Honestly, the mid-2000s were a weird time for horror. Everything was either a sleek remake of a Japanese ghost story or part of the "torture porn" wave that Saw and Hostel kicked into high gear. Then 2009 rolled around, and out of nowhere, The Hills Run Red showed up. It didn't hit theaters. It landed on DVD shelves with a cover that looked like a dozen other generic slashers, but if you actually popped the disc in, you realized pretty quickly that director Dave Parker wasn't just making another "kids get lost in the woods" movie. He was making a movie about why we like watching kids get lost in the woods.
It’s meta. Not in a "look how clever I am" Scream kind of way, but in a way that feels genuinely greasy and obsessive.
The Plot That Hooked the Hardcore Fans
The story follows Tyler, played by Tad Hilgenbrink. He’s a film student, but "obsessive" doesn't even begin to cover it. He’s fixated on a lost slasher film from the early 80s also called The Hills Run Red. In the world of the movie, this legendary film was supposedly so violent and depraved that it was pulled from theaters almost immediately. The director, Wilson Wyler Concannon (the legendary William Sadler), vanished. The prints vanished. All that’s left is a grainy trailer that Tyler watches like it’s the Zapruder film.
Tyler tracks down Concannon’s daughter, Alexa. Sophie Monk plays her as a heroin-addicted stripper who is, quite frankly, a wreck. He convinces her to lead him and his friends—his girlfriend Serina and his cameraman Lalo—into the backwoods of Sofia, Bulgaria (where it was actually filmed) to find the original house where the movie was shot.
They’re looking for art. They find a guy in a porcelain baby mask.
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Babyface and the Reality of the Slasher
The killer, Babyface, is one of the more underrated designs in modern horror. It’s not just a mask; the movie eventually reveals that the "mask" is actually stitched to the character's face. It’s gross. It’s meant to be. Danko Jordanov plays the adult version of the killer with a physical presence that feels way more dangerous than your average stuntman in a jumpsuit.
The hills run red film works because it plays with the idea of the "snuff film" legend. We’ve all heard those urban legends about movies that were too real. Parker and writer David J. Schow (who is a "splatterpunk" legend for a reason) take that curiosity and turn it back on the audience. When Tyler finally meets Wilson Wyler Concannon, he finds out that the scares in the original movie were real because the deaths were real.
Concannon didn't want to "fake" it. He was a purist. A murderous, insane purist.
Why It’s Better Than You Remember
- William Sadler: He is chewing the scenery in the best way possible. He plays Concannon with this sophisticated, artistic madness that makes the violence feel heavier.
- The Meta-Twist: It’s revealed that the character Alexa wasn't just a victim or a guide; she was the director’s accomplice and his daughter. The "Babyface" killer is actually the product of incest between Alexa and her father. Yeah, it gets that dark.
- Practical Effects: In an era where CGI blood was starting to ruin everything, this movie stayed messy. The gore is tactile. When someone gets opened up, it looks like it hurts.
The Straight-to-DVD Curse
It’s a shame this movie went straight to video via the "Warner Premiere" line. At the time, if a movie didn't hit theaters, people assumed it sucked. That wasn't the case here. The Hills Run Red was actually a Dark Castle production—the same company that gave us the House on Haunted Hill and Thir13en Ghosts remakes. It had a decent budget and looked great.
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Dave Parker actually came from a background of editing DVD "making-of" featurettes for big movies like X-Men and Spider-Man 2. You can see that influence in how he treats the "film within a film" segments. They look like authentic, degraded 16mm or 35mm footage from the 80s. Most directors just throw a "scratch" filter on digital footage and call it a day. Parker actually cared about the texture.
The ending is pretty bleak, too. Tyler doesn't get to be the hero. He ends up strapped into a chair in a makeshift cinema, forced to watch the "perfect" cut of the film he spent his life searching for. It’s a "be careful what you wish for" moment that hits hard because, as horror fans, we’re right there with him. We wanted to see the movie too.
How to Experience it Today
If you’re looking to watch it now, don't just settle for a low-res stream. This is a movie that benefits from the details. Scream Factory eventually put out a Blu-ray that looks miles better than the original 2009 DVD.
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Actionable Insights for Horror Fans:
- Check the Credits: Look for David J. Schow's name in other projects. If you liked the "splatterpunk" vibe of this, he also worked on The Crow and Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.
- Watch the Commentary: If you can grab the physical disc, the commentary with Dave Parker and Robert Meyer Burnett is a masterclass in how to make a high-quality horror film on a mid-range budget.
- Don't Skip the "Making Of": The featurette It’s Not Real Until You Shoot It is actually one of the better behind-the-scenes docs from that era, showing how they built the Babyface mask and handled the Bulgarian shoot.
- Pairing: If you want a double feature, watch this alongside John Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns. They both deal with the obsession of finding a "lost" film that can drive a person insane.
The hills run red film is one of those rare instances where a "lost" masterpiece actually lived up to the hype, even if it was just a movie about a movie. It’s mean, it’s smart, and it’s a hell of a lot better than the stuff that was actually playing in theaters back in '09.