Exclusive Interview: The Craven's & Stroup On The Hills Have Eyes 2

By Ian Spelling on March 19, 2007

They’re back.

Just in case anyone out there didn’t get his or her fill of cannibalistic mutant humans in The Hills Have Eyes (1977) or The Hills Have Eyes, Part II (1985) or last year’s The Hills Have Eyes remake, Wes Craven is back with more flesh-eating creepies in The Hills Have Eyes 2. And this time Wes – who directed the original Hills films, not to mention several Freddy Krueger flicks, the Scream trilogy and, more recently, Music of the Heart and Red Eye -- is joined by his son, Jonathan. The Cravens co-wrote and co-produced The Hills Have Eyes 2, which stars Daniella Alonso, Jacob Vargas, Jessica Stroup, Michael McMillian, Ben Crowley and Lee Thompson Young, among others. The film, directed by Martin Weisz of Butterfly: A Grimm Love Story infamy, will be released on March 23. Latino Review recently caught up with Wes and Jonathan Craven, as well as Jessica Stroup, for separate conversations.

Wes Craven, what did you see as the opportunities presented to you by The Hills Have Eyes 2?

Wes Craven: Well, the opportunity here was to make another film, and not just in the crass business sense, although that certainly plays. It was a chance to discover a new filmmaker and also to explore another permutation, another iteration of this basic concept of innocents going into the other world by accident and confronting the other, who is actually a human, too. We just found that it was a challenge and interesting and fun.

What did you make of the guy who co-wrote this thing with you?

Wes Craven: That was an interesting thing. I’d never worked that closely with Jonathan as a peer. He’d been working on and off with me or for me or alongside on a lot of films, starting all the way back on Serpent and the Rainbow, which I think he came right out of college and worked on. But he has been following his own career and doing a lot of writing. He’d produced a picture on his own and had directed a picture for television on his own. Alex Aja was originally going to write it and he fell out kind of at the last minute, and it felt like the project might be in jeopardy. So I said, “I bet my son and I could write that in one month.” That was kind of the schedule that was required. We did it, and we’re still talking to each other.


What did Martin Weisz bring to the table as a director?

Wes Craven: Martin has enormous enthusiasm and he’s certainly not afraid of dark material. The film that he himself made, Butterfly, goes into very, very dark territory. And he did it in a way that’s both shocking and tasteful. I think he has the sensitivity of a real artist. We just thought he was a really interesting choice who’d bring almost a European sensitivity to it.

What’s your sense of the state of horror filmmaking these days and how has that been affected by current real-life events?

Wes Craven: I think there’s a counterintuitive thing with horror in that the more horrific the world becomes the more there’s an appetite for horror in film. There’s a certain amount of protective shielding that younger audiences are looking for when things are really kind of grim in the real world. I’m desperately trying to tell myself not to get political on this film, but it’s hard. I think all sense of innocence seems to be being blown to the wind, and when that happens, as we saw in the 70’s, the films get very, very gritty, and they use components of what are in the headlines. I think certainly The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left, the originals, were results of that. I was keenly aware of that, and I think most of the people doing films in that decade – the Tobe Hoopers and the John Carpenters – were reacting the same way. I think the same thing is going on now.

You recently signed a deal, or two of them, actually, with Rogue Pictures. You’re going to write and direct a film for them and they’ll release films that you and Marianne Maddalena produce for your new company, Midnight Entertainment. What can you tell us about the picture you’re planning to write and direct?

Wes Craven: I’d say it’s a little bit towards a thriller, but with younger people, and a little bit of perhaps the supernatural. But quite frankly I’m still playing with it, so it could end up involving Martians. It was going to be called Bug, but then I found out that Billy Friedkin had a picture called Bug, so I guess it’s not going to be called Bug anymore.

And what can we expect to see from Midnight Entertainment?

Wes Craven: Midnight Entertainment, if everything turns out right, will make a series of films for Rogue that are done by young filmmakers or filmmakers who haven’t been discovered in America yet, in some cases. They will be genre films. They will hopefully be imaginative versions of genre fare. The idea is to let people get projects off the ground. We’re talking about a remake of The Last House on the Left. That’s something that would be from my own catalog, but basically we’re making films in the $15 million and under range that are entertaining and hard-hitting and have street credibility. I think right now Last House on the Left is the only remake, so they will be, by and large, original films.

Jonathan Craven, what were your thoughts heading into The Hills Have Eyes 2?

Jonathan Craven: I’m a really big fan of the original The Hills Have Eyes. That’s been one of my favorite horror films. A couple of years ago I had trepidations about remaking The Hill Have Eyes, actually. Then, when I became aware of Alex Aja’s work I was a little bit more excited and I was very happy with the result. So I was very happy to both work with my father and to be able to continue the story of The Hills Have Eyes, because I love the world. It’s rich and, as I said, I’ve always had a special place for this world in my heart.


You’ve collaborated on a number of projects, in different capacities, with your father in the past. But what was it like working so closely with him during the writing process on The Hills Have Eyes 2?

Jonathan Craven: It was interesting, and part of what was interesting about it was that we’re certainly capable of being typical fathers and sons and having very different points of view on things. “I want it to be an apple.” “I want it to be an orange.” But we really sat down and found a way to work together that was shockingly smooth. We did not have a lot of time, so we rented a hotel room and wrote every day for 12 to 15 hours, seven days a week for a month. We did the bulk of the first draft in a month.
 
How deeply involved were you in the production after the script was done?

Jonathan Craven: I was on set during the whole shoot. I have been involved soup to nuts, the whole thing, from the inception of the story. And I’m still involved. I’m a co-producer of the movie and I’ve been involved with almost every step, every part of the making of the movie.

You were out in the Moroccan desert. How tough was the shoot?

Jonathan Craven: It was a tough shoot. There were cobras and scorpions and wind storms every afternoon. The terrain was very rough and it was very strenuous work. We’re still in post-production, but the movie looks great and we’re very excited to get it out. I think it’s a really good horror movie, very strong and very shocking, and we worked hard to get it there.

Jessica Stroup, you’d actually done a handful of horror films before this one. You were in Vampire Bats, Pray for Morning and Left in Darkness. Is that a coincidence or are you a fan of horror films?

Jessica Stroup: I am actually, truly a fan of horror films. I have been a fan since I was a kid. I think it started with my parents. They wouldn’t let me watch horror films. They were extremely protective of me and I had to sneak off to watch those films. It was like, ‘What can I see that’s scary?’ So I started watching them and I’ve always been a fan. And now I’ve done a few of them.


In the film, you play Amber, who’s one of the National Guard characters who are attacked by the mutants. How did you cope with shooting in the intense heat in Morocco?

Jessica Stroup: I pretty much got the movie two days before we left to go make it, and I had rush order my passports. So, from the beginning, it was quite the experience. We got there and we did a prep week or so where we had British military officers putting us through a brief boot camp, basically. When we got there it was still extremely hot, and we’d go midday and do the formations and training and all of that. The funny thing was when we were actually shooting in the desert it wasn’t half as bad as the whole boot camp was because we’d have shade occasionally and we could stop and get our water. Boot camp was just insane. It was still about 120 degrees or something outside, and I about fainted. We did rock climbing. During the shooting, we did all kinds of stunts. I did about 90 percent of my own stunts, which were extreme physical acts. It was tons of fun and everybody was on board for it.

What did you make of Martin Weisz as a director?

Jessica Stroup: Martin is such a character. I didn’t actually meet him until I got to Morocco; he’d only seen my reel (and cast her based on that). I got over there and there was this beautiful pool at our hotel, and he comes walking out and he says, ‘What’s up!?’ He’s just got this spirit that’s so big. I give him credit because he’s so new school in the way that he shoots and his ideas and just the way he wants to portray the movie. He had so many ideas. And then there were certain times when I’d do something one way or suggest something. I’d do it and then we’d talk, and he’d actually listen to what I was saying, what I thought. He knew I had a good grasp on Amber, so he’d want to know what I thought. The fact that he’d actually listen to us, that he’d take into consideration how we felt, I thought was a great thing. We had such a huge connection, and we’re still great friends.

What’s your gut instinct on the film?

Jessica Stroup: I’m very excited about it. I know some friends who got to see an early version of it at a screening. It didn’t have the music yet. The real tense moments hadn’t been perfected yet. But even at that point they said it was really, really scary. I have done a lot of ADR on this movie because of the breathing and yelling and screaming and gun shots, and so I’ve seen a lot of it. I’m excited about it. It looks great. The feel of the movie is really cool. It feels real, which is something I loved about the remake, too. You believed they were out in this crazy heat and you weren’t sure what would happen. You get that sense in this movie, too. I can’t wait for people to see it.

Source:Latino Review

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