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Vlogger Finds Lost Filming Locations for Craven’s ‘The Hills Have Eyes’

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The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

Travel vlogger Justin Scarred has done the impossible and found the actual filming locations from Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977)The YouTube star incorporated the help of his brother to search out and document the rural California desert locations and produced a 44-minute video of his findings on his popular Randomland Fright docuseries

Their exhaustive journey and fervent determination paid off and using split screens and shot for shot overlays capture what might be the holy grail of horror locations. What makes this such an important discovery for movie fans is the remote location and repetitiveness of landscape which made it nearly impossible for explorers to pinpoint.

Justin Scarred- Randomland

Justin Scarred- Randomland

Here’s what Justin has to say about his search:

“For two decades I searched and hoped someone would post the filming locations online, but after waiting and searching all this time, I finally found the correct spot, just northeast of Los Angeles, in the Mojave Desert outside of Apple Valley.

This video is the culmination of weeks of searching and returning to the desert multiple times, combing over the mountains and washes to locate the filming locations of the Carter family trailer, Pluto’s dog attack scene, Beauty’s disappearance and Bobby’s search, Pluto’s entrapment, the Rattlesnake Canyon, the Mars Chase scene, Ruby’s revenge and the Baby’s reunion! My brother and I are happy to present the end result of all the blisters and cactus wounds, THE LOST FILMING LOCATIONS OF THE ORIGINAL HILLS HAVE EYES!!!”

The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

The Hills Have Eyes was “officially” shot just outside Victorville California in the iconic craggy desert landscape which has come to signify the uneven California desert in a lot of films.

wes craven michael berryman | Tumblr

Craven’s actors, including Dee Wallace (E.T., Cujo), have notoriously said that location shooting was a hellish experience; often filming in120-degree weather during the day and nearly freezing temperatures at night.

Randomland Fright - YouTube

Randomland Fright – YouTube

Michael Berryman who plays Pluto and has become the literal poster child for the film had an especially hard time since he suffers from many birth defects including the absence of sweat glands.

The cast provided their own make-up because of the limited budget and Wallace has said that the dogs in the film were treated better than their human counterparts.

Despite the MPAA having a fit over some of the graphic violence and at one point giving it an X-rating, The Hills Have Eyes went on to become a great box office success. In 1984 the director re-visited his cannibalistic mutants in the widely panned sequel The Hills Have Eyes Part II.  

Of course, the franchise got a reboot in 2006 with Alexander Aja (High Tension, Crawl) at the helm. It got yet another sequel in 2007.

Life Between Frames: The Remake Comparison Project - Wes Craven's Nuclear Family Meltdown

Even though the franchise has become a cult mainstay (there’s even been talk of a mutant origin story) the original is still one of the true horror gems spanning generations.

With Justin’s video documentation of the film’s location that reverence is still in good standing among fans, filmmakers, and American cinema in general. Plus it’s a testament to the actors (and one intrepid vlogger) who endured the extreme elements for their craft and the genre itself.

Take a look:

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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