Directed By: Declan O’Brian
Starring: Tim Daly, Kevin Conroy, Clancy Brown
Wrong Turn wasn’t a great film but it developed a cult following due to Stan Winston’s makeup design and Eliza Dushku starring in the film. It had some great kills in it too if that’s your thing. Wrong Turn 2 was a complete surprise for one reason only; the movie was actually good. Henry Rollins made that film by just going over the top with it and having some fun. It was cool because the filmmakers tried to do something interesting with the low budget sequel. My hope was that the second film in the franchise was a trend setter and we were in for an innovative low budget horror series.
The Movie
With each of these films there has to be an excuse to get potential victims into the woods where the inbred mutants live. The mutants are cannibals so when fresh meat hits the woods they couldn’t be more excited. This time a local prison is set to transport a bus load of prisoners to another location. In order to avoid a prison break attempt the warden sends the bus on a path through the woods. Once there the mutants wreck the bus and the mayhem commences. The prisoners are forced to stick together because the key that unlocks the shackles attaching them to each other is nowhere to be found after the bus crash. While traveling through the woods the group meets up with one lone girl that survived an attack on her friends who were camping.
The sad part about this film is that there’s nothing unique about this story than has been portrayed in a hundred other low budget horror films. Add to that a layer of really bad acting and a transition of the mutants from edgy to almost clownish. One of them bounces around in the woods giggling like an inbred version of The Joker. Within the first few minutes of the episode the required topless scene is executed and then the cast is all male other than the one female making the ensemble come off a bit bland. The special FX are a mixed bag of cool and well not cool. The practical gore is quite fun while the CGI is just awful. I’ve seen better CGI in low budget Japanese horror flicks.
The best and worst thing I can say about this film is that it feels very generic. It’s exactly like every other low budget straight to video horror film you might grab off the shelf at a video store or from a genre list on Netflix for a weekend rent. If you’re look for a surprising low budget horror experience you will be disappointed with Wrong Turn 3 and if you’re looking for a T&A gorefest you’ll probably still be disappointed with it.
4/10
The Video
The HD 1080p video presentation here looks really good for a direct to video film. Colors are vibrant and detail is fairly high. There is a bit of grain, especially in darker scenes of course diminishing the level of detail in the image in those scenes as well. The film is low budget and you can definitely see that in this presentation but overall this is a solid HD presentation.
8/10
The Audio
The DTS HD 5.1 presentation here is basic even though it is HD audio and that’s more due to the budget of the film then the audio presentation. There’s some sub woofer use and a little bit of surround usage but the overall presentation feels uninspired. The dialogue, score, and sound fx are mixed clean and easy to hear, a solid basic presentation.
6/10
The Packaging and Bonus Features
The single blu-ray comes packaged in a standard blu-ray slim amaray case with artwork that fits stylistically with the previous two releases. The art actually does a good job of selling the film.
There’s a making of featurette on the disc broken into three parts that cover the director’s vision, special fx, and the cast experience. There’s some behind the scenes footage and cast and crew interviews to take us through the making of the film. These three featurettes border on marketing fluff but there’s still good information to be found within them.
Other than the featurette there are some deleted scenes. Where’s the trailer?
5/10
The first film featured a great cast and was fairly intense in places. Sure the story was color by numbers but the film had its merit. The second film was just nuts and a lot of fun along with a lot of gore. This third installment just feels as basic as the audio presentation. If you’re going to do the third installment in a franchise and your film is direct to DVD and low budget then why not take some chances and really bring some excitement to the franchise? It feels like the director doesn’t really care for the splatter house genre and unfortunately that’s the genre this franchise has existed in for the first two films. This third film is more interested in doing low budget action and we all know how that usually goes.
Overall (Not an average) 5/10
The Review
The Movie 4/10
The Video 8/10
The Audio 6/10
The Packaging and Bonus Features 5/10
Overall (Not an Average) 5/10