Worthy remake

Rating: 8/10 (18 October 2016)

A suburban family who are driving cross country run afoul of a savage mutant clan in the middle of a remote desert. Director Alexander Ahja, who also co-wrote the hard-hitting script with Gregory Levasseur, brings a fierce take-no-prisoners attitude to the harsh and gripping premise, makes fine use of the desolate desert wasteland location, generates plenty of tension, takes time to develop the characters, adeptly crafts a few eerie moments (the crater filled with abandoned automobiles and a ramshackle house that's littered with mannequins rate as especially striking and unsettling set pieces), and delivers a handy helping of unflinchingly graphic gore. The sound acting from the able cast further keeps this film on track: Aaron Stanford as the wimpy Doug, Kathleen Quinlan as the spunky Ethel, Vinessa Shaw as the sweet Lynn, Emilie de Ravin as the perky Brenda, Dan Byrd as the sullen Bobby, and Tom Bower as a grizzled gas station attendant. Moreover, the mutants are quite grotesque and frightening, with Billy Drago as vicious patriarch Papa Jupiter, Robert Joy as the brutish Lizard, and Michael Bailey Smith as hulking beast Pluto registering strongly as the definite scary stand-outs. The startling moments of go-for-the-throat unsparing violence pack a ferocious punch. Both Maxime Alexandre's sharp widescreen cinematography and the shivery score by tomandandy are up to speed. A nice'n'nasty surprise.