A prison bus
full of convicts are run off the road by a mysterious pick-up truck, causing them to crash just off a remote
mountain highway. The prisoners waste no time in overpowering the guards and grabbing their guns, but they
soon find out the people in the truck were not trying to help them break out.
As the prisoners head off into the woods in their bid for freedom, with their former guards, now held captive, in tow. They find the forest laden with all manner of elaborate traps, which they randomly manage to stumble into, as well as finding themselves being picked off by a mysterious hillbilly character, who keeps popping up periodically, and is a crack-shot with a bow and arrow.
Stumbling about in the dark trying to make it to the next town, where they hope they can make a break for it from there, they come across a lone backpacker named Alex (Janet Montgomery) who's been hiding in the woods for days and claims that she's being stalked by mutant, retarded, inbred hillbillies who've already butchered her friends.
Yes it seems our cannibalistic colleagues from the previous films are up to their old tricks again, and they intend to use the convicts to stock up their pantry with. But one of them, a hardened criminal named Chavez (Tamer Hassan), has other ideas and is determined not to let anything stand in the way of his freedom, and as the convicts and hillbillies face off, things prepare to get bloody!
A bit of a bizarre cross between "The Fugitive" and "The Hills Have Eyes", obviously there was no way that this was going to be better than the original, but I was pleasantly surprised at just how well this turned out (though admittedly, I had fairly low expectations). The plot, having hardened convicts fighting off the hillbillies, did at least have the virtue of never having been done before (that I know of anyway) and made a refreshing change from just watching annoying teens getting carved up.
A decent enough popcorn film. If you enjoy backwoods slasher films, give it a go.
