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2003. Dir: Rob Schmidt. With: Desmond Harrington, Eliza Dushku, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Jeremy Sisto.

We’ve been here before, in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes, and even closer, Deliverance. (Deliverance even gets a name check - signpost it why don’t you guys!) Having said that, I really enjoyed this movie, and it is scary, and gets you hooked and shouting to the good guys to get the hell out before the bad guys getcha!

It begins with a couple out mountain climbing in the middle of nowhere, like you do! They are both picked off by an unseen assailant before you can say: ‘ Watch out there’s an inbred redneck coming at ya!‘

Now we cut to Chris (Desmond Harrington), a doctor who is driving through West Virginia on his way to Raleigh for a job interview. When he gets in a traffic jam, he doubles back and takes a dirt road, which looks like it might be a short cut that makes its way around the traffic. Chris decides to phone to let the interviewers know he’ll be late, but his cell phone won’t work. He comes across a rundown gas station run by a strange one-toothed attendant (oh those sinister one-toothed attendants - bound to be inbred!) Hasn’t he watched Chainsaw Massacre? (Well the director has, so don’t worry!) The phone doesn’t work but Chris sees a map pinned to the side of the gas station and spots a dotted line that leads back to the highway.

He takes the road, like you would! While driving along it, he is distracted by a dead deer and ends up crashing into someone’s vehicle parked in the middle of the road. The owners, a bunch of friends - hey isn’t that Faith from Buffy? - Jessie (Eliza Dushku), Scott (Jeremy Sisto) his fiancée Carly (Emmanuelle Chriqui), Evan (Kevin Zegers) and his girlfriend Francine (Lindy Booth). Chris wonders why they were so stupid as to be parked in the middle of the road, but then they show him the string of barbwire that was placed across the road, which blew out their tyres.

They decide to trek through the woods to get help, and like is the case in these kinds of movies, they leave behind two of their number, Evan and Francine to get slaughtered. While the others are away they smoke a joint and “fool” around (those crazy kids!) before meeting their ends.

Chris, Jessie, Scott, and Carly make their way through the woods and discover a rundown house. Carly desperately needs to use the bathroom (I guess she can’t go behind any of the millions of trees and bushes that surround them, uh?) They also - dumbly - think they might find a phone (no phone wire though kids!) so they go inside. There’s no one home (they’re out killing the two friends they left behind!) but they discover human organs and bits and pieces in jars (yikes - scram!)

Unfortunately, these dumb kids don’t realise that this just might be the home of the local inbred, one toothed, psycho rednecks, and before they actually do realise this, those very same psychos have pulled up outside in their truck.

Let’s introduce you to the family, well there’s, Three Finger (Julian Richings), Saw-Tooth (Garry Robbins), and One-Eye (Ted Clark), and they bring another dead body with them for dismemberment and to pickle in jars, the kids’ friend, Francine! Does this remind anyone of the story of the three bears? Just wondering!

The guys hide from the terrifying trio, until they go to sleep. Once asleep those crazy kids sneak out, and spend the rest of the day, night, and following day trying to get away from them, dodging arrows (well some are not so lucky as to dodge them - namely Scott!)

The other three make it to a tower, and try to radio for help, but those inventive rednecks set fire to the tower. The kids then leap for their lives and manage to get to the safety of a pine tree. Of course you know that Carly will be next to face the chop (literally!) We know this because she’s not one of the main characters!

And don’t you just know that Jessie is going to get herself captured by the inbreeds and be taken back to their home and tied up, and then Chris have to rescue her like a knight in shining armour? Don’t you? Well I’m not telling, but you can see most of the plot to this coming a mile off, and it seems to move in and out of other movies all the time. It’s even a bit like The Cars That Ate Paris, if you think about it? Nevertheless enjoyable and worth seeing (you can play the “spot-the-movie-it‘s-imitating-now” game!)