Seeing as how I loved the remake, I decided to give the original a go, and it was kind of good.
The setup is pretty much exactly the same, with a family from Cleveland heading to LA and getting lost somewhere in the dessert with their station wagon and RV. I really liked the family in this one, especially the younger brother who's sort of the focus. The buildup is excellently done and almost verbatim to the remake, or the remake is verbatim to this, whatever.
The horror is setup nicely through the first 40 minutes as it has an ambiance that the remake really didn't have. The problem comes once the action kicks in, as the hill people in this one are more less hairy Indian folk who we're told are sort of mutants, but really just look kind of silly and not all that menacing.
The attack on the family is still violent, although despite another mutant rape, it really isn't shown and thus the sexual undertones aren't there.
Once it becomes a battle of the remaining family against the hill people, it's sort of not as much fun. They're just running around on rocks having bad fight scenes. And the god damned dogs are annoying as shit, running away, coming back, barking all the fucking time.
So in summation, the setup in the first one is better due to the film making, but the payoff is nowhere near as good due to the non balls to the wall nature. So there.
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