempered wife Lynn is Vinessa Shaw, a young actress whom Aja had wanted to work with ever since seeing her in Stanley Kubrick's final film, EYES WIDE SHUT.
Initially, however, Shaw was hesitant about participating in the film - if only because she has always avoided the anxiety of horror films.
To see what she was getting into, she watched HIGH TENSION. "I'm usually totally afraid of watching horror films but when I saw HIGH TENSION, there was such an odd combination of beauty and terror, it felt almost like an art film. So, after meeting with Alex and Greg, I decided to do it," she says. "What I came to feel is really interesting about this story is that it seems to mirror the American consciousness at the moment, with so much fear of the unseen and unknown among us."
Shaw's character Lynn serves in the first part of the film as family peacemaker, always busy tending her infant Catherine and running interference between her husband and her often overbearing father. "My character is the one who always wants to make amends and create harmony within the family," explains Shaw. "Lynn's sort of this mediator but then she has to fight for her baby and that brings out an incredible strength in her."
Lynn's sister Brenda also finds an unsuspected strength in the course of her wild journey into fear - even though she begins the film wishing she were in Cancun partying with her friends instead of trying to bond with her annoying family. For Brenda, the filmmakers tried to seek out a promising young actress without a lot of exposure but with plenty of naturally youthful charm and charisma - which they found in Emilie de Ravin who has recently come to the fore in the hit television series, "Lost." During de Ravin's audition, Aja was thunderstruck at the young actress' beauty and talent. "Emilie came in looking so gorgeous and hit all the emotions I was looking for in the two-minute scene dead on. We knew we had to cast her," he recalls.
Having seen plenty of teen-oriented horror films, de Ravin was surprised by the complexity of the characters in the HILLS screenplay. "Most horror films don't really bother with any depth or having strong characters so this was really different," she says. "I was interested in Brenda right away because she's not a typical wishy-washy teenage girl character. She's strong, she's a real survivor and she plays a big role in fighting for her family in the end. She might start out as the typical rebel but during the film, she's forced to grow up in a big way."
As for why young people gravitate towards the scariest of movies, de Ravin has her own theories. "I think human beings are drawn to extreme emotions, kind of like an exotic amusement park ride," she says. "If you can get your heart beating fast, if you can get pulled out of your normal every day life and into this other reality, it makes everything seem more exciting. And even if it scares you to death, you want to do it anyway."
Rounding out the Carters is the youngest family member and only son, Bobby, a pre-pubescent prankster who turns deadly serious with his own clever plans when his family vacation takes a decidedly nasty turn. The filmmakers auditioned dozens of young actors for the part, looking for a kid who had that special mix of being totally normal and something special. "When Dan Byrd came in he was obviously Bobby," says Alexandre Aja. "He wasn't a geek or a jock, just a very realistic, smart, likeable kid."
Despite his young age, Byrd was no stranger to horror films, having previously starred in SALEM'S LOT, and had gone after the role with excitement. "A good horror movie is always entertaining. People really love that sort of edge-of-your-seat experience and I knew this would be the ultimate in scary," he says.
But Byrd also had to face the challenge of playing a mere child who is forced to deal with devastating loss and a gruesome chain of events that threaten his own existence. Relating strongly to Bobby, he felt he was up to the task.
"Bobby starts out as your typical American suburban kid, but he's forced to grow up a lot sooner then he had originally planned," says Byrd. "What's really interesting is that the events in the film provoke a different reaction from each of the Carter family members -- and for Bobby what comes out is this kind of deep rage. He wants his vengeance and that drives him more and more as things get worse and worse. It was an interesting thing to play."
Helping Byrd tremendously was a close relationship with Ted Levine, Kathleen Quinlan, Aaron Stanford, Vinessa Shaw and Emilie De Ravin. "You've got to have that chemistry to seem like a family on screen," he notes, "and we were really lucky because we all clicked right from the get-go. They're all such nice people and very giving actors and it was great to play scenes with people who you can play off of and experiment with to see what works the best."
To strengthen those underlying bonds between each of the Carter family members, Aja made sure that all six of the actors arrived early to the Morocco set to spend time together off-camera.
Explains producer Marianne Maddalena. "During this time, the six actors talked together, rehearsed together, went out to dinner every night and everybody got to know each other. They established these amazing relationships-- they all came to love each other, which comes through in their performances. Because this bond formed organically, it's very believable when you see it on the screen."

A "NUCLEAR" FAMILY: THE RESIDENTS OF THE HILLS       MAKING UP THE MUTANTS
FINDING HILLS THAT HAVE EYES
DESIGNING THE HILLS WITH EYES
THE FILMMAKERS: French director/writer Alexandre Aja; Wes Craven

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