The Hills Have Eyes

Wes Craven's meanest film, and a study of two families, one suburban and one feral, who turn out to be mirror images once the violence starts. A vacationing family breaks down in the desert and is preyed on by a clan of cannibals, and the horror is watching the civilised family become just as ruthless to survive.

Craven made it raw and cheap after Last House on the Left, and its argument, that the nice family has the same capacity for savagery, is the whole point. The desert setting is relentless.

Brutal, thematically sharp, and one of the foundational backwoods-horror films.