(2009) ***1/2
Tyler is obsessed with a very rare film entitled “The Hills Run Red”. Years earlier it had been quickly pulled from theaters due to complaints about its sadism and snuff-film like murders and all Tyler knows about the film is what is seen in the surviving theatrical trailer. Very few people ever watched the film and the director disappeared along with all known prints of the film. After convincing his girlfriend and best friend to aid him in making a documentary about the legendary film, the trio tracks down the director’s daughter, who was actually one of the characters in the film when she was only a little girl. She informs them that her father died in his house deep in the forest and that the house might contain a copy of the legendary film. It does not take long for Tyler to convince her to help them with their documentary and she agrees to take them to the remote locations where the film was shot. Unfortunately they learn the hard way that the murderer depicted in the film as well as the murders seen on-screen might be real.
Despite the interesting plot, The Hills Run Red is a slasher film at the core, but an effective slasher film. The murderer, Babyface, is either homage to Jason or a downright rip-off, but this is better than the average Friday the 13th installment. Although light on actual scares, the gore quotient is high and fairly graphic and the look and feel of the film evokes that of the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I love the idea that a film exists few have seen. Out of all the Masters of Horror episodes screened over the past few years the only one I really liked was John Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns, which deals with this idea. Jerry Lewis once made a controversial film that few have ever seen called, The Day the Clown Died.
From Wikipedia, “The Day the Clown Cried is an unfinished and unreleased 1972 film directed by and starring Jerry Lewis. It is based on a scriptment of the same name[citation needed] by Joan O'Brien, who had co-written the original script with Charles Denton 10 years prior. The film was met with controversy regarding its premise and content, which features a circus clown who is imprisoned in a Nazi camp. The Day the Clown Cried has become somewhat infamous among film historians and movie buffs as a film that has never officially been released.”
Interestingly, there is apparently an earlier, truncated version of The Hills Run Red that the director originally showed to the production company in order to gain financial backing. It is supposed to be more dark and graphic than the final version seen in theaters however no one else has seen this footage…
