Quite Possibly the most Mind-Numbing Movie I've ever Seen

Rating: 1/10 (12 March 2006)

Another remake, another waste of everyone's time. Hollywood has become a thrift store for tired plots. Take this garbage movie for example: A family takes a road trip. Guess what happens next? The car breaks down! Guess what happens next? Psycho mutants pick off family members one by one. Guess what happens next? A main character emerges from among the survivors and proceeds to decimate the mutants in ludicrous fashion. It's like The Evil Dead meets an even crappier version of The Evil Dead with mutants modeled after that ugly fellow from The Goonies.
Lame.
And now, here's everything I hated about the movie's premise. First of all, why is it that Hollywood believes that radiation makes you some sort of super mutant? Shouldn't the victims just get cancer or radiation sickness? But the baddies in this film weren't merely free of such maladies; they were, in fact, enhanced with physical strength and apparent resistance to shot gun blasts, 80 foot falls, and pick axes to the lungs. Second, even if radiation could give you super powers, what about radiation provokes a primal urge to kill normal-looking people--and only normal-looking people? Why didn't these rabid uglies ever turn on each other? Does radiation poisoning lead to strong communal bonds or something? Third, if the mutants have not been eating each other and only been dining on unsuspecting vacationers, then are we to assume that they've been eating an entire family of "normals" each month since the fifties? AND, they've been reproducing--instead of having been left sterile? Fourth, Doug and Bob abandon their defenseless family to seek out help--and Doug's instructions are to just wander aimlessly until he stumbles upon someone able to provide assistance. Like someone who has a gun, perhaps. Like Bob, who just goes of by himself like the macho lone wolf no one needs in this predicament.
By the way, only Republicans can use guns, apparently. Thanks for the political commentary, Hills Have Eyes.
Unredeemable characters making unredeemable decisions. The most respectable protagonist was the dog.
Taking a cue from the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Wolf Creek, and The Devil's Rejects, the monsters were--surprise--rednecks. What is this trope? Do people in Hollywood think country people are frightening? Granted, rednecks irritate me just as much as the next guy, but I'm tired of seeing these cousin-diddlers in every single horror flick committed to film these days.
This movie was God-awful. I went to see it in hopes it would at least be enjoyable in the "it's so bad it's funny" sorry of way, but I was just left with deep regret and self-loathing.