When a horror film’s tagline reads, “based on a real story,” my ears perk up and I am utterly uneasy. I don’t care how, when, or why the true tale happened; all that matters is that it did. That radically alters everything. Because of this, I dread having to tell you that “The Hills Have Eyes” is one of those horror movies that is “based on a true tale.” I’m sorry to be the one to deliver such unfavourable information.
The original 1977 film’s writer-director, Wes Craven, spoke candidly about the unsettling beginnings of the story in 2006 with Horror.com:
“Originally, it came from an article I saw in the New York library about the Sawney Bean Family. In the 1700s in Scotland I believe, there was an area that had road running through it from Scotland, and people thought it was haunted because people kept disappearing from that road. The story came out when a couple was attacked by these wild looking people, and one got away. He knew someone in the court, and they sent out an expedition which resulted in finding a cave along the English Channel.”
Although Craven refers to the “1700s” in the statement above, it is generally accepted that the stories’ beginnings were in the 1600s.
While there are some significant plot and tone similarities between the original 1977 movie and Alexandre Aja’s 2003 remake, the early 2000s version upped the ante with a significant change. Physical abnormalities caused by nuclear testing in a mining village that the US government later covered up torment the murderous family in Aja’s film.
In “The Making Of,” a behind-the-scenes featurette about the film, Aja stated, “We based all our explanations and directions on authentic documents, images, and footage that we acquired on the impacts of nuclear fallout in Chernobyl and Hiroshima. While that portion of the movie is undoubtedly grounded in reality, Sawney Bean’s real-life story perfectly captures the menacing tone of both films.
Although historians have vigorously argued and disputed Sawney Bean’s account and consider it to be more lore than reality, the true story of Bean really captures the gloomy atmosphere of both movies even if that component of the movie is undoubtedly grounded in reality.
The Story of Sawney Bean
Bean was allegedly born in Scotland’s East Lothian. His father reared him while he was a ditch digger and hedge trimmer. Although the son intended to work in the same field as his father, Bean ended up seeing ‘Black’ Agnes Douglas, a lady who shared his desire for blood and flesh. They started out sharing a cave together near the Galloway coast, distant from the world of the common people, which allowed for the development of their cannibalistic impulses.
Although the couple’s exact number of children and grandchildren is unknown, it is estimated that over the 25 years they lived there, they raised and shared housing with close to 50 family members. The clan would make meals out of ignorant tourists who unluckily came into their hunting grounds, just like the family shown in the movies. In the cave, they would kill and dismember their prey at night, then pickle, salt, and devour the body pieces.
Over the years, it is claimed that the family killed and consumed more than a thousand people without ever stopping in any nearby settlements.
One of the family’s victims managed to escape and survive at one point, which caused the King to sent troops to track down the cannibalistic gang. A complete history of the lives and robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen” by Alexander Smith, published in 1719, claims that a man and his wife were attacked by the family while travelling by horseback. Sadly, the wife was killed in the ambush.
The female cannibals cut her throat and fell to sucking her blood with as great a gust as if it had been wine.
This done, they ripped up her belly and pulled out all her entrails. Such a dreadful spectacle made the man make the more obstinate resistance, as expecting the same fate if he fell into their hands.
According to the text, the monarch took 400 troops to the tunnels where they encountered unspeakable horrors.
Now the whole body, or as many of them as could, went in, and were all so shocked at what they beheld that they were almost ready to sink into the earth. Legs, arms, thighs, hands and feet of men, women and children were hung up in rows, like dried beef.
A great many limbs lay in pickle, and a great mass of money, both gold and silver, with watches, rings, swords, pistols, and a large quantity of clothes, both linen and woollen, and an infinite number of other things, which they had taken from those whom they had murdered, were thrown together in heaps, or hung up against the sides of the den.
The family was then arrested by the monarchy and put to death for their atrocities against humanity. However, despite “The Hills Have Eyes” receiving the coveted “based on a true tale” designation, historians are not certain that Bean’s family ever existed. As a result, this may all just be an intriguing myth that has been passed down down the ages. But it was a great inspiration.
Craven’s Connection to the Bean Story
Before the movie’s initial 1977 release, Craven discussed the Bean family with ARROW. He even spoke on how they were killed and how their heinous deeds reflected culture at the time.
“They did horrendous things to them. Broke them all on the wheel. Hanged the women in front of the men and then they dismembered the men. And I was so struck by how on the one hand you have this feral family that’s killing people and eating them.
But if you look at it they weren’t doing anything that much worse than civilization did when they caught them. And I just thought what a great kind of A/B of culture. How the most civilized can be the most savage and how the most savage can be civilized.
I constructed these two families as mirrors of each other. I found it very interesting to look at ourselves, to think of ourselves as having the capacity not only for great good, but for great evil.”
In his 2011 book “Wes Craven: The Man and his Monsters,” screenwriter John Wooley Wiley also explained Craven’s motivations for modernising the Bean family story:
Craven realized that by updating the Sawney Bean story to 20th century California, he would have the opportunity not only to comment on a cult society dwelling inside modern civilization, but also the chance to comment on that civilization’s less-than-civilized retribution against the cannibals.
