With a title like THE HILLS RUN RED, one might think that this film is a spoof of THE HILLS HAVE EYES. This is far from the truth and the title of this film has very little to do with radiation-exposed mutants.
This is a horror film within a horror film. The title, THE HILLS RUN RED, also is the is the title of the film in the movie. According to the film, the rumor is that the film was pulled from theaters not only because of its obscure content, but because the killings in the film supposedly were real. Years later, a young student filmmaker, Tyler, whose obsession with finding a complete print of an infamous slasher movie leads him and two friends into the backwoods where the film was shot. The three friends make their way deep into the forest, followed by a girl they pick up hitchhiking who tells them she knows her way around the woods. What they don’t know is that Babyface, the killer from the film is real, and he is killing anyone who crosses his path.
THE HILLS RUN RED has a basic horror plot featuring kids who go into the woods with a lunatic who kills them off one by one. Everyone knows that about seventy-five percent of horror films start this way. But besides all the horror clichés that this film presents, its script is amusing and refreshing. The film pokes fun at similar horror films, and, in one scene, the director of the film within the film, pokes fun at all the slasher films of today, saying that they don’t have any feeling or originality compared to the films of the seventies. While the film has some generic ideas, there are many scenes that are fresh and original.
The actors’ performances are adequate, but not stellar. The production values in the exterior scenes suffer in comparison to the scenes that take place in the house and the outside barn/slaughter house area. The set design is what really makes the film’s conclusion in the house and barn look good. It has a feel similar to that of the new TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSCARE films.
Overall, while THE HILLS RUN RED is far from being an all-out great original film, it is a very entertaining horror piece where I could let go and not really care about how well it was made. It is just a lot of fun. I am probably one of the few people who liked some of directors Dave Parker’s earlier work. This is, by far, the best thing he has done. While by no means a masterpiece, it is an overall decent horror film with a very amusing plot.
– Horror Bob
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
