Detour

Cannibal Family, aged 6-60, seek bunch of annoying morons to meet in desert locale. Morons must be extremely smug, GSOH. Must be able to endear themselves to audience by doing impressions of deaf people. Applicants must be familiar with the plot of The Hills Have Eyes, but not the good parts. Note to applicants, mobile phone coverage limited, industry standard. Cannibals enjoy dining out al fresco, dancing and bad acting. Very little to offer by way of gore, cannibals will more than make up for it by way of annoying clichés and pulled punches. Cannibals enjoy little back story, romance and maybe more. Hotpants preferable. Serious applicants only.

N.B Applicants will suffer great tedium and perhaps career death.

Low budget or no budget horror flick that is so damn dumb you can't help yourself from watching. A grisly and gruesome fate is in store for a group of teen rebel-rousers in an RV borrowed without permission. The seven ravers find their partying days coming to an agonizing end when they turn off the highway in search of a secret cache of peyote hidden in the dessert. The scantly clad group still reeling from the rave the night before crash their RV and find themselves the targets of drug-addicted, bloodthirsty cannibals. Slash, chop and poke...blood drips, splatters and oozes. Most of the foul language comes from an obnoxious white boy gansta wannabee. Tight butt gripping shorts liven the dessert scenery and adds a little sex appeal other than some lesbian groping and horny, sizzling grinding on a hot rock.

This straight to video trip of violence and gore features: Aaron Buer, Kelsey Wedeen, Brent Taylor, Jessica Osfar and Renee Madison Cole.

While returning to Los Angeles in a trailer through the desert, the driver Neil (Brent Taylor) convinces his friends Tara (Ashley Elizabeth), Harmony (Danna Brady), Loopz (Aaron Buer), Michelle (Jessica Osfar), Lee (Ryan De Rouen) and Cashie (Kelsey Wedeen) to take a detour to an isolated mine where it could have a plantation of peyote. The owner of a gas station advises the group to not go to the place, but the stubborn Neil does not pay attention to his words. While driving in a secondary road, Neil sees a girl and wrecks the car in a rock. He decides to walk back to the gas station to call a tow truck, while Michelle and Lee climb a hill trying to get signal to their cell phones. Sooner the teenagers find that they are under siege of a group of sadistic deformed cannibals and they have to fight to survive.

"Detour" is a teen rip-off of "The Hills Have Eyes", using the same storyline but with many silly dialogs and situations. I like horror movies, and "Detour" is not among the worse that I have seen, having beautiful and sexy actresses and a good conclusion with the scary little girl in the best scene of the movie. Unfortunately the annoying character Loopz spoils what could be worthwhile in this movie, plagiarizing the way of speaking of Eminen and having imbecile lines and attitudes. In a certain moment I was so irritated with this actor that I almost stopped the DVD. The screenplay is very weak, without suspense or tension. If you have not seen this movie yet, better off watching "The Hills Have Eyes" instead. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Detour - Rota 666" ("Detour - Route 666")

Okay, yes, obviously this is a rip-off of "The Hills Have Eyes." Let's accept it and move on. Most movies these days are ripping off something else, and if the studios can get away with it, so can the indies. But this flick transcends the stigma of "low-budget-straight-to-video-horror-rip-off" for the simple reason that it is incredibly entertaining! Simply put, this is a fun movie to watch. It takes the hackneyed set-up of a bunch of kids taking a shortcut into cannibal mutant territory and delivers it in a fast, interesting, and completely watchable way. Besides the tacked-on opening, I have no gripes with this movie. The cast, the script, the direction, and even the cinematography are all above par, especially given all of our pre-conceived notions about this genre. From start to finish, it's a fun ride (and the Loopz character is a special treat). Plus, the DVD has some good bonus features (the commentary is great). Seriously, if you're a horror fan (especially of 80's slashers, which we all love to love I guess), you're not gonna go wrong with this one. Joe Bob would say check it out.

So as not to "spoil" anything, the plot is as follows: A group of young people get stranded in the middle of nowhere and trouble ensues.

This movie has a plethora of similarities to the recent remake of "The Hills Have Eyes". The only redeeming quality this movie has is a bevy of good looking 19 year-old girls. I'm a straight woman, yet even I couldn't tear my eyes away from the numerous shots of these tanned, leggy girls with their flat abs, perfectly round, er. curves, and cellulite-free thighs. It was like watching a Bally's Fitness commercial.

So much for the good.

Other than providing nothing new in the way of story or effects, the movie manages to annoy more than entertain, unless you want to watch it MST3K-style and mock it aloud in your living room with your friends over a case of beer (because that's about how much beer you'll need to numb the pain).

It's really hard to tell one gorgeous chick from the next, but there were some memorable male characters. Notice I said "memorable" -- not "good".

The first was the guy at the gas station. He looks strikingly like Hugh Laurie from the excellent Fox series, "House".

Amongst the youngsters in the doomed RV is a guy who was spawned from both Vanilla Ice and Eminem. The 2 minute joke of a pretty white boy talking like a gansta in the hood got old after...well, 2 minutes. Then it was just embarrassing. Although it's not the actor's fault, I want to blame him anyway. "Words" such as "yo", "aww-ite" and "dog" interspersed with the usual expletives went from satirical to just plain offensive.

I don't know the budget of either this film or "The Hills Have Eyes" (2006), but either could have been made for $3M or less. It would be amusing to watch them back to back so you can see the amazing similarities -- both have motor homes, both use unfamiliar faces, both have cunning and creepy foes, and both take place in the middle of nowhere.

This film was made several years before "Hills" and I never saw the original, so I cannot compare. But comparing to the remake of "Hills", there are myriad similarities but only one difference: One works and one doesn't. And "Detour" just doesn't work.

I gave it a 5/10 for the good-looking women.