"Wrong Turn" gone Wrong

Rating: 1/10 (16 May 2007)

As the film is "spoiled", so is my review full of Spoilers.
I must admit up front that I gave up after an hour. Of course, I was hoping the family would be massacred before my boredom threshold was reached, but no such luck.
There is nothing subtle about this film regarding character development, plotting or "creation" of suspense, of which there is absolutely no suspense whatsoever. We are deluged almost from the start with interactions between family members and all too soon get to meet, in daylight, the evil radiation diseased coal-mining monsters.
First of all, I don't really give a hoot about this boring family, but the director apparently coerced the screen writers to pad this film to the hilt giving us all the clichéd characters under the sun. The family is a caricature of the generation gap and political polarization which has existed since before the Constitution was written up.
Let's see, the dad's a private eye who haphazardly fires his gun at oxygen molecules and then gets into a vehicle during a duress causing scenario, in the dark of night, without looking in the back seat first. Brilliant screen writing, but I was bored to tears way before this scene.
Oh yes, let's not forget that mister private eye, whose job it is to find people, has led his family into a completely deserted desert which was used by the government for atomic weapons testing.
The son, influenced by his father's gun-toting antics, is portrayed as freaked out after finding one of his dogs guts ripped open and yet wanders off the main "camp site" alone, at night, without his gun.
The mentally deranged gas-station attendant has, gasp, almost no teeth and looks not at all affected by radiation poisoning like the others of his ilk do. Mr. gas-pump spends about 10 really dull minutes with the family pumping their vehicle with gasoline, and telling them exactly how to proceed to their destination. After an impromptu scene where he suspects they might find out he's a deranged gas-pump attendant with cannibalistic tendencies, he then proceeds to guide the family in the direct opposite direction. And Mr. private eye listens!
By the way, who delivers the gasoline to the gas-station in the middle of an area abandoned by and forbidden by the U.S. government? Who delivers the food and drinks to this diner in no man's land?
The nuclear coal-mining victims are portrayed as wild, mindless cannibals, yet know how to fire weapons, gut out dogs and outwit stupid families who listen to the gas-stop attendant who thankfully finally shoots his brains out almost half-way through the film.
The son-in-law is a peace loving democrat who sells cell phones and won't pick up a gun, but will venture out, at night, without a gun, to search for mr. private eye with mr. private eye's son.
Apparently, my suspension of disbelief failed me.