Aww...how cute. They almost made it work.

Rating: 2/10 (19 March 2006)

The film makers obviously couldn't make up their mind about what type of film they wanted to make. Was it a political statement against nuclear testing? A sentimental film about family dynamics? A disturbing drama to leave audiences feeling ashamed about humanity? Or a gore-tastic, cheap effects, let's see how many teenagers we can get to jump at the same time horror film? They alternated between these four dramas, with a brilliantly ironic opening credits motif involving cheery fifties country music and shots of explosions and deformed babies, an almost romantic scene between a teenage mutant and the main family's teenage son, an almost tear-jerking scene where the son-in-law finds his wife's mutilated body, and a ten or so minute long sequence in which the father is slowly burned to death.
Quite frankly, however, I felt more disturbed than scared of this movie. The "villains" are people- deformed, yes, but still people. Any politically correct movie viewer would know not to fear these people appearance wise- after all, they were deformed by man's inhumanity towards man. And they fall into the same category as Barbosa's crew in Pirates of the Caribbean or Saruman's Uruk Hai in Lord Of The Rings- while they might be scary initially, enough contact with them, and you'll be willing to put aside any fears you have of their appearance. The difference between this movie and POTC or LOTR? POTC and LOTR weren't interested in cheap effects or gore as an art form- the magic in those movies came from other sources. And while I was less disturbed by the mutilated dog than I would have been in the past- let's face it, the dogs always die first in these movies- there's just something infinitely creepy about knocking off a mother, a father, and a mother of an infant in the first batch of human suffering, and then taking the baby to be killed later.
As for the survivors? They were as pedestrian as possible, and, quite frankly, the only ones I wanted to die from the beginning.
The scares were fairly predictable. Woosh! A raven jumping off of a car, combined with loud music! Ah! The crowd goes wild. Oh no! Teenage mutant cannibal running around camera! And she's the good one- so why is she the only one who really gets to do that? And, as I said before, yes, the dog does die first.
But seriously. If they had concentrated on the political angle, this could have been a deeply disturbing movie with a lasting impression. But no...they had to attempt to make a cheap slasher film with as much gore as possible. I left the theater feeling sick, the only shakiness in my body coming from nausea. And I thought Sin City was pathetic.