- Directed by Wes Craven
- Written by Wes Craven
- Stars Susan Lanier, Robert Houston, John Steadman
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzLfsql1Yvc
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
No matter how messed up you think your family is, they probably aren’t as bad as these folks who live in the hills. When another family traveling through gains their attention, a battle ensues, and it’s ugly. Still, it’s a pretty good movie that has held up well.
Synopsis
We open at a gas station in the desert. Fred accuses Ruby of her family robbing a military PX. He says he doesn’t have anything left to trade them, no food. Ruby asks to leave with him. He asks if Jupiter or the rest of the pack knows that she wants out.
A family stops by for gas with their camper. Big Bob is a retired detective, and his wife wants to see the old shut-down silver mine. Fred warns them not to go that way; they need to get back on the main road.
Suddenly, Fred’s truck explodes, and he pulls out his pistol. “There’ll be hell to pay now.” We hear Pluto call his mother and ask about a car with a camper heading their way. They pass a sign saying they’re in a military testing area. Big Bob drives too fast and runs off the road.
Big Bob blames his wife’s map reading for their accident. They all get out and talk for a bit, but we can see that they’re being watched from afar. Their axle is broken, so they’ll have to walk to civilization. Both Big Bob and Bobby have guns, and they have two big German Shepherds, so they aren’t afraid of wildlife.
The family split up. Big Bob heads back the way they came, and Doug heads further on down the road. The women-folk remain behind with Bobby as a guard.
Beauty, the dog, runs off with Bobby in pursuit. The dog vanishes with a squeal, and Bobby runs in terror of whatever did it, falling down the rocky hill.
Lynne gets on the CB and calls for help, but she only gets heavy breathing as a response. Brenda takes the other dog, Beast, out looking for Bobby after nightfall. She finds Bobby, and they go back to camp.
Big Bob does make it back to Fred’s place and picks up the phone, but it immediately goes dead. He catches Fred trying to kill himself, but Fred says Bob’s family is in great danger. Fred talks about his mutant son, who came out so big that he tore his mother in half. He abandoned his son out in the desert years ago. His son raised devil-mutant children of his own—there’s a whole mutant family out there now.
Out of the blue, a wild man grabs Fred, pulls him out the window, and beats him to death with a tire iron. Big Bob starts running and gets chest pains. “Papa Jupiter” catches him before he can die—he stuffs a cactus in Bob’s mouth and pounds it in with a rock.
Doug returns, loaded with junk, and Bobby doesn’t tell him what happened to the dogs. Doug couldn’t find people, as the road simply ended, so he came back.
Back at the family camper, the second dog vanishes. Ruby and Mama hear Beast howling in the night; they’re eating what’s left of Beauty.
As Lynne and Doug have sex in the station wagon, Pluto siphons off all their gasoline. Bobby gets locked out of the camper, while Pluto is locked inside with the women, who are all asleep. He steals all their food and weapons.
Bobby finally tells Doug and Lynne what happened to Beauty. Suddenly, there’s an explosion, and they hear Big Bob screaming in pain. Mars and Pluto go into the camper to play with Brenda as the others run to rescue Big Bob. Mars eats the family parakeets and then fights with Pluto over the girl. Mars wins; Brenda loses.
Big Bob is dying, and wife Ethel is completely hysterical. Doug tends to Bob while Bobby storms off, “I’m gonna get those bastards!”
The women charge into the camper. Pluto runs off, Mars shoots Ethel, Lynne stabs Mars, and everybody screams. Pluto comes back and steals the baby. When things calm down, Lynne is dead, and Ethel is a mess. The baby is still missing, so Doug runs off after the bandits, completely unarmed. He doesn’t find anything and goes back to the camper.
Pluto and Mars call Mercury on the radio, and he says he wants to eat the baby’s toes. He’s not joking. Beast, the dog, who is not dead, pushes Mercury off a cliff and steals his radio. He takes it to Doug.
Mama and Jupiter are thrilled with the new baby. Ruby likes it, too. Jupiter gets after Mars for not killing everyone. He then yells at what’s left of Big Bob’s corpse for entirely too long.
Morning comes. Ethel’s dead, and Brenda’s still crying. Doug and Beast are out looking for mutants. Beast mauls Pluto’s foot, so Jupiter orders Mars to kill the baby, but Ruby has run off with it. She gives the baby to Doug, and they both run off together.
Back at the camper, Bobby and Brenda carry Ethel’s body way out into the countryside and sit it in a chair.
Beast returns and finishes off Pluto while a wounded Mars chases Ruby and Doug up the mountain. Mars jumps on Doug, but Ruby catches a rattlesnake and uses it to bite Mars; Doug finishes him off with the knife.
Jupiter investigates the dead woman as Brenda and Bobby spring their trap, reeling him in like a big fish, but that just makes him mad. They set up another trap, filling the camper up with propane gas and booby-trapping the door. BOOOM! That still doesn’t kill him, but between Brenda’s ax and Bobby’s postil, they finish him off.
Bobby, Brenda, Doug, Baby Katie, Beast the Dog, and Ruby all walk to safety.
Commentary
The guys probably could have mounted a reasonable defense if Brenda had just stopped screaming for two minutes and let them think.
This was pretty brutal for the seventies, but there’s still surprisingly little gore. It spawned numerous sequels and remakes, none of which were as good as this one.
It’s good!