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AKA:
La colline a des yeux (France)
Blood Relations (USA) (original script title)
Hügel der blutigen Augen (West Germany)
Las colinas tienen ojos (Spain)
Le colline hanno gli occhi (Italy)
Le visage de la peur (Canada) (French title)
Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (USA) (LD title)
This is the original 1977 atmospheric motion picture soundtrack by composer Don Peake, complete with live session count-off's. If you listen carefully one can hear precursor themes that led Don to score the famous Knight Rider TV series.
In 1977 Wes Craven hired me to score a very dark horror film entitled "The Hills Have Eyes". I was immediately struck with the brutality of the characters, and I decided to create a sparse, and disturbing score utilizing both acoustic instruments and a few experimental electronic instruments. I used "The Beam" a long aluminum channel (About 10 feet) strung with a single wire. The Player (Craig Huntley) would slide a piece of steel up the wire string creating a long Glissando." I also had the prop master deliver the Bone necklaces that the actors wore in the movie to the scoring stage. I used these bones as shakers for the chase scenes. The percussionists each had a necklace to play. Mike Lang played the wild piano part for the interior search of the trailer. The strange viola sound came from an old recording viola with a horn attached played by Toni Marcus.
At that time I was studying Composition with Academy Award winner Paul Glass. I decided to use the Quarter Tone string technique pioneered by Kristov Penderecki, whom Paul had studied with.
We recorded all the music "Live" with absolutely no overdubs.
The tapes had been lost for many years. I just recently came upon them in my storage. I had my friend Ron Hitchcock "bake" the tapes for 10 hours, and then transfered them into the Pro Tools digital format.
This is the very first time that this music has been available to listen to. I was struck, as was Ron with the seeds of what ended up as my style of composition when I scored and orchestrated 77 Episodes of NBC's Knight Rider Series.
Thank You Wes and Peter. Please enjoy this score.
Best Wishes
- Don Peake
March 2009
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