Directed by John Gulager

Starring Balthazar Getty, Navi Rawat and Henry Rollins

The occupants of a rundown bar in the middle of a desert have their buzzes ruined by monsters who want nothing more than to tear them apart limb from limb and have a human smorgasbord.

Review

It’s a typical night at the bar until a man covered in blood shows up to give everyone the bad news: there are some nasty monsters on the way and hes the guy who’s going to save them.  Until two minutes later when they tear his head off.  Its up to his wife and the rest of the barflies to fend off the creatures and try to survive.

The film sets the stone early on that the only thing it’ll take seriously is the level of gore it maintains which is quite high.  If you’re in the mood for a gorefest, this is what you’re looking for.  torn off limbs, decaps, eyeballs plucked out, faces torn off, etc.  While the movie does have a few scenes to build tension, it mostly comes at you fast and hard with the incredibly bloody effects.

My what big teeth you have.

With tongue planted firmly in cheek, the other thing the movie has in abundance is dark humour, though that’s the biggest problem with the movie, it’s not as funny as it thinks it is.  The movie opens with title cards for all the characters and gives a few funny facts as well as the odds of survival for each person.  These can’t be trusted since the first guy killed was labeled “hero.”  If anything is really funny in the movie, the best you’ll get is a chuckle.  At worst you’ll roll your eyes at the ridiculous actions by some of the cast which usually leads into another bloody scene.

Most of the cast play fairly standard horror tropes though there’s a few new ones including an inspirational speaker played by Henry Rollins.  Not that his fate is any different from most of the others, he gets it just as bad as anyone else.  Most of the good guys get killed off earlier on and the assholes and jerks survive longer than most.  It’s a different twist, killing off heroes when you don’t expect it, but sometimes its hard to root for the bad guy if they’re unlikeable pricks which some of these people are.

I’d feel bad for him if he weren’t such an idiot.

Not much information is given on the creatures, they’re mostly hidden throughout the movie and attack via the windows for a jump scare.  They’re incredibly odd creatures in that they can procreate within minutes and replace any others that get killed off by the survivors.  Because the movie wants to provide a little humour we have to witness the act of them making the baby.  It’s a little odd but in another odd scene, one of the smaller creatures orally forces itself onto one of the female characters finishing with an actual money shot in order to push the “unrated” aspect of the film.

Overall, it’s very reminiscent of films such as Evil Dead, Assault on Precinct 13, and the second half of From Dusk Till Dawn.  It’s a balls to the walls, gory romp that, while not always that funny, will keep you entertained with it’s sudden twists and turns in the story until the big finale.

TL;DR

Story: 6 – Not really the first time people barricade themselves against hideous creatures, but it’s different enough to be a rip off of those other films.

Blood: 9 – High body count with all sorts of different ways to dismember humans and monsters alike.

Nudity: 1 – Two words: monster wiener.

Overall: 6 – Come for the gore and…well, might as well stay for it too.

Trivia

-The movie was originally developed through Project Greenlight, a television program from Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to give low budget filmmakers a shot at making their movie.

-Spawned two sequels.

-Jason Mewes and Eric Dane have small, memorable, cameos.