A family's car, with trailer attached, breaks down while driving through a desert which turns out to be a nuclear testing site. It turns out a family of cannibals lives in the surrounding hills of this desert. What works right away is that the family feels like a real family and the atmosphere is believable. What happens is the head of the family starts walking to a gas station a few miles back which they stopped at before the car broke down. The cannibals surround the trailer and eventually kill members of the family. I won't say who dies. Anyway, there are some effective scenes here for sure with the way the movie is filmed and edited. The movie goes into the next morning where we see the cannibals in day light which may be a mistake. They go from scary to a bit silly and even thought the costumes were not very authentic looking and wondered if I was suddenly watching an episode of "Gilligans Island". The family dog could even show "Lasie" a thing or two on how to help a family. Don't get me wrong, there is some good stuff here but did not find it to be as effective as many other viewers. Still a good film, just not as effective as Craven's earlier work, "The Last House on the Left". Worth a look.
Review of The Hills Have Eyes
