I almost wrote a remake of The Hills Have Eyes

(Well not quite, but read on...)

Several years ago, a couple friends and I got fed up after reading about the latest remake of a 70s horror film. Were there really no original ideas left in Hollywood? Was nothing sacred? And more importantly, why the hell shouldn't we try and make some money by reworking a 70s horror film? I think that was the keyword -- reworking. The producers of whatever remake was just announced claimed that theirs was not a remake, but a reworking of the original.

We racked our brains. What cult classic could we rework? One of them suggested Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (which, surprise, is now being remade) or Race With the Devil. I said no to the latter, because a friend of mine had recently tried to get his own remake of that off the ground, but nothing ever happened with it. The former was too obscure. After a bowl or two we decided on Wes Craven's classic The Hills Have Eyes.

One of my writing partners had worked in various construction jobs and figured it might be interesting to set the picture at a construction site of a gated community of McMansions. We all agreed this was a good idea and would legitimately make ours a reworking and not just a remake.

The title of the final product was The Hills Still Have Eyes. We figured it was a nice homage to the original. The script itself was no reinvention of the genre, but it was a fun ride, with some cool kills and snappy dialogue. Of course I'm one of the writers so I'm kind of biased.

We finished the script in 1999.

We wrote another script after that, this one not a remake.

In 2002 I found myself working at a major international distribution company, which meant one thing...

AFM.

Crazy hours cooped up in a room at the Loews Hotel. Sure, I got free room service and a slight bonus from my boss for my efforts, but it was a hellish week.

My then boss was and still is a huge figure in the global marketplace of film. That being said, many producers and distributors would pop their heads in unannounced just to say hello.

One such producer was Peter Locke.

Peter Locke produced The Hills Have Eyes.

When he introduced himself I probably committed a faux pas by telling him what a huge fan I was of the movie.

My next faux pas came after he chatted briefly with my boss and I told him that some friends and I wrote a remake, I mean a reworking, of Hills. He mentioned that he and Wes Craven were planning on doing an update.

What a coincidence.

I forgot how we left things, since it has been a few years now and I've been trying to erase that week from my memory.

A few months later I moved to San Francisco. I was fed up with the industry and thought a change of scenery would do me good. I would have more time to write and I would no longer be working in a non-stressful environment. Both plans were proven wrong soon after my move.

A few months into my San Francisco experience I received an e-mail from a former co-worker telling me that Peter Locke had called the office looking for me in regards to my script for The Hills Have Eyes.

I couldn't fucking believe it!

I immediately got in touch with Locke. I told him I was now living in San Francisco and that I would love for him to read the script. He asked me to send him a copy, then reminisced about his own college days in San Francisco back in the late 60s.

It all seemed too good to be true

It was.

He passed the script along to Wes!

Wes (or his people) passed.

Alas, The Hills Still Have Eyes will not be the #1 movie at the box office this weekend. (Though judging from the sparsely attended matinee today at the Mann's Chinese, The Hills Have Eyes probably will not be either.)

Even if Hills doesn't do too well, that won't stop Hollywood from continuing to rape and pillage through the 70s horror classics.

I know that New Line is planning a remake of Last House on the Left. God knows how they're going to do that.

Maybe I should start on a remake of the underappreciated The Hills Have Eyes Part 2 (complete with German Shepherd flashbacks)