Resurrection County

You've already seen this film, probably more than once. Of course it had a number of other titles when you saw it before - Deliverance, The Hills Have Eyes, or maybe Wrong Turn.

Just in case you don't realise what I'm on about here's the basic summary. A group of city folk (two married couples in this case) head out into the great outdoors for what they expect will be an away-from-it, back-to-basic camping holiday. And guess what, right from their first encounter with the locals of Enoch, Resurrection County, things go wrong. Big surprise, huh?

But for all it's over familiar story this is a film that isn't all bad. It's very well directed, with a plot that picks up speed and intensity just as you'd want it to.

The acting is convincing, the "good guys" are played sympathetically and don't become annoying prior to your needing to root for them when the killing starts (as the hitchhikers in Hostel failed to do - I found myself siding with the torturers). But it's the actors playing the hick "bad guys" that truly shine.

They are essential one-dimensional, by-the-book portrayals of all the stereotypes of rural America. A community of xenophobic violent bigots who'd, you imagine, love nothing more than killing an outsider (oh, apart from maybe marrying first cousins and playing banjos on the front porch).

There are a good number of violent scares, some tension and a climax that actually manages to do something a little different (although only a little). Not bad, but don't go out of your way to see it.

Page updated 28 November, 2010