Anecdotes for
The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

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• There is a ripped poster of Jaws (1975) visible. See also: The Evil Dead (1981), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
  
  
• Producer Peter Locke has a memorable cameo as Mercury, the imbecile-sounding gang member with the feathered head-dress who is only spotted twice throughout the film, firstly at Fred's garage and secondly communicating with Mars and Pluto using a USAF radio.
  
  
• The dead dog used as a stand-in for the family's slaughtered Alsatian 'Beauty', widely believed to be a dummy dog, was in fact a real (already dead) dog that director Wes Craven and producer Peter Locke had bought from the county sheriff's department.
  
  

• When originally submitted to the MPAA, the film was given an X-rating which would have relegated it to the porno circuit and severely hurt the box-office returns. Wes Craven cut the film enough to secure an R rating, and the original director's cut is thought to be no longer in existence.
  
  
• The movie is based on the legend of Sawney Beane and his family (a wife, eight sons and six daughters), a feral clan who inhabited and roamed the highlands of Scotland's East Lothian County, near Edinburgh, in the early 1400s. They captured, tormented and ate several transients. They were eventually captured on the order of Scotland's King James, were judged to be insane, and executed without trial.
  
  
• Many of the props in the feral family's cave were from Robert A. Burns's previous project, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).
  
  
• There were two babies that were used in the film as the same character (Katy) though the baby is only credited as Brenda Marinoff.
  
  

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