The film stars Aaron Stanford, Kathleen Quinlan, Vinessa Shaw, Emilie de Ravin, Dan Byrd, Robert Joy, and Ted Levine and follows a family that is targeted by a group of cannibalistic mutants after their car breaks down in the desert.
Retired detective 'Big' Bob Carter and his wife Ethel are traveling from Cleveland to San Diego through the New Mexico desert for their silver wedding anniversary; with them are their three children, Lynn, Brenda, and Bobby, Lynn's husband Doug and their baby daughter Catherine, and their two German Shepherds, Beauty and Beast.
They stop at a gas station, where the elderly attendant suggests a different route through the hills, claiming it will save them a few hours.
Meanwhile, Bob arrives back at the gas station, where he finds newspaper clippings detailing various disappearances in the area after recent nuclear tests at a mining town by the US government that caused the mutants' deformities, as well as a bag of what he deduces to be the valuables of missing victims.
When being pursued by Papa Jupiter, Bobby confesses his story to Doug and Lynn, just as Pluto and Lizard infiltrate the trailer.
He comes across an abandoned nuclear testing village through the miner town's cave system but is knocked unconscious by Big Mama.
After awakening in an ice box containing previous victims' dismembered remains, he escapes and encounters Big Brain, who reveals the mutants' origins to him.
Marianne Maddalena, Craven's long-time producing partner, came across Alexandre Aja and his art director/collaborator Grégory Levasseur who had previously made the French slasher film High Tension (2003).
[3] The film is set in New Mexico, and strongly implies that a large number of atmospheric nuclear weapon tests were performed in that state.
"We based all our descriptions and directions on real documents, pictures and footage that we found on the effects of nuclear fallout in Chernobyl and Hiroshima", explains Aja.
Robert Joy, who plays the mutant Lizard, explained, "Every day, these amazing artists took more than three hours to transform me into something that could only be found in a nightmare.
However, as shown in "The Making Of", Papa Jupiter appears to have a large parasitic twin attached to his upper left torso.
Shaw was hesitant to play the role, but after watching High Tension, she agreed, explaining: "There was such an odd combination of beauty and terror, it felt almost like an art film.
"[3] For the role of Brenda, the filmmakers sought a young actress who had relatively little exposure and found it in Emilie de Ravin, who was beginning her rise in the television series Lost.
Ezra Buzzington, impressed with the filmmakers, agreed to play the role of Goggle and even watched a documentary about human cultures engaging in cannibalism.
[6] US edition[7] The Hills Have Eyes was a commercial success, playing in total 2,521 theaters and taking in its opening weekend $15,708,512.
[2] The film grossed $41,778,863 in the United States box office[8] and $70,000,000 worldwide,[2] surpassing its budget costs by over fourfold.
[11] The Washington Post said: "this remake of the alleged 1977 Wes Craven classic has one very disturbing quality: It's too damned good.
[14] Roger Ebert gave a negative review, mentioning that the characters in the film are not familiar with horror movies, and went on to cite that the film should have focused more on the characters rather than the violence, saying "The Hills Have Eyes finds an intriguing setting in 'typical' fake towns built by the government [...] But its mutants are simply engines of destruction.
"[15] A sequel, The Hills Have Eyes 2, was released in theaters on March 23, 2007, by Fox Atomic, and features a mainly different cast and crew.