User Reviews

Within the first 30 seconds of the title sequence I was going to give HILLSIDE CANNIBALS the benefit of the doubt : " Hey this is one of those THE HILLS HAVE EYES rip offs " I said to myself and knew I wasn't going to be watching a masterpiece . Within the following five minutes I was still giving it the benefit of the doubt: " Hey horny teenagers with weed , beer and a sex drive , this is one of those HALLOWEEN rip offs " I said to myself and knew I wasn't going to be watching a masterpiece . However ten minutes later I had more or less given up on the movie . It's a gory film , a derivative film , a retro film but worse of all it's a film that makes no sense whatsoever . Even a hardcore horror fan and IMDb contributer like Paul Andrews despised this film which shows youhow absolutely dreadful it is

Even the subtitle THE LEGEND OF SAWNEY BEAN makes no sense . I remember as a child reading a book by Daniel Farson which was the first time I'd heard of the legend of an inbreed brood killing and eating passerbys in a remote part of Scotland . A great number of people even in Scotland have never heard of the legend so what chance of the average American ? No doubt the average American teenager watching this will be scratching their head wondering why the male cannibals are wearing skirts . For those of us who have heard about the legend we'll all be scratching our heads wondering how mythical 17th century Scottish cannibals have suddenly decided to jump 6,000 miles and 300 years in to present day America . Have they got a Tardis ?

This lack of explanation and logic goes well beyond the premise and in to every plot turn . I know 28 WEEKS LATER received a lot of criticism of characters acting stupid in order to drive the plot forward but that was still a highly entertaining well made movie with a political subtext where as here we have absolute garbage of the lowest order . For example if all these people have been disappearing over the years how come no one seems to be aware of this ? In fact it must have been so obvious to the sheriff that I started to think he might be involved in the culling himself long before it was revealed on screen he was . This leads to a ridiculous plot hole where he comes across the surviving female early in the film . Ask yourself this - why didn't he hand her over to the cannibals there and then instead of waiting till the end of the movie ?

The above line is really a rhetorical question since if he did that the film would have ended , thereby saving the audience another hour of torture . That's basically all that happens plot wise - girl saves boy from cannibal den , boy gets captured and tortured again ,girl gets saved by survivalist , survivalist gets killed , girl gets captured by sheriff and to pad this out we have to endure meaningless scenes with the cannibals grunting and fighting amongst themselves . Perhaps the worst aspect is the ending where the film suddenly stops during a cannibal sex scene . It's impossible to believe atrocious rubbish like this was aborted during draft stage since it's undoubtedly one of the worst , most unentertaining films I have ever seen

This is just a comment to the guy who flipped out and cried libel to this film: it says on the box that it's a rehash of the story that inspired The Hills Have Eyes. No libel there--the box says what it is; it's a movie about the inbred family that ate people in caves... the same family who inspired both Hills Have Eyes films. I just wanted to clear that up for everyone. I haven't seen this movie YET. I am going to rent it eventually because I think it looks like fun. I dig horror movies that a lot of people view as shoddy and uninspired. By the by, I was QUITE impressed with the remake of the Hills Have Eyes. I think the boys who did High Tension did a magnificent job with it. I've got to admit, though, that the animal violence made me cry not once, but twice. So, again: this movie isn't libel or a ripoff: it's another take on an actual story. Amazing how the same psychopaths can inspire more than one movie, isn't it?

Hillside Cannibals start as five teens arrive in a 'middle of nowhere' type desert location 50 miles from the nearest town to go cave spelunking, they set up camp for the night but are attacked by a group of vicious cannibals that live in the caves they intended to go spelunking in (isn't spelunking a great word? I think there should be more opportunities in the English language to use the word spelunking). Three are killed right off the bat, Bill (Tom Nagel) is taken captive while Linda (Heather Conforto) is torn between escaping herself & rescuing her boyfriend. Stupidly she decides to do the later which sort of ends in tears for everyone...

Directed by Leigh Scott who also played the role of Sawney Bean/David in the film Hillside Cannibals has a terrible reputation & I can't find a single person who has said a good word about it & once you actually sit through it you'll fully understand why it's considered such a terrible film & why it has such a (deserved) low user rating on the IMDb. The script by Steve Bevilacqua is a straight forward & shameless The Hills Have Eyes (the original 1977 one & the 2006 remake) rip-off/cash-in which takes a pretty simplistic story & makes it even simpler, at least The Hills Have Eyes has a proper family, good character's & the cannibal killers themselves were given some personality but Hillside Cannibals gives us some bland faceless teens who aren't even given names in the film proper (the names in my ploy synopsis I got from the IMDb cast list & since Linda & Bill were at the top I assume they were the stars), they do stupid things, the plot revolves around & takes place in one dark cave which becomes repetitive, the predictable attempt at a plot twist will surprise no-one while it has an ending which will make you think 'what was the point in me watching that crap'. Also the cannibals themselves are a big problem, they don't ever speak & instead just grunt & make noises at each other which means there's not much dialogue & it's hard to tell them apart, it's hard to make out what their trying to do or why they are doing it & it's just not much fun to watch a film where a lot of the time people communicate using grunts & groans which mean absolutely nothing to the average human being. Oh, one more thing if the cannibals can't speak English how do they know what the Sheriff is saying to them?

Director Scott turns in an intensely annoying film, the majority of it takes place at night in a cave where the only light source is a burning fire which leaves massive areas of the frame totally in darkness. The flickering low level orange colour scheme is horrible to sit through for 80 straight minutes & I don't know if it was just me but I found it almost impossible at times to see what was going on, I couldn't tell one stinking cannibal apart from another because they never spoke, they weren't given names & they all looked almost exactly the same in the horrible low level lighting & dark caves. Hillside Cannibals is one of the worst looking films I've seen in quite a while & in this day & age of high definition, DVD & digital cable TV there is no excuse to make a film which is so poorly lit it's difficult to understand what's happening on screen & be uncertain who character's are. Gore wise this is a big disappointment, again maybe the lighting had something to do with it but there's not much blood or violence here at all. Someone has a couple of fingers cut off with a pair of scissors, someone is sliced in half, someone has a machete stuck in their throat while someone else has a knife stuck in theirs, someone has both is legs cut off, one cannibal slices the skin off a couple of corpses faces which he then wears (in a The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) rip-off) & the cannibals eat some severed fingers. To be honest it's pretty unimpressive stuff, Cannibal Ferox (1981) this ain't!

With a supposed budget of about $600,000 this obviously didn't have a lot of money spent on it but even so that's no excuse to turn in such bad film. Many filmmakers have turned in better films on less money than that I'm afraid. Apparently shot in Yermo in California in the Calico ghost town whatever that is. The acting sucks big time from nobody that will ever appear in anything worthwhile.

Hillside Cannibals is crap, everyone who has seen it says so & it's very easy to understand why. No entertainment, poorly lit & shot, terrible character's, clichéd & predictable plot, virtually no dialogue, not enough gore & an awful ending. Not a film I would recommend seeing.

Man, oh man.....what a joke of a movie. Was this supposed to be taken seriously (well, as serious as a movie about cannibalism can be taken)? The gore was there, but done by what I would believe to be the bottom tier of the SFX profession. The acting blew....Z list actors and actresses reading cue cards.

The "cannibals" looked like (to steal from another poster) rejects from Gilligans Island. White frat guys and sorority girls, dressed in grass skirts and rolled in dirt. This is the "horrible cannibalistic family". Ooooooooooooooooh, scary. They live in a cave in the desert and play with dolls. Oh, THE TERROR!!! They talk in their own language, which goes something like this, "ooga booga", "ugh", "woomba", "blah blah blah". The Chills are running up my spine! Yet, another turd in the toilet bowl from Asylum.....

3 out of 10, and that is being generous due to the laugh-ability factor.

I love loads of horror films, and a rather wide variety, my favorites are stylized with a creepy atmosphere, but I can enjoy a film on gore alone if well done with a decently creepy premise or killer. This film, I wanted so badly to enjoy, but it was garbage, and most of the time I can find something to enjoy in films most consider trash. There's sadly nothing here. Its supposed to be about the legend of Sawney Bean, the head of an incestuous cannibalistic clan who lived in caves along the shores of Scotland over 400 years ago. What we have is a badly acted film with gore effects I literally have done better for Halloween costumes, with no real story to speak of. The cannibals barely do more than grunt and act like cave men, which is wrong. No one has a Scottish accent, the caves seem to be in the desert, plus its set in modern day, but sawney bean is supposed to still be alive and no explanation is given as to why. The actual legend of Sawney Bean is very creepy and great fodder for a horror film so why they decided to make this film without using ANY of the legend outside of the name sawney bean and cannibals living in a cave is beyond me. Texas Chainsaw Massacre part FOUR was better than this. If any real effort was put into making this film by its crew, thats very very pathetic as to what they were able to create. Disjointed, badly made, no plot drivel. There's really nothing here for even the most lenient critic to enjoy.

Someone should properly make the Sawney Bean story into a film as that would actually be something to see, if done well.

This Leigh Scott flick is based on a true story inspired by THE HILLS HAVE EYES; I for one still say... rip-off. Gore for gore's sake. Five twenty-somethings decide to spend a weekend spelunking; actually a make out session. This sometimes sells movies. It doesn't take very long before the cave explorers are brutally attacked, ravaged, slaughtered and devoured by a clan of inbred cannibals. Some very sick and disturbing scenes; and some scenes that make no sense at all. This is a very bad modern day B-movie. The story line is very simple and dialogue is about non-existent. Grunts, groans and a lot of dismemberment. There is nudity involved, albeit bloody.

The cast features: Heather Conforto, Tom Nagel, Erica Roby, Marie Westbrook, Justin Jones and Louis Graham.

I will say that this is not the worst movie I have ever seen. However it is definitely down there as one of the worst, and if it weren't for a couple of small redeeming qualities I would rate it even worse than I am doing at the moment. The very start does have some stylish shots and some nicely done desert scenes, some parts of the music score was haunting and there is one intense scene where someone has his fingers chopped off with scissors.

Aside from that, Hillside Crazies is just terrible. What started off so promisingly rapidly descends into sheer ridiculousness and ugliness. Visually after the first 10 minutes, Hillside Crazies looks very amateurish. The photography is generally haphazard, while the lighting is dull and the effects slapdash at best. The scenery is nothing to write home about either, it doesn't feel authentic and adds little to the atmosphere. The music has some moments, but those are too far and between as the rest is annoyingly repetitive and jars with the basic tone of the film.

Hillside Crazies is atrociously written as well. The dialogue is dumb and contrived, I can't count how many times I've heard variations of "You've got balls, I give you that" but what's for sure is that it is enough to make me go nuts. The characters are not likable in the slightest, I'll forgive for a moment that they are clichéd- few movies around aren't actually- but I cannot forgive the fact that every single one of these characters had no development to them whatsoever and irritated the heck out of me.

The story is quite possibly the worst asset. It is dull and predictable, with no suspenseful or genuinely frightening or exciting moments. Any scenes that have potential are completely ruined by lack of sense, bad acting, amateurish visuals, a complete lack of atmosphere or a bit of all. And before I forget, I have not in a long time have seen a movie as ridiculous as Hillside Crazies, ranging from the Sheriff and the cannibals suddenly being able to understand one another, someone being cut in half and you can clearly see her blinking and for one cannibal or whatsoever she is even has perfectly shaved legs. These are just a handful of noticeable and I think unforgivable- in that it insults the intelligence, even my brother who doesn't take movies seriously even when they're bad thought so- mistakes.

In regards to the acting, it has been worse in other Asylum movies. Heather Conforto gets a dishonourable mention in that she as attractive as she is has no talent whatsoever as an actress. Everyone else is bad as well, with the impression that they either overdo it badly or that they don't want to be there. The cannibals also managed to be acting more cavemen than cannibals.

Overall, a real car-wreck of a movie. If it weren't for the promising beginning and one halfway-decent scene in the rest of the movie, Hillside Crazies would have been unwatchable. A generous 2/10 Bethany Cox

OK this film was absolute pants - anyone who says different does not know the "real" Sawney Beane story - albeit it a legend with no proof behind it whatsoever - it allegedly occurred centuries ago in Galloway Scotland! When they where caught there were 48 of them and the men folk were slaughtered in front of the womenfolk in the same way that they had slaughtered so many innocent folk - after that the women were burned at the stake like witches. Like I said Sawney Beane was, as legend has it, Scottish, the whole family did not suddenly uproot and leave the caves of Galloway Scotland for the sandy beaches of the USA, nor did they manage to transport themselves through several centuries!!!!!!! 10 out of 10 for the one bod wearing a kilt I have never laughed so much at an alleged horror film before!! As for the rest of the film - more grunts than a xxx film!!!!!!! lol can't believe I wasted £2.97 buying this!!!!

All I really have to say that it feels like you're trapped in hell with tons of growling and horny cannibals. There's no worse experience in existence.. other than maybe dying which is debatable. Feels like it never would end.

A group of young wannabe spelunkers get captured and eaten by ugly cannibals. Cannibals show up at about 10 minutes into the film. More characters are brought along the way because most of the earlier ones got killed and eaten. No character introduction. Pretty boring stuff.

Guide: F-bomb, sex, nudity.

Good movie, go check it out, don't worry about what some dumb f*(k blockbuster employee has to say, he obviously didn't even see it. It is in fact about the same cannibal family explained in the commentary for The Hills Have Eyes, just in a more modern setting. This movie actually has the look and feel of an old school horror film. I would suggest renting it, but not buying, unless your a collector of everything horror, like myself. I gave it a 6, cheesy acting, bad cuts, and it kind of has a T.V. show feel at times as well. The gore is great, the nudity is just right, and some may argue, but the ending was very good. Great Job... By the way, this movie is far better than Hostel, F! you Eli Roth!!