Cannibal mutant remake

Rating: 5/10 (18 September 2009)

Fairly faithful remake of Craven's Hill Billy seventies classic, a movie which I have never really gotten along with. Just as in the original, an unsuspecting family attempt to drive through the New Mexico Desert on their way to California when the 4x4 pulling their caravan has a blow out and they plow into a large rock. Was it just a freak accident, or did the mutant inhabitants of the hillsides set a trap to ensnare any unsuspecting travellers? As night falls and oddness ensues, it soon becomes clear that the mutated denizens of the valley are the result of nuclear experiments, the American government testing their hardware on a region supposedly uninhabited (this really happened, folks) who are now all too eager to chow down on warm, ripe, healthy flesh. This remake suffers much along the same lines as the original, with lots of running around, shrieking, wobbly camera syndrome, and not a whole lot of anything actually happening. Craven is on board once more, this time as producer, so there is some authenticity to proceedings - presumably the reason it is so faithful to the source material - but, given that the original movie isn't really up to snuff, the remake was only ever going to struggle. Average all round