A good, gory retelling

Rating: 7/10 (10 March 2006)

Three generations of the Carter family - father Bob, mom Ethel and their kids, Brenda, Bobby, Lynne, Lynne's husband Doug and their baby Catherine - are driving across the New Mexico desert en route to San Diego. Looking to cut some time off of their drive they unwisely follow the directions given them by the slightly creepy gas station owner and head out onto a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Unbeknownst to the Carter's, another family lives in the high desert hills, a clan of irradiated mutant cannibals who set a clever trap for the Carter's. One minor car crash later, the Carter's are stranded in the middle of nowhere. Bob Sr. and Doug head off in opposite direction looking for help, leaving the women and children alone. When night falls, the cannibals descend upon the Carter's, raping, killing and stealing baby Catherine away. What's left of the Carter's must now become as savage as their tormentors if they want to survive and get the baby back.
This is a shockingly faithful remake in some ways and an entirely new story in others. Fans of the original film will be happy to see that the storyline does not deviate very far from Wes Craven's original tale, but fans of Aja will be quite pleased with the gratuitous gore on display as pick-axes, baseball bats and even po'd German shepherds are used as weapons. The film is very bloody and tense with a grim, filthy atmosphere; you can almost smell the rotting body parts. Everyone turns in great performances despite some moments of clunky dialog. The desolate scenery is a character all its own; hellishly hot and red, littered with vultures and crows.
My only major gripe with this film was that not a lot of time was spent with the cannibal family. They don't have a lot of dialog and what they do have isn't the greatest. The idea of Family Versus Family that was so prevalent in the original film is missing here, and instead it's Family Versus Monsters. Which is fine, but as a fan of the original, I really would have liked to see the mutants interact with each other more and been given a sense of their family dynamics. And Billy Drago, perhaps the most severely underrated actor of his time, has perhaps three minutes screen time total and one line of dialog despite the fact that his name is in the opening credits and he's playing Jupiter, the head of the mutant family. Will somebody PLEASE give Billy Drago some decent screen time for gods sake!
That said, I did enjoy this remake very much. It was impressively faithful, but it was also willing to present some new ideas. The script is idiotic in several places and there's some downright silly music towards films end, but these are perhaps petty gripes on my part. All in all, it's a fun two hours of blood, scares and horror. As far as remakes go, this is one of the better ones I've seen.
It may take place in 95 but this film feels very 70s-ish; gritty, brutal and nasty. Fans of the original will want to see it at least once, as will fans of films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Wrong Turn.
Pretty good.