Written by Old Bluffer 30th Jul 2007

In the climax of the film, Mars is the only mutant left, but he is still hell-bent on reclaiming the baby that he stole, and which he intends to eat with his family (he doesn't know that his father and remaining brother are dead by this point).

The baby in question has actually been rescued by Mars' sister, Ruby, and she returns it back to its frantic father, Doug Wood (who looks uncannily like the bass player from "Spinal Tap"). Doug realises that none of them will be safe with Mars still chasing them though, so gives his child back to Ruby and turns back to face Mars man-to-mutant. This is a reasonably brave act, although if we take a moment to evaluate the outcome, we'd have to bet against Mars, even though he is armed with a dagger. The reason is that he already has a nasty leg wound from where Doug's wife stabbed him, and on rocky terrain this is going to be a major disadvantage.

Sure enough, Doug ambushes him and knocks him down a steep slope, where he tumbles for quite some distance. Doug then maintains a height advantage, and scuttles away, forcing Mars to limp up after him. Doug's next move shows he was probably a pretty good baseball pitcher in his day, as he hurls a satisfyingly weighty stone at the mutant's skull, sending him crashing to the dust yet again.

It is at this point that Doug's tactical brain deserts him, as instead of just repeating this move a few more times, he runs off and hides in a cave, dangerously near to where Ruby is hiding herself with his baby. There is no reason to do this, save to eke out a bit more dramatic tension (and increase the MDDB category count!).

Doug should definitely be in trouble now, as he's trapped himself in a narrow ravine, which also happens to be inhabited by a rattlesnake (yes, this will be used in a minute). However, Ruby arrives to slap Mars around a bit, which angers him so much he turns round and chases her instead of moving in to gut Doug.

At this point the baby starts crying, making Mars forget everything and go looking for his dinner again. This allows Doug to easily run up behind the limping monster and manhandle him to the ground. He does this before disarming him, so is soon in the clichéd muscles-bunched-to-stop-knife-inches-from-throat position. Ruby once again saves him, by picking up the rattle snake from the previous location and pressing its fangs onto Mars' neck. The pain from the bite causes him to drop his knife and roll onto the floor, where he is clearly about to die of his own accord.

Doug isn't satisfied with this by any means, and picks up the oversized blade and plunges it into Mars' chest - not once, twice or even three times. No, Doug is most definitely pi**ed off and stabs him a whopping nine times. As Ruby looks on in grief (Mars was her brother after all) Doug then gives him one last savage kick for good measure, and the film fades out... (to red, obviously).

Editor Note: As you can see, this scene demonstrates the "media student" premise of the film - that violence begets violence. Maybe I'm just desensitized though, but I didn't really find it shocking because of the simple fact that the mutants he killed were all sadistic scum with no redeeming features. Now if he'd killed Ruby as well, it would have been more effective...

By the way, there are a whole bunch of categories for this scene, which normally means it would score quite highly, but really each icon is earned in a very ordinary manner. Film makers take note - sheer quantity of icons does not a good death necessarily make!