W. Doug Bolden

Review

The desert is the best thing about this movie, hands down. Its the best overall reason to watch it. Outside of the desert, you have an action movie tossing gore in so that it becomes a horror movie but it forgets that horror movies are supposed to be scary not just gory and brutal.

I think the biggest mistake this movie makes is that it relies on things (horrific slaughter of animals, being burned alive, rape, mutated children, losing a child, etc) that we have pre-ordained ideas of and does not significantly weave them together to generate an honest sense of dread. In some ways, dropping horror altogether would have served this movie well. Instead, they could have made it a survival flick with a twist. It could have original, in other words, instead of a standard "family on road trip doesn't make it".

There are some scenes I really like. I like the scene with the craters, when you realize that no matter what, this family has been baked. I like the scenes with Ruby. I, umm....guess I like the scenes with Beast (the dog).

For the most part, the movie just blends together in one long series of watching a family get shat upon. It never takes that one final step to being truly horrific, and it does not pull back into slightly more sane territories. Mediocre film that is good to watch with buddies or as background noise, but not something I can watch too many times.

My score: 49.