BLOODY HELL HORROR FILM REMAKES RIDE A RISING TIDE OF GORE.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

In the late '60s, Wes Craven dropped out of society, leaving his wife, his children, his teaching job at a college. He protested the Vietnam War, stopped paying his taxes and railed against a government he believed was out-of-control.

Then, in 1972, he made a movie about Vietnam, though only a few people who saw his brutally blunt revenge flick ``The Last House on the Left'' made that connection. Craven followed the film five years later with ``The Hills Have Eyes,'' another disturbing look at the dark side of a seemingly nice American family that turns savage - and seems to enjoy the transformation - to survive.

Craven shot ``Hills'' in the Victorville desert for $325,000, scavenging props left over from Tobe Hooper's horror classic ``The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.''

``I would have liked more money,'' Craven, 66, says today. ``But then the shoestring budget made the movie feel more disturbing.''

A big-budget (by comparison, at least) remake of ``Hills'' arrives in theaters today. Its relentless bloodletting makes the original feel almost quaint, and continues upping the ante as the latest entry in a wave of ruthless, slash-and-slaughter films arriving at America's multiplexes.

Movies like ``Saw,'' ``Saw II,'' ``Hostel,'' ``Wolf Creek'' and ``The Devil's Rejects'' all have opened to solid and sometimes spectacular business in the past 18 months. Distinct from slick horror movies like ``When a Stranger Calls'' or the recent remake of ``The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,'' these graphic films feature intense scenes of torture, mutilation and depravity.

The aim, says ``Saw II'' director Darren Lynn Bousman, is to ``disturb and disgust.''

``When the studio system got involved with horror movies in the 1980s, they wanted to appeal to a broader audience,'' says Bousman, who began shooting ``Saw III'' this week. ``The hard-core gore, the vile horror disappeared. Now it's back because, basically, the people who made 'Saw' and 'Hostel' and 'Wolf Creek' said, '(Forget) the public. We're gonna make a movie for a specific group of people, people who want to feel something extreme.'''

Filmmakers like Bousman and Eli Roth (``Hostel,'' ``Cabin Fever'') cite Craven's ``Hills'' and ``Last House'' as huge influences. These young directors also grew up watching movies like ``Silence of the Lambs'' and ``Se7en,'' though those movies were well-financed studio efforts that bore little resemblance to the gritty splatter movies of the Nixon era.

``When I was growing up, we were finding cinematic pleasure with the video club,'' says Paris-born Alexandre Aja, the director of the ``Hills'' remake and the equally disturbing 2003 film ``High Tension.'' ``We want to bring that spirit of the '70s back, the spirit that ended when the studios got into the game after John Carpenter's 'Halloween' hit big.''

Do these torture-fests have anything to say about our times? Mainstream film critics have been largely dismissive, while culture watchers decry the movies' desensitizing effect on their audience.

``It makes us all fearful,'' says Scott Poland, a psychology professor at Florida's Nova Southeastern University. ``We'd like to believe that man is basically good, but with all the crime and violence depicted, it gets harder and harder to hold on to that viewpoint.''

When asked if his studio's movies are making the world an uglier place, Peter Block, Lionsgate president of acquisitions and co-productions, responds: ``The world is an uglier place to live when you turn on the evening news and see the atrocities going on around the world. Our movies provide escapism from the reality.''

Says Craven: ``Look at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Torture is clearly sanctioned, even taught, by our government. That kind of thing can't help but creep into our culture.''

Craven says he does blanch at movies that seem to take ``pure pleasure in mayhem and violence.'' He famously walked out of Quentin Tarantino's ``Reservoir Dogs'' when it first screened at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.

``I hated that torture scene where the ear gets cut off in 'Stuck in the Middle With You,' '' Craven says. ``It seemed to get off on torture, and I don't like that.''

``But then,'' Craven adds, ``Quentin loved that he made me feel that way. He saw me in the lobby and he kept saying, 'I gotta tell my friends! I made Wes Craven walk out of a movie.' ''

And there seems to be no end to that kind of one-upmanship among horror moviemakers.

``How far are we going to take it?'' Bousman asks. ``I can tell you that `Saw 3' will ratchet it up another notch. It's going to be even more vile, even more in-your-face.''

``But these things are cyclical,'' Bousman continues. ``After this next `Saw,' the next thing I do will step away. I want people to be disgusted but not know why, because they're not seeing the violence on the screen. It will be more primal. And I think it will so utterly disturb people that they won't even be able to talk once the movie ends.''

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

Films on the cutting edge

Beginning with Rob Zombie's ``House of 1,000 Corpses,'' Lionsgate has more or less cornered the market on savage slash-and-slaughter films. Yes, there was Dimension's ``Wolf Creek'' and the remake of ``The Hills Have Eyes,'' which opens today. As Lionsgate President of Acquisitions and Co-Productions Peter Block notes, ``You can't do every film. So you choose the best ones.''

Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder. Here's a rundown of the company's blood-soaked history.

HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES (April 11, 2003)

Director: Rob Zombie.

Budget: $7 million.

What the critics said: ``Only 1,000? That seems like a conservative estimate of the body count.'' - Dave Kehr, The New York Times

Signature moment: Torture scene during which a man's face is sliced open with a straight-edge razor while a top-heavy woman dances to the Commodores' ``Brick House.'' (No Steeler's Wheel for Mr. Zombie!)

Final tally: $16.8 million worldwide.

SAW (Oct. 29, 2004)

Director: James Wan.

Budget: $1.2 million.

What the critics said: `` `Saw' has art-house ambitions, but it's nothing but a glorified snuff film. I despised this movie.'' - Richard Roeper, ``Ebert & Roeper''

Signature moment: Woman wakes up, finds bear trap clamped around her jaws. In 60 seconds bear trap will spring open, killing her. The key to unlock the device is within reach, though there is one small hitch - it's in the stomach of a man lying next to her, a man who just happens to still be alive.

Final tally: $103 million worldwide.

THE DEVIL'S REJECTS

Director: Rob Zombie.

Budget: $7 million.

What the critics said: ``Evil isn't this boring.'' - Robert K. Elder, Chicago Tribune

Signature moment: The slow-mo ``Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'' guns-a-blazin' ending set to Lynyrd Skynyrd's ``Free Bird.''

Final tally: $19.4 million worldwide.

SAW II (Oct. 28, 2005)

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman.

Budget: $4 million.

What the critics said: ``It approaches suffering with a meaninglessness that must be a luxury for anyone who has never lost anyone, or is incapable of empathizing with someone who has.'' - Wesley Morris, Boston Globe

Signature moment: Hard to choose between the girl fishing for a key in a pit of hypodermic needles or the man who has to mutilate himself to extricate a key that has been embedded in his face.

Final tally: $131.4 million worldwide.

HOSTEL (Jan. 6, 2006)

Director: Eli Roth.

Budget: $4.8 million.

What the critics said: ``Seemingly inspired by 'The Twilight Zone,' `Tales From the Crypt,' photos from Abu Ghraib and a Playboy spread on `Girls of Slovakia,' 'Hostel' could end up No. 1 on Dick Cheney's year-end Top 10 list.'' - Jack Matthews, New York Daily News

Signature moment: So many severed digits and limbs, it's hard to pick just one. How 'bout the dude who has his Achilles tendon sliced and is then told to run - fast?

Final tally: $49.6 million worldwide (with the film yet to be released in many overseas markets).

- G.W.

CAPTION(S):

8 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) THE FEAR FACTOR

Slashing their way into the multiplex, horror flicks scare up big business

(2) Brenda Carter (Emilie de Ravin) and her family are stalked by a group of psychotic desert dwellers in Wes Craven's ``The Hills Have Eyes,'' a particularly violent horror flick remake.

(3) no caption (girl being grabbed through window)

(4) ``House of 1,000 Corpses''

(5) no caption (Saw)

(6) no caption (The Devil's Rejects)

(7) no caption (Saw II)

(8) no caption (Hostel)

Box:

Films on the cutting edge (see text)