In writing the sequel to last year's The Hills Have Eyes, Wes Craven, director of the Scream trilogy, had a little help from someone who possesses a mind as sick and disturbing as his own: his son. Wes (age 67) and Jonathan (age 42) recently reflected on this week's Hills part two, their favorite flicks and silver screen carnage.
What was it like collaborating on the The Hills Have Eyes 2?
Jonathan Craven: We just attacked it relentlessly. We basically sat in a room for a month and pounded out a first draft. The walls were covered with blood and gristle and guts. We got along great. When you write stuff that's scary, there's a lot of that like "Oh my God, that's a great idea. That's so upsetting and horrible. That's awful, that's great. Let's write that down."
The remake deals with National Guardsmen. Is this correlated with the situation our military is facing overseas and at home?
Wes Craven: I think there is an obvious parallel, but it's not one we sat down to exploit. I don't think any of us wanted to make a film that was political or says we should or shouldn't be involved in the things we're in, but there's just the interesting and kind of heartbreaking aspect of American kids in situations that they could never have predicted that they'd be facing.
Jonathan, growing up with the godfather of horror movies, you probably had some pretty cool Halloween costumes. What was your scariest?
JC: One Halloween I just had my bowels removed, and my stomach ripped open, so I wrapped them around my head. Actually, I'm not really a Halloween person. We would celebrate in our dungeon. We had to light a lot of black candles and do things together as a family. We didn't really like leaving the house. We didn't trust outsiders. Trick-or-treaters were very tasty.
So you're a father-son team and you're both great at making horror films. Does that mean that evil is hereditary?
JC: Yes. Evil is hereditary. It goes back a long time in our family. There was Vlad the Impaler, Jack the Ripper, Yohann the Slasher - that was our great great uncle. Gerald the Gutter. Yeah, he specialized in gutter humor in his films.
What are each of your favorite horror movies?
WC: Billy Friedkin's The Exorcist or the original Alien. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a great example of a film that was made for very little money that has tremendous energy. You can say the same of Hostel, but Texas Chainsaw was back when no one had made a film like that. A film where you feel like you've never seen anything like it before, and the director felt like a very dangerous person. That to me is the most interesting kind of horror film.
JC: The Hills Have Eyes 2, baby.
