The Carter family are driving through New Mexico when Dad (Levine) takes a shortcut across the desert. We know this is a bad idea, because the jittery garage attendant (Bower) who points out the route is clearly in league with a fiendish group of locals, mutants as a result of the area's nuclear testing history. Of course, the car breaks down. And now religious Mom (Quinlan), bickering teen siblings (de Raven and Byrd), new-mum sister (Shaw) and her city-slicker husband (Stanford) are facing horrifying marauders in the middle of nowhere.

Aja's genius is to subvert expectations by continually undermining the genre. We know what's probably going to happen, but it never goes down the well-worn route of countless horror movies. Instead, the plot is full of both intriguing character depth and scenes so surprising that we soon realise we can't predict anything. He also unnerves us with evocative images that draw on our own fears, from the sweltering, empty landscape to Cold War scare tactics (including an eerie recreation of Goldwater's infamous kid-on-a-swing ad).

The cast is terrific; each character is a living, breathing person, and that also goes for the mutants. We actually begin to understand them, which makes it that much more gripping when all hell breaks loose. Aja constantly isolates people from each other, tormenting and stretching them, and the actors catch this mood perfectly with a combination of desperation and strength that we have no trouble identifying with.

The cinematography and editing are so sharp that they catch every morsel of fear and emotion. While there's the whiff of a preachy moral, Aja resists sentimentality even when the baby's in jeopardy or when a thoughtful young misshapen girl (Ortiz) is on screen. Meanwhile, the violence is extremely grisly and unexpected; unlike most horror movies, death is actually tragic and sad. And nobody's safe. Including us.

themes, violence, language, grisliness

21.Feb.06