Alexandre Aja's revisitation of
Wes Craven's 1977 original is true to its source, making the same basic social and political points with about as much subtlety. (In 1945, the U.S. military irradiated miners during atomic testing, and the victims' kin remained fond of eating people.) Most of the mutants are men, which explain their kids, including a little girl in a red hood. She provides an emotional and ethical counterpoint to her elders, though she's more mascot than complicated character.
The mutants descend on the hapless travelers in veritable droves. Aja and DP Maxime Alexandre's mobile, precise camerawork creates a perverse elegance, even as the film exploits ugliness and abuse. While Craven and his peers conjured nightmares in the wake of the Vietnam war, this new generation of slasher aficionados and makers is working amid mass mediated torture, war, and moral mayhem. No wonder their visions are bleak.