All out, excess horror, Friday night frightfest

Rating: 8/10 (3 March 2014)

If you're gonna remake something, this is how you should do it, to excess. This remake shocker, I've been witness to seeing girls dragging their boyfriends out of the cinema, or hearsay as well, really shocks with more violent than violent violence, glorified here you could say, as this film goes all out. It's disturbs some, especially a 'going too far prolonged scene' with one mutant raping the hot daughter of a family who should of stuck to the main road. You can thank Levine for that, and all the violence he's brought with em'. You can't say he wasn't warned. The mutants who we first see in some great flashes of face, and disappearing shadow shots, stayed to live out on the canyons. They were once human, but thanks to good old radioactivity, plutonium, bomb testing, they are now ravaged and rampant, spouting angrily "You made us this way", and the way Levine and family takes, definitely the wrong way. Violence is high, continuous, some of it too confronting for some. We even see a mutant, the same who raped the daughter (a familiar more human face, from Land Of The Dead) bite a parrot's head off and suck out the yellow blood, whatever. Even for horror fans, some scenes are pretty heavy and will disturb, one scene near the end that will shock and having you say "Oh no", where later initial shock becomes a surprise and relief. Working from the Wes Craven film, that stacks up pretty ordinary compared to this, Aja, is definitely a new directing talent. As not only bringing this successful remake to the table, with all the trimmings, take no prisoners approach, he also brought out the superior horror indie flick 'High Tension', a year prior, when he eventually sank to indulging in Piranha. Nice character work, from the pen of the writer, and good performances, especially from the olds. We really get to know the family, some not as long as we like too, but true horror fans will eat up this 2006 flick, and the daughter (an actress from Oz) sunbaking, light blue bikini, out there in the canyons, I don't think I mentioned, is hot.