Over the years the US carried out many Nuclear tests on its own soil. These were usually in the desert and any residents were evicted long before the tests, but some refused to leave.

A family is travelling to the coast for a holiday. Much to the disgust of some of the group they are travelling in a caravan through the dirt roads of America. When they stop for gas, a less than savoury character serves them and gives them details of a shortcut.

The shortcut turns out to be a trap. With their tyres birst by a stinger (as used by police in high speed chases) they are marrooned (quite literally) in the middle of nowhere. The guys go looking for help but by nightfall they come to realise that they are not alone.

The dog was undoubtably one of the heroes of this film, as he took out more than his fair share of the mutants, probably as a revenge for what happened to the other dog.

There were scenes in this film where I wanted to leave and I'm not kidding. The initial onslaught on the visitors was shocking and horrible to put it mildly. The thing that made it most horrible wasn't the fact that they were mutants, so much as the human acts of evil that these people commit, things like rape and cold blooded murder.

The mutants blame the outside world for their condition, and they do have reason for this claim. However their revenge is not on those who caused their pain but its in lashing out on visitors. Granted they feed off of the visitors but their aggression is way beyond their need for food.

Thankfully though, there are moments that show that it is not all the mutants that act this way. The younger mutants, especially one girl, don't have that rage despite obviously having the same needs. The point is that its not the disaster that made them monsters, but the betrayal and their human nature.

see also:
Blade 2, Insidious, A history of Violence, Planet Terror

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