The Hills Have Eyes
The Hills Have Eyes is a 1977 film from the USA, directed by Wes Craven, running 89 minutes. reelscum files it under video nasty and hicksploitation.
- Year
- 1977 · 1970s films
- Country
- USA
- Runtime
- 89 min
- Director
- Wes Craven
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- known (15/100)
- Also known as
- Blood Relations: The Sun Wars
- Banned in
- UK
Defined in the glossary: Video nasty, Hicksploitation
A Section 3 seizure-list title; the BBFC did not pass Craven's film uncut until 2003.
Craven's meanest. The suburban family turn out to be the better killers.
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.
Trailer
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Where to watch
Legal options in USA
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The cycle in depth
- Banned, cut and confiscated
A Fulci print flown out of the country, an Australian rating that just means no, and a German court that filed The Evil Dead under criminal violence. Three states, three machines for making a film disappear.
- The Exorcist was banned on video in Britain by one censor
The Exorcist passed uncut for British cinemas in 1974, then had no legal UK video release from 1988 to 1999 because one censor would not certify the tape.
Filed alongside
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Almost bloodless, and still the most upsetting film here. The heat is the horror.
I Spit on Your Grave
The most argued-about film on this site. Read the glossary entry before deciding.
Zombi 2
A zombie fights a shark. Fulci's splinter shot is still the worst thing here.
Possession
On the nasties list by pure bureaucratic accident. An actual masterpiece about divorce.
Tenebrae
Argento's coldest and cleverest. That crane shot earns its reputation.
The Beyond
Makes no sense whatsoever and is Fulci's best film. Dream logic, fully committed.
The Last House on the Left
Bergman's Virgin Spring, brutalised. Genuinely unpleasant and knows it. Tonally a mess.
Cannibal Ferox
Lenzi chasing Deodato with none of the argument. Real animal deaths, no defence.
City of the Living Dead
The drill scene. Otherwise thin, but the atmosphere is thick.
The Burning
The raft scene is the best kill in any slasher. The rest is fine.
Deliverance
The respectable ancestor of the whole backwoods cycle, and still the best of it.
Cannibal Holocaust
A serious film about media atrocity that committed real atrocity.