Trivia / The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

• Awesome, Dear Boy:
  • In an interview with Suze Lanier-Bramlett she said that her agent strongly opposed her taking a role in the film fearing that it could ruin her career opportunities. However Lanier, who was a fan of the horror genre, liked Wes Craven so much that she went ahead and took the role of Brenda Carter anyway.
  • Michael Berryman was elated to be cast in a horror film, due to his love of Universal Horror.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Janus Blythe originally auditioned for the role of Lynne Wood, but she wanted the role of Ruby instead.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Argentina: The Hill of Cursed Eyes
  • Brazil: Gang of Sadists
  • Finland: The Eyes of the Night
  • Germany: Hill of Bloody Eyes
  • Greece: The Beasts
  • Mexico and Venezuela: Hill of Terror
  • Norway: Beasts Must Die
  • Romania: Wild and Deadly
  • Sweden: Eyes in the Night
• Creator Provincialism: The family are from Cleveland, the same city where Wes Craven was born.
• Dawson Casting: Brenda, who is presumably in her late teens, is played by the then-30 Susan Lanier. This would make her a year older than Dee Wallace, who portrays Brenda's older sister Lynne.
• Disabled Character, Disabled Actor: Michael Berryman (who plays Pluto) is afflicted with hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia, a rare hereditary disorder that makes him unable to grow hair, teeth, nails, or sweat glands.
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • Dee Wallace said that little acting was required when she interacts with the tarantula, because her fear of the spider was very much authentic.
  • Virginia Vincent's reaction to being shot was quite genuine as there was a mishap with the squib planted under her robe. The small explosion caused her a deal of pain and she was briefly taken to the hospital.
• Inspiration for the Work: Searching for a story to film, Wes Craven began looking up "terrible things" at the New York Public Library. While going through the library's forensics department, Craven learned of the legend of Sawney Bean - the alleged head of a 48-person Scottish clan responsible for the murder and cannibalization of more than one thousand people. What interested Craven in the legend was how, after Bean's clan was arrested, they were tortured, quartered, burned and hung. Craven saw this treatment of the Bean clan by supposedly civilized people as paralleling the clan's own savagery.
• Never Work with Children or Animals: The rattlesnake used in the film actually escaped while preparing to shoot a scene in a narrow mountain crevasse. The entire crew fled at once from the narrow passage frightened. Minutes later the snake wrangler went in and recaptured the snake.
• No Budget: The budget was so small that the actors did their own makeup. The cast was paid minimum wage and the crew was non-union.
• Prop Recycling: Many of the props in the feral family's cave were from Robert A. Burns' previous project, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).
• Throw It In!: The tarantula scene wasn't in the script. It was added to the film after the filmmakers discovered the spider on a road. The tarantula was not harmed during the filming of the sequence.
• Troubled Production: The shoot was unpleasant for the actors, due to daytime temperatures of over 120 degrees Fahrenheit, which dropped to around 30 degrees during the night, as well as the fact that they played physically taxing roles twelve to fourteen hours a day, six days a week. The heat was particularly hazardous to Michael Berryman, as he was born without sweat glands and he had to be attended to after the filming of the film's action scenes. Dee Wallace later joked that the dogs that appeared in the film were treated better than its human cast members.
• Wag the Director: At one point, Wes Craven considered having the character Papa Jupiter eat baby Katy, an idea which most of the cast disliked. Michael Berryman refused to do the scene, and Craven allowed Katy to survive.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Originally the film was going to be set in a forest in 1994, and most of the major cannibals were adolescents. The baby was also not stolen for food, but for a perverted religious ritual.
  • Gunnar Hansen was offered a part in the film and rejected it so that he could move to Maine and focus on his literary career. He later came to regret not appearing in the film.
• Working Title: Blood Relations: The Sun Wars. Producer Peter Locke however disliked the title. Numerous titles were then considered and the film tested best under the title The Hills Have Eyes, though Craven himself initially disliked the title.
• Write What You Know: Wes Craven partly inspired by an episode that happened to him while taking a motorcycle trip with his wife. When they stopped in a small Nevada town, a trio of locals shot an arrow past his head and insulted him. When Craven threatened to sue them, they replied they could easily kill him, leave his corpse in a nearby salt mine, and no one would ever know.
• Write Who You Know: The Carters were based on Wes Craven's neighbours.

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