(18, 107mins) Ted Levine, Kathleen Quinlan, Vinessa Shaw, Aaron Stanford, Dan Byrd, Emilie de Ravin, Tom Bower. Directed by Alexandre Aja

French filmmaker Alexandre Aja, writer-director of the gut-wrenching Haute Tension (Switchblade Romance), is an inspired choice to helm this remake of Wes Craven's 1977 cult classic.

Abiding by the spirit of the low budget original, Aja and co-writer Gregory Levasseur bring this twisted tale of carnage into the 21st Century with enough shocks to satisfy even the most hardcore horror fan.

The production values of the remake are certainly higher (Craven made his film with 15 crew members for the meagre sum of $325,000), but the blood and entrails spilleth over.

The film sets out its bloodthirsty intentions from the opening scene, with scientists in biohazard suits walking around the barren landscape of New Mexico, armed with Geiger counters.

Within minutes, the carnage begins as a man is harpooned by a pickaxe, flung about like a doll and then smashed to a pulp.

Bullish Cleveland police detective "Big Bob" Carter (Levine) and his wife Ethel (Quinlan), are celebrating their wedding anniversary by driving to California, with their children in tow.

Following an ill-fated encounter with a creepy gas station attendant (Bower), the Carters inadvertently stray into a secret government testing area.

Stranded in a wasteland where atomic experiments have transformed the locals into bloodthirsty mutants, they find themselves trapped in a nightmarish fight for survival, using all of their strength and ingenuity to avoid a grisly end. Some hope.

Aja sustains the tension masterfully, never skimping on the gore, so that we're uncertain to the closing frame if any of the Carter clan will escape the desert in one piece.

A tour de force sequence, in which two of the deformed desert dwellers creep into the family's mobile home at night, is brilliantly orchestrated, while the final act, in which one of the family members suddenly metamorphoses into Rambo, teeters precariously on the verge of camp.

This is an enjoyable if gruelling experience, not for the faint of heart.