RELEASED: 2006.

WRITTEN BY: STEVE BEVILACQUA.

DIRECTED BY: LEIGH SCOTT.

STARRING: HEATHER CONFORTO, TOM NAGEL.

GENRE: HORROR.

BOUGHT FROM: A BOOTSALE.

PRICE: £1.00

Let’s get this out the way straight off- This is an Asylum movie. When I realized this, my heart sank, but probably not for the reasons you’re thinking- I was hoping the first Asylum flick I covered would be something like SNAKES ON A TRAIN or TRANSMORPHERS, attention-grabbing and perfectly summing up what they’re all about. Then I found out THIS was an Asylum movie and all that went up the swanny. I didn’t even find out until I watched it a second time. I have no idea how this happened, since one of the first credits to pop up on-screen proudly trumpets it. I must have been distracted. Anyway, I toyed with the idea of putting this review on ice for a little while and watching something else, but I decided that wasn’t worth it. I had to live with the fact that Hillside Cannibals had popped my Asylum cherry (and what horrible images that last sentence conjures up).

I’ve not seen that many Asylum movies in truth, and I don’t really know why. It’s definitely not because I’m offended by the company’s existence, even though I’ll admit their business strategy is pretty cynical- they look at upcoming, usually genre cinema releases, and churn out dirt-cheap flicks of their own that they throw out at the same time as whatever movies they’re ripping off is released. I’ve already given you a couple of examples, but they’re also responsible for, amongst others, THE DAVINCI TREASURE, AVH: ALIEN VERSUS HUNTER, I AM OMEGA, SUNDAY SCHOOL MUSICAL, PARANORMAL ENTITY, THE TERMINATORS, and THE DAY THE EARTH STOPPED(GENIUS). And this what they do with stuff that comes with copyrights attached, if the film happens to be an adaptation of something in the public domain, such as WAR OF THE WORLDS or SHERLOCK HOLMES, they’ll just put out their own version out (although I’ll admit, I think their version of HOLMES looks like it could be alot of fun). Infact, it was the success of their version of the H.G. Wells story that prompted them to go this route, as before then they’d existed for years pumping out low-budget horror titles to little success. Sometimes their movies are only have the most superficial of similarities to what they’ve been paired with, too- from what I can tell, both the TRANSMORPHERS movies (yes, there’s two of them), have very little to do with the TRANSFORMERS ones beyond featuring giant transforming robots. If anything, they sound more like low-rent versions of THE MATRIX and THE TERMINATOR.

Which brings us to this, which from both its title and release date you’ve probably worked out is their take on THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake (a rip-off of a movie that’s a remake of a film made in the seventies. What strange times we live in). This gave me a small amount of hope, because it’s been proven you can make a decent zombie/cannibal/savage tribe flick on the cheap. It’s obviously not going to be as lavish as something from the larger studios, but as we all know that’s no bad thing. This was a case of them picking their battle fairly well, as … HILLS (2006) didn’t have the best buzz coming leading up to its release and garnered mediocre reviews when it finally hit, so it’s not like this movie had alot to live up to. So maybe this had the chance of being a good, trashy laugh.

Following the credits that consist of various shots of rock faces, sped-up cloud movements and an off-roader driving around aimlessly, we’re introduced to the main cast of this adventure. As has been the case before, they’re all fairly forgettable, so I didn’t bother catching their names and just gave them my own- Redhead (Heather Conforto), Daniel Powter (he wears a funny beanie)(Tom Negal), Specky, Specky’s Girlfriend (yes, she has so few characteristics, THAT’S what I’m reduced to calling her), and Captain Complain-A-Lot, a woman the movie saw fit to name itself when it has a character call her this (don’t you just love it when a movie’s helpful like that?). I’ve always wondered why in movies characters do things they really, really don’t want to, then spend the whole film complaining about it. WHY GO THEN? You’re a fully-grown woman and nobody’s holding a gun to your head.

They’ve arrived in the area to and set up camp, planning on doing a spot of Cave Spunking. I don’t know what that means, but I like saying the word. Splunking. They set up camp, drink some Jager and smoke a few joints, before getting a bit amorous (well, the two couples do- Captain Complain-A-Lot’s boyfriend left her in the lurch. I can’t think why, she seems like such a nice young woman). Daniel Powter and Redhead excuse themselves from their friends, only for Captain Complain-A-Lot to follow them. For God sake leave them alone! They’re probably going off to fuck! At least they had the decency to find somewhere private, unlike Specky and his girlfriend who seem like they’re gonna mount each other at any second. But after them she goes, treating us to a shot where she’s walking towards the camera… then one where she’s walking away from it… then towards… then away… then towOH WILL SOMEONE JUST CUT AWAY? Do we really have to sit here and watch her take every step out of frame from a variety of different angle? Is it supposed to add tension? Well if it is, it fails. It’s just boring and annoying. 

Daniel Powter and Redhead find a nice secluded spot where they can be all romantic with each other- he tells her today’s the anniversary of the day they met (which she doesn’t remember, which should tell him right there how important she considers that event to be), gives her the necklace he’s wearing, which he apparently bought that day, and the pair of them start to get down to some lovin’. Then crazed cannibals show up and kills their friends. It’s that abrupt, I promise. We cut back to the camp fire, and suddenly they’re all over the place out of nowhere. They kill Specky and his girlfriend (in that always-annoying Skip-Every-Other-Frame-O-Vision) with an axe to the head and a good throat-slashing respectively, then it’s Captain Complain-A-Lot’s turn (and as an aside, what is she still doing walking around? If she really WAS going to look for Redhead and Daniel Powter, then she would have found them by now- in their scene, Redhead complains she’s cold, so Powter goes back to camp to get her a blanket. He’s gone thirty seconds tops, indicating they’ve not gone far). She get’s the coolest death of the three- she’s knocked down and CUT CLEAN IN TWO. The effect they use as her top half’s being dragged away is awesome too, as her legs have been so obviously digitally removed. For those keeping score, that’s THREE FIFTHS of what I thought was going to be our main protagonists wiped out just over ten minutes into this thing. I needn’t have bothered giving them their little nicknames really, but I’m glad I did, because that way I built up more of an emotional connection to them than the average viewer would have.

Powter and Redhead return to camp to find the carnage. He tells her to run, which she does, but fails to take his own advice, going after the cannibals. I know this is supposed to be seen as a heroic act, but in reality it’s just dumb (not the dumbest thing in this thing, though, but I’m getting ahead of myself…)(God I’ve missed being able to write that). His friends are very obviously dead, so it’s not like he’s saving them. Plus, it’s like four-on-one. Even Ahnold would be overwhelmed by those odds (well, for a while at least). Anyway, he gets knocked out and captured, and it looks like a similar fate is waiting for Redhead when she’s captured by two cannibals. However, in a twist, one cannibal kills the other that’s holding her. You can tell we’re going to be seeing alot of this fellow, because he’s easily the most handsome of all the male cannibals. I think I’ll call him Brad Pitt, just because. So, Brad Pitt kills Redhead’s captor, on account that he’s taken a bit of a shine to her. She runs off, and he’s then distracted by her iPod, which he finds on the ground. They make a big enough deal of him finding this that you’d think it might have something to do with the plot later. Does it? What do YOU think?

We then move onto the next scene and… oh, this scene. Let me tell you about this scene.

It’s pretty basic- Powter is now chained up in the cannibal’s lair, where he’s mocked and stabbed by this pretty pimp motherfucker in a kilt who I’m going to call Kilty (am I overdoing the cute nicknames now?), then appears to be raped by one of the female cannibals (we see this character alot, and she’s always acting in a fairly sexual manner, so I think I’ll call her Little Miss Rapey)(okay, I’m DEFINITELY overdoing the cute nicknames). This felt like it was going on forever, and first I thought that was just because it was shit. But then I noticed it really WAS going on forever- this is a long fucking scene, made to feel longer by the fact that nobody’s saying a word. Oh sure, there are NOISES. The cannibals have their own, caveman-like language that we get to hear alot of. Considering it all sounds like grunts and wails, it’s as annoying as you’d expect, only worse because it’s all you hear for almost this entire sequence. It was around this point I got curious about exactly how long this went without having someone say something intelligible, so I did the logical thing- I got out a stopwatch and timed it. I started it at the last word of understandable English (which actually occurred in the previous scene when Redhead shouted “NO!” as she thought she was about to die), and then stopped it again at the next one (which ironically turned out to be the same word, spoken quietly by Powter just before he took the knife in the guts).

You know how long it was?

7:49. Seven minutes and forty-nine seconds of silence, grunting and other animalistic nonsense. And it didn’t end there, either. Following that one word, we got near as damn-it to another three minutes of this. A COMBINED TOTAL OF NEARLY ELEVEN MINUTES. That is bullshit. Yes, I know movies are a visual medium, show don’t tell, all of that, but let’s be honest, this isn’t THERE WILL BE BLOOD, this is HILLSIDE CANNIBALS. And I’m not saying I want characters to start monologing to camera, I just refuse to believe someone would go through this madness saying only one word. Say YOU woke up chained to a wall in some cave surrounded by the severed body parts of your friends. What would YOU do? Scream for help? Swear? How about when someone’s about to stab you? Would you beg for mercy? Or when a woman starts sexually assaulting you, wouldn’t you MAYBE yell at her to stop? I’m betting you’re nodding right now. I mean, I would. I’d do anything other than STAND THERE LOOKING ALL SILENTLY JADED.

Nearly eleven minutes. Fucksake.

Redhead is found by The Sheriff, and she starts babbling about what happened, even taking him back to the scene of the crime (interestingly, even though they were both sitting in his car when she told him all this, they decide not to drive there, but instead get out and walk). Once they get there though, there’s no sign of anything untoward having happened (this happens a lot in these kinds of movies, often leading me to consider how patient you’d have to be to clean blood off sand one grain at a time). Even their car’s gone (and it’s never seen again, either. We can only assume one of the cannibals can drive and thought it was a hot little ride). The sheriff has been understandably skeptical this whole time, asking her if she’s been drinking or “having” drugs, and brings up the fact that she’s apparently on the run from her foster parents (it’s here she says she’s able to look after herself because she’s two months away from turning 18, and God bless Heather Conforto, she’s a pretty woman, but she’s not 17. 27 maybe)(MAYBE). There’s an amusing little continuity error here too, as The Sheriff was being all calm and soothing with her at the camp, as if he’s afraid she might not be completely stable, then when they get back to the car he’s all gruff like he’s had enough of her shit. Of course in the most obvious twist ever, it’s later revealed he’s working with the cannibals, so his behaviour at the car makes sense when you know that, but is completely contradictory with how he was playing the part only seconds earlier. It’s almost as if they only decided to throw that in there after they’d already filmed most of his stuff. Incidentally, the only reason we’re given for The Sheriff siding with the cannibals is when he says their Chief saved his life. Sounds like there might be an interesting backstory there. Are we gonna get to hear it? No? Alright then.

Oh, and what’s this now? A scene featuring Brad Pitt and Little Miss Rapey fighting over the stolen iPod, crawling around and growling at each other like toddlers? A scene that has absolutely no baring on the plot? A scene that lasts THREE MINUTES AND FORTY-THREE FUCKING SECONDS (I already had the stopwatch out, so I may as well use it)? That’s what I’m watching now, is it? Marvelous. What am I DOING? What am I DOING with my LIFE?

Morning has broken, and Redhead eventually finds Powter, frees him from his bonds (a little bit too easily), and then they just… leave. They don’t get far though, as Powter’s injuries prevent him from being able to walk far. They should be preventing him from BEING ALIVE at this point, but we’ll ignore that. He tells her to leave him, she refuses, he says that he’s sorry and that she should come back for him and he’ll hide and yadda yadda yadda. So after going to all the trouble finding him, even though she had no real evidence that he was even alive to begin with (that’s another one of those realizations that only just came to me as I was typing), she leaves him out there, hiding pretty much in plain sight. And he’s recaptured instantly, which was pretty funny. There’s been a bit of an upheaval within the cannibal society in the, oh, twenty minutes that he’d been gone, as the old Chief had passed away in his sleep (I love how the only person who gets a peaceful death in this film is one of the cannibals), and Kilty has assumed leadership by cutting off his face and wearing it like a mask, as appears to be the custom. To give this movie one of its few positive comments, I’ll say the guy playing this dude is obviously having a ball. Yeah, too much of it is unbearable, as the last time we were here proved, but in smaller doses it’s a laugh, as he jumps around, laughing like a maniac, spewing jibberish and randomly grabbing his crotch. Then we have the only real torture scene in the movie, and continuity issues aside (between cuts, not only has the make-up for Kilty’s Facemask changed, but he’s also now wearing a leather jacket), I have no complaints about this. It’s suitably sadistic, as Powter gets stabbed again, then has two of his fingers cut off. Plus, the dude actually acts like you’d expect someone to, swearing, screaming, crying, the whole lot. There’s even a bit of dark humour when Kilty tries to feed Powter one of his own fingers. They try to get Brad Pit involved in the fun, but he throws the scissors down in a huff. I know we’re supposed to think he’s noble and has a conscience for not going along for these things, but all it does is bring up questions like why does he seem to be so against killing if he could easily dispatch with one of his own tribe to save Redhead, and how on Earth has he lived this long in general. Anyway, one of the other cannibals floorss him with a right to the face, which made me laugh. Best scene of the movie.

Redhead, it would appear, is lost again. Also she’s somehow managed to find a heavily wooded area somewhere in a desert, which is an accomplishment in itself. Whilst there she finds herself chased through the trees by one of the cannibals, and all looks bleak, until she’s saved by a man conveniently armed with a gun. Hello, Conveniently Armed Man! He takes her back to his camp, where he tells her she’s the first person he’s ever know to survive their attack. This is an incredibly stupid thing to say for several reasons. For one, as far as he knows, he’s giving her too much credit- WE know she’s managed to survive being attacked by these things, but HE doesn’t. All he’s seen is her being chased through the woods screaming, and HE had to save her. But the biggest gripe I have comes when he reveals that these things killed his family, so he’s picking them off one-by-one for revenge. So, he’s going after these things, shooting them as he goes, which means you’d assume some of them retaliate and go after him. That means you DO know someone who’s survived their attack before, sir- YOU. You fucking idiot. He does however describe the cannibals as “like fucking Deliverance of steroids,” which, I will concede, is a good line. Probably the best in the script (not that it has much competition). Redhead convinces him to help her save Powter, and as luck would have it, they decide to invade the base at a time when most of the cannibals are distracted.

Distracted by what, you ask? Well, a car full of people of course! Stranded in the middle of… wherever the fuck this is taking place, thanks to some trap the Sheriff set up. At first this scene really annoyed me, as it seemed like another perfect example of this film wasting time on pointless shit, but it became obvious that it was here to get the cannibals out of the cave so our heroes could sneak in, so at least it had a reason to exist. I couldn’t help thinking, however, that if the movie hadn’t seen fit to kill most of the characters we were introduced to at the beginning of this thing almost instantly, they could have come in handy here. At least then it wouldn’t have to bring in three new characters we know nothing of and therefore don’t give a fuck about. A major turning point occurs here too, as Kilty forces a knife into Brad Pitt’s hand and physically makes him kill one of the women, which proves enough to turn Brad Pitt into a being of pure evil, more of which we will see in a second. Anyway, Redhead and Conveniently Armed Man sneak into the cave when it’s empty, free Powter (AGAIN), the cannibals come back, and… the good guys get absolutely destroyed. Conveniently Armed Man gets to shoot maybe one cannibal before he’s killed, plus Powter and Redhead get knocked out and captured (or in Powter’s case, recaptured)(FOR THE THIRD TIME). Has there ever been another film where the main characters are so jaw-droppingly useless? We’re rocketing towards the end now, so it’s probably best to start rapping this up. Kilty was somehow killed in the scuffle, so Brad Pitt decided to cut off his face and assume leadership. The about-face this character goes through in the last twenty or so minutes is astonishing, and not in a good way- the film acts like being forced to kill someone drove him over the edge, which would have been acceptable were it not for the fact that WE SAW HIM DO SOMEONE IN OF HIS OWN FREE WILL IN THE FIRST FIFTEEN MINUTES. So, he tries to rape Redhead (who’s just spied the body of her finally-dead boyfriend), she brains him with a rock several times (enough to kill him probably, but in this film he’s only knocked out), she flees, he comes to and throws a massive temper-tantrum, throwing stuff around, beating up other cannibals, the works. It seems like he’s ready to hunt down Redhead in one last showdown.

Then the Sheriff captures Redhead just as she’s leaving the cave, brings her back to the cannibals. And she’s killed. Off-screen. Then her face is peeled off so Little Miss Rapey can wear it whilst Brad Pitt is fucking her. That happens off-screen, too. Because Lord knows we don’t want to make an interesting film, do we?

I stand by what I said at the beginning of this review about how you can make a good cannibal movie on a small budget, but like anything else, you have to WANT TO, and the people behind this flick didn’t. The only reason it exists is because somebody called somebody else and went, “THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake’s coming out soon. Make a film that’s a bit like it, yeah?” And then a group of people went off and pulled this out of their arses. There’s virtually no artistic merit here whatsoever. It’s barely a movie. And on top of that THERE’S BAREY A MOVIE HERE. I genuinely believe if you were to get rid of all the useless scenes and cutaways (this film as an obsession with showing people sleeping, for example), and shortened a few of the important ones, you’d be lucky to have a fifty minute feature left (I WAS going to go through this timing all the scenes, subtracting stuff and coming up with an exact running time, but then I realised that was too anal even by MY standards. It’s bad enough I’m now reviewing movies using props). The acting’s mostly terrible, the script might as well not exist, the directing’s pedestrian, the actual camerawork is shoddy (we’re once again treated to a number of shaky shots, and not that artistic kind of shaky either, but rather that I-Don’t-Really-Know-How-To-Hold-A-Camera kind of shaky).There’s other little things I could bring up too, such as the fact that for a tribe that’s apparently had years-upon-years of inbreeding within it, most of the cannibals look shockingly normal, but at this stage that’s just redundant. They could be walking around sporting three arms, two heads and seventeen cocks, it wouldn’t make this any less awful.

FINAL VERDICT.

BINNED.

Oh, and this is apparently based on a true story. Yes.

Until next time, I’m The Cheap-Arse Film Critic, and you got rocks in your head, arsehole.

Okay, I know I’ve got some explaining to do. I also know before I went on hiatus, it seemed like every review either began or ended with me having some explaining to do and you’re probably sick to the back teeth of hearing it, so I’ll keep this brief.

The long and short of it is- I fucked up. I was trying to do a few things at once, which isn’t a bad thing OR impossible, but my work habits have never been all that professional to begin with, and I just fell apart. It didn’t help either that because I felt bad, I started making insane promises to make up for it (I can’t believe the last review on my old site ended with me saying I was going to do eight reviews in a month. What the FUCK was I thinking?). There was other stuff too, but we won’t go there (I’m doing you a favour here, believe me).

I never really gave up on this project though. I still had all the movies I wanted to cover stored away in a box, and occasionally purchased others I thought looked like they’d be fun to write about.  I’d even sometimes go to my page and read my own reviews (this was out of nostalgia and not vanity, I hasten to add; I disliked them so much I… well, we’ll get to that). I wanted to start up again, but by that point I’d left it for so long I was, well, a little bit EMBARRASSED about starting up again. So, I decided if I couldn’t start UP again, I’d just start OVER. Which resulted in what you’re looking at now, a brand new site on a brand new blogging platform (I’d had it up to here with Blogger).

I suppose this is the part where I should assume there a few people reading this that have no idea what I’m talking about. I call myself The Cheap-Arse Film Critic, and do that because I’m clinically insane. No not really, it’s because I write long, spoilerific reviews of cheap movies (MAXIMUM I’M WILLING TO PAY FOR A DVD: £1.00) that I either like and keep, or hate and throw away. And that’s what I’m going to keep doing here. The only thing that’s really going to change is the schedule for when I publish something. I think the (almost) weekly timeframe of before also contributed to me burning out, so I’ve decided to go with something that’s a little more forgiving and flexible. The set-up is this- there will, hopefully, never be a wait longer than two weeks between reviews. Whatever date the last one went up, the longest you’ll have to wait is a fortnight from then. However, if I watch a film and really have alot to say about it, then I won’t wait. It could be that you’ll see reviews go up as little as two days apart from one another if I feel like it (I really wouldn’t put money on this though). I’m hoping that by putting slightly less pressure on myself I’ll feel inspired to do more, and quicker, because I’m not against an overly-oppressive clock. And let’s be honest, it won’t hurt page views either to potentially have a new review up at any time, will it?

For those that want to check out my older stuff, my Blogger site shouldn’t be that hard to find. I’m also undertaking a project where take my old reviews, give them a bit of a spit-shine and repost them in a more professional-reading form. It’s something I’d wanted to do for a while. Basically I’m a horrible editor, missing all sorts of spelling and grammar mistakes, and also some of them were, in my opinion, just quite badly written. I’m calling this THE CHEAP-ARSE FILM REVIEW REMAKE, and the link to it can be found at the top of the page. I currently have five reviews up, and want to get more done over time. Speaking of links, whilst there you’ll also find gateways to my Twitter profile (feel free to follow me, but be warned- I Tweet alot)(I mean ALOT), my Facebook Fanpage (which is pretty much dead if I’m honest, but I’m hoping to revive it soon), and my brand-spanking new Formspring profile (ASK ME ANYTHING!*)(*I reserve the right to ignore your question). I’ve also set it up so you can comment on all my posts on both blogs, so feel free to do that too. I think you might have to sign up to Disqus to do that, but it’s free so that’s cool. Then again you might not. I don’t really know how this works. Just, y’know… comments are nice.

Well, that’s pretty much it. The new review should be up Saturday at the latest, and I’ve a feeling it’s going to be quite the comeback. It was amazing going through that box of films, because I realized how many I’d bought out of habit alone and couldn’t muster any enthusiasm to even watch, let alone write about. I mean, I bought JFK. Could you imagine a review of JFK WRITTEN BY ME? Christ. So in the spirit of renewal, I got rid of 95% of what I’d stockpiled, only keeping a few I had good feelings about that’d tide me over until I went back on the hunt. That’s the bit I’m looking forward to the most.

Anyway, until the review’s posted, I’m The Cheap-Arse Film Critic, and… I can’t think of a decent film-quote to sign off with here. Fuck. Leave me alone, it’s been a while and I’m out of practice.