Reprehensible and abhorrently manipulative film-making

Rating: 2/10 (16 March 2006)

O.K. Three showers later and I'm in a state where I can analyze this gruesome, disgusting, piece of trash. If this movie hadn't had some scares and shock moments, I would have rated it even lower. Aside from a brutal first attack and clever decoy tactic using a horrific human barbecue (Does Ted Levine have to moan in every film?) it was predictable and formulaic.
This movie was very manipulative and over-done. A great filmmaker could get the point across simply by letting the narrative depict the horror of a helpless baby and a teenage girl being trapped inside a trailer with two savage mutated freaks. Here, we have very average filmmakers so they resort to actually showing the events transpiring within. And what are those events?
The two savage mutated freaks dry-hump and terrorize the girl and act threateningly towards the baby. OOOOOOOH! Excuse me while I'm not shocked. Lesson: Don't go through the motions of shocking us without any actual shock.
Let's be clear: Shock is distinct from repulsiveness: Putting a child in harm's way and having a mutated freak breast-feed off a lactating woman while aiming a revolver at a baby is lower than most would stoop. Yes it's repulsive, but so is watching someone take a crap on stage or lick up vomit. It's beneath Wes Craven.
Besides, everyone in the audience knew you wouldn't actually have the cajones to go through with the worst of it.
Few movies actually make me mad. I can usually stay casually detached and objectively observant without seeing through the tactics so clearly. This movie made me mad. It insulted my intelligence. I could see what the director was trying to do a mile away and it was frustrating to watch as the fuse was lit only to have the bomb go off too soon.
I liked the allusions to "Straw Dogs" with the broken glasses etc. The "Total-nerd-turned-scrappy-survivor" was a neat idea and the transformation was well handled.
It always strikes me as funny how expert killers turn all thumbs in climactic showdowns. David slays Goliath so often in these glorified B-pictures that the betting line in Vegas always favors the little guy.
A great horror movie will have three elements:
1. Good shocks and scare moments 2. an overall pervasive sense of dread 3. abstract conceptual terror
This movie had all three elements but none were executed deftly or properly fleshed out. The shocks did come but were routine (Uhhh, guys? The fast sillouette moving by the camera has been done about a million times before!) The sense of dread was palpable in the first act, with just enough friction in the family to make it seem realistic, but enough family chemistry to make you dread what was going to happen. The abstract conceptual terror was that of human evolution or mutation due to radioactivity, but it was a poor rationale for the events depicted in the film.