Synopsis

While traveling through the New Mexico desert, the Carter family takes a remote shortcut and becomes stranded near an abandoned nuclear testing site. As night falls, they discover that the surrounding hills conceal a savage clan of mutated killers. Cut off from help and hunted from every direction, the survivors must fight back against an enemy created by the government's radioactive legacy.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film is a remake of Wes Craven's 1977 horror movie and shifts greater emphasis toward nuclear testing and radioactive fallout as the source of the mutants' deformities.

• Although the story takes place in New Mexico, much of the production was filmed in Morocco. The gas station set was built so realistically that passing motorists occasionally stopped and tried to buy gasoline.

• The mutant makeup combined prosthetic effects, digital work, and computer-generated imagery. The more severely deformed adult characters primarily used prosthetics, while the children's distortions were enhanced digitally.

• The disturbing photographs shown during the opening credits were associated with real birth defects linked to Agent Orange in Vietnam, rather than being images of atomic mutations.

• Makeup artist Greg Nicotero also appeared in the film as Cyst, one of the mutant characters.

• The film was released theatrically in the United States on March 10, 2006, and was followed by The Hills Have Eyes 2 in 2007.

• The theatrical version was edited to secure an R rating. A more violent unrated cut was later released for home video.