Chilean horror Sendero features plenty of brutality and graphic gore, but what it lacks is motivation for its sadistic characters: I can see what is happening, but I haven't got a clue WHY it's happening.

A group of youngsters on a trip to a farm are abducted en route and tortured by a perverted inbred family, who are collecting victims for the mysterious Mr. Gustavo, whose intentions are never clear. The victims are beaten and killed, but to what end? Writer/director Lucio A. Rojas clearly has an explanation in mind for all of the depravity, violence and general weirdness, but he never lets the viewer in in the secret, which makes for very frustrating viewing (some parts are obviously there just for shock value, such as the masturbation/buggery scene, but other elements need fleshing out, especially Juan's involvement in the deviancy).

While the film definitely delivers on the splatter, with hacked off fingers, hammer-smashed hands, severed limbs, and a face reduced to a pulp with a rock amongst the grisly treats on offer, on this occasion I felt like I needed just a bit more story to go with all of the gore.

4.5/10, rounded up to 5 for the bit where 'final girl' Ana (Andrea García-Huidobro) drives away unaware that her boyfriend Alfredo (Diego Casanueva) is chained to the back of the car.

Accepting a foreign-studies scholarship, a woman and her friends decide to take a road trip to celebrate the occasion but when they are caught by a deranged family of psychopaths interested in keeping them as pets for a ruthless criminal to play with as he pleases they try to gather the courage to escape the area alive.

On the whole, this was a pretty enjoyable effort. Among it's more noteworthy aspects is the strong setup that works nicely to get the group captured and caught since this occurs quite early on in the film. With the first sign of car trouble allowing the second instance to appear just as helpful and then turning it around immediately, there's a disorienting nature to the immediacy of them getting taken. The efficiency they accomplish it and have the group taken back to their house where they awake chained up or just held in various rooms of the dilapidated house where they have to confront the disturbed family in such a state is quite chilling with the way this sets everything in motion. Once trapped by the family, the film picks up considerably with its emphasis on the brutality and cruelty the family displays. Treating the butchery and carnage against not just them but the other remaining captives in their care as nothing out of the ordinary where they're free to sexually molest anyone they want when they want or play ruthless games of life-or-death with them adds a great amount of intrigue to what's about to happen to them. The psychological torment and toll this takes in their need to escape which has a lot to like as the scenes of realization that sink in once they realize the true nature of the games being played is quite enjoyable for how dark it goes. That said, there are a few minor issues with this one. One of the biggest problems is the strange relationship the group has while being captured, as they are clearly under the family's rule and torment but seem to have some liberties that they really shouldn't. The brothers can take the girls out of their rooms and walk with them along the property talking about the situation without any kind of fear displayed about being held captive, which is quite unrealistic and doesn't fit in with the type of storyline featured here. Rather than be ruthless and barbaric all the time towards which this shows they're capable of, these other scenes of humanity seem at odds with the rest of the film and stand out due to that. The other aspect to hold this back is a nonsensical and irritating finale that doesn't do this one any favors. The fact that they're able to get out of the area alive and free of their captors on several occasions only to get caught only through stupidity without being reprimanded to halt further attempts is ludicrous to think would play out in a normal scenario. On top of that, the confrontations with the mysterious stranger who has no bearing on the film until then, especially if all he does is stand around making threats without doing anything about it or explaining what's going on as the series of events on display are quite improbable and confusing to play out. It brings this down somewhat but not enough to fully knock this one out.

Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and sexual innuendo including the possibility of rape.

I guess every country has got their inbred countryside psychotics living off detour roads and kidnapping those who pry into their business. Well Chile gives it a shot in this strange, perverted, depraved and extremely violent rural indie horror.

It's nothing you haven't already seen before with the likes of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" & "Frontiere(s)". So it does the next best thing to combat the hackneyed structure. By upping the ante. After a slow set-up, it becomes alarmingly intense and kept it up til the pessimistic final frame. So before getting there, you get smashed heads, sexual deviancy, chopped off limbs, mental torture and gashing wounds. It's spiteful! The decent looking gore fx is virtually blood n' guts and well-delivered. Making sure that the atmosphere remains disturbingly bleak is the foreboding electronic score with it encroaching, uncanny sounds.

Where it got very perplexing though, was the reasoning behind their fiendish actions. As the captors are only the middle men/woman to something much bigger. There seems to be more to it with a mysterious stranger entering the scene. But the screenplay never really enlightens us on this figure. The local cast do a good job, especially those playing the demented family.