AllMovie

Urban Legend director Jamie Blanks proves just as inept at aping the conventions of the survival horror subgenre as he was at aping the conventions of the teen slasher subgenre in this slow-burn shocker that pits a vacationing couple who become stranded at sea against a sadistic family of backwoods psychopaths. No one who's ever seen any of the countless thrillers in which "civilized" city-folk are forced to summon their inner savage in order to defeat a family of violent inbred hillbillies are likely to find much new or interesting here, and despite the fact that Blanks does manage to summon certain amount of scenic atmosphere as the vacationing couple drift about lazily at sea early on, it all just falls apart once they wander into the decrepit shack their tormentors call a home and fail to see the soiled sex-doll adorning the couch as a cue to beat a hasty retreat. Soon thereafter, when the polyurethane Romeos return swilling cheap liquor and commence to humiliating their captives at knife-point, Blanks begins to favor simple brutality over innovation or originality. And while the second-act appearance of the sadistic siblings' bug-eyed pops injects a much-needed jolt of energy into the proceedings as the bed-headed brute begins knocking his boys around like a drunken two-bit pugilist, the ridiculous traps set by the family's female captive are nothing less than laughable in both their set-up and their execution. The fact that the early scenes in which the stranded couple attempts to work their way through an increasingly grim situation may bode well for Blanks' 2008 remake of the 1978 man-versus-nature shocker Long Weekend, though the realization that virtually every one of his films to date has been a virtual remake of better and more effective frighteners that came before - and that Long Weekend will be his first official remake - sadly indicate that as a director he seems increasingly content to coast on the ideas of other, more inspired filmmakers.