Good concept, poorly executed.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Although the title and box cover openly copies THE HILLS HAVE EYES, THE HILLS RUN RED is much more of a traditional slasher flick with a masked weirdo in the woods dispatching numerous nubile victims. There's a little more plotting to it than that, involving a mystical old slasher flick from the 1980s that our protagonists are searching for, but it all boils down to a familiar, overworked storyline.Sad to say, it's not very good either. The execution is shoddy, with a dirt cheap look and unworkable editing. The most surprising thing for me is that David Schow, a respected horror author, had a hand in writing this thing - his talent must have deserted him for this one. THE HILLS RUN RED is an entirely derivative work, with poor effects, CGI augmentation, and needlessly nasty kills and torture scenes. The characters are as wooden as the trees surrounding them.Poor old William Sadler (THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION) makes a crucial appearance in this mess of a film, and it's sad to see that his fortunes have sunk so low. Also present is ROME's Alex Wyndham, playing another of his patented weaselly type characters, so if like me you were disappointed that he didn't get his overdue comeuppance in ROME then you can enjoy seeing it here.

I was really hoping for more based on the ratings that I saw. The cinematography is decent, as is the acting. However, the movie was relatively slow to pick up. There was nothing spectacular about any of the slasher scenes. The main females are quite attractive and there is some decent nudity involved. However, the plot is fairly weak. I found the plot to be way too unrealistic (even for a slasher flick which is saying a lot.) This movie really could have been a lot more, and it certainly had a decent beginning If you want to see a decent slasher flick that is relatively recent, I would recommend "I spit on your grave," "all the boys love mandy lane" or "cabin in the woods."

Tyler is obsessed by the horror movie "The Hills Run Red", considered by those that had seen it the scariest movie ever made, with the deranged serial-killer Babyface in the lead role.However, the director and the movie vanished many years ago and there is no available print.His research is affecting his relationship with his girlfriend Serina that is needy and feels neglected. When Tyler discovers that te directors daughter Alexa works in a night-club, he decides to meet her and asks about the missing movie.The woman tells that the movie might be in her father's house in the middle of the woods, and Tyler decides to travel to the spot with Alexa, Serina and their friend Lalo.Along their journey, Tyler films and interviews some locals.During the night, they are attacked by the rednecks, but they are saved by Babyface.......It's a great movie for film geeks and horror buffs all around, because not only is it about the holy grail of cinema, the banned film with only one existing print, it's also a very good horror movie, and a sly poke at the gore-nography sub genre culture.The film starts off very well, we see the very genuine fake trailer for the titular film, and at once, this makes the audience intrigued as much as the chatachters, which is very rare these days for a horror film, and has not been evident in horror since the first scream movie.babyface is so so, but the film isn't about him thankfully, it's about the Herzog inspired director played brilliantly by Sadler. The ending lets it down ever so slightly, but it's a fresh welcome horror movie that is original.

I was feeling good about the proposition of watching The Hills Run Red, as I only watched it after reading some very positive DVD reviews giving it a boost.The opening scene only ramped up my anticipation too, it set a tone that at least told me this wasn't going to be a PG 13 snoozefest and set a solid standard that I hoped the remainder of the film might aspire to.The bad news – That didn't happen.The good news – The movie wasn't awful at least... but just barely.We open with credits interspersed with "cuts" of a young kid calmly taking the scissors to his own face in fairly graphic and gory detail. As yet we have no idea why but it serves as an effective opening scene which at least tells us this isn't going to be Prom Night 2: Prom Queen's Revenge.The plot that brings Victims A through D into the sphere of Killer A involves aspiring filmmakers and their efforts to track down an infamous but reclusive director who made a particularly gory - and subsequently banned - horror film in the 80s.The film was conveniently call The Hills Run Red, and all that exists is a crappy trailer, we are told this by words on the screen, as explaining events and actions through plot takes valuable time and we need to get to the boobies and gore.The killer in the film was named Babyface, who cut off his own face and sewed a dead eyed expressionless doll's face over the top of what remained.Watching the trailer through the eyes of one of the filmmakers gave no cause for alarm, and definitely no reason as to why the thing was banned, but here we once again obey the convention of if the film says it was too gory, then it was too gory. (This is usually utilised with master criminals, who do nothing that suggests intelligence or genius but we believe they are because we are told so.) A young filmmaking dude named Travis tracks down the daughter of the director, who in a fortunate twist of cinematic convenience is a young blonde hottie who strips for a living. Of course he goes to meet her at "work", so that they might talk shop over a lapdance... No complaints here.The stripper Alexa takes Tyler home and offers herself up to him, Tyler refuses as he recognises that Alexa is a full blown junkie, so rather than hopping aboard he does the right thing and puts her through a 30 second detox montage to sober her up so that she may be of some use later in the film.Meanwhile his flatmate Gabe humps the crap out of Tyler's girlfriend Serina in a variety of positions in Tyler's flat. (Shoulda taken the offer man!) For some reason this is never touched on for the rest of the film. His best mate plowed his girlfriend! They didn't use that info to justify a difficult decision or a uncomfortable reveal later in the film? So after the magical detox capabilities offered by a montage Alexa joins the three others to embark upon a junket to visit all the main sites used in filming the original film, hoping to uncover something that helps lead them to the director I guess.They interview locals who somehow haven't moved in 27 years, some of them looking like they are in their mid 30s, which means they were under 10 when the movie was made and shouldn't have been around anyway.This brief sequence takes them near the deserted homestead where the main sequences were filmed, I say near as they seemed to walk for a long while to find the house, in the dark of course.As they camp for the night it is obvious that they are being watched… and this is always where the alleged fun starts.They are beset by a group of rednecks that they interviewed earlier, keen to do a little filmmaking of their own with Alexa as the unwilling star, only they are rudely interrupted - and killed - by none other than Babyface.Oh come on, that isn't a spoiler. We all knew he was coming.Then we have 20 more minutes of gore, blood, some more inexplicable nudity (again no complaints) and a few twists that might be shocking if you've never seen a movie before.The surprising part of all this is that Sophie Monk (Alexa) - a teen pop star in Australia as a result of those manufactured for a TV show groups - can sorta act, and she isn't averse to taking her gear off a few times too if you disagree.She does need to lay off the Botox though, her lips are so big that she had to start saying her line as the other actor gave her the lead in line, as it took a few seconds to arrive past the Jaggeresque flappers. The other surgery that she has obviously had is hard to fault though... Both of them.After the great first couple minutes it was a little disappointing that the film allowed itself to end up nothing more than a running-around-chased-by-a-freak-with-a-knife screamfest.Another not really interesting fact is that the film was made in Czechoslovakia. Or Bulgaria. Or one of the other 'garias, Hungaria? As the credits rolled I have never seen so many surnames ending with V, (Kabakov, Jankov etc.) Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. After the opening face-peeling scene the only reason to hang around is my fascinating fact involving film crew members whose name ends with "v". If that convinces you to bother with the rest I am sorry.If you liked this review (or even if you didn't) check out oneguyrambling.com