Desert Mutant Horror

Rating: 8/10 (11 March 2006)

I just saw this movie today ... and it was really a fantastically good scary movie.
I haven't seen the Wes Craven version, but did read a movie review from yesterday (when it opened here) and it didn't begin to do the movie justice. The review then ... and several others I've seen since I got on IMDb tonite ... really emphasized blood and gore.
Well, there was plenty of blood, to be sure, but that really wasn't the driving horror of the movie. Fear of bloody death, plus mutants, plus barren desert isolation, plus an overall feeling of desolation and decay and dessication ... that's what really makes this a truly scary flick.
The cinematography was excellent, the use of darkness and glaring desert light, the washed out colors, the really wonderfully scary use of sound and music ... all worked together in the spirit of horror, horror, horror.
There was really plenty of artful misdirection and surprise and sort of moody unease much more like some of the unbloodier horror movies and the mix of the two very different approaches to horror to me work very, very well.
The scenes in the town were absolutely terrifying and horrifying throughout. I won't say anything else about that because I don't want to give anything away; but do want to say that the historical tie-in led me to do a Google search on that town, and sure enough, there was such a place. Whew! The acting and characterizations were entirely adequate to the purposes of the movie and the ending was satisfying.
All in all just a wonderfully scary, scary, horrifying adventure. Check it out!