October 22, 2009

Okay, somebody needs to put some road signs up in West Virginia or at least stock the map dispenser at the state line visitor’s center. There are just way too many people getting lost and subsequently eaten in this state – so many that they managed to make a third sequel to the Wrong Turn saga.

Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead is the second straight-to-video sequel in this brutal horror franchise that revisits the desolate wilderness of West Virginia (actually Bulgaria) and the cannibalistic inbred mutants that reside within. You'd think that word of mouth would have started to spread about this place after the first two films but apparently only the sheriff has any idea of what might be going on deep in the woods, and he’s not talking, not to his hot deputy and certainly not to his friend, Nate (Tom Frederic), who grew up in the region but has no idea that mutants exist or are feeding on careless travelers.

It just so happens that Nate is a guard at the penitentiary and has been chosen to drive a select few prisoners to another prison in a late-night surprise transfer to avoid any possible escape attempt. And what an eclectic roster of fresh meat we have – the Nazi skinhead, the Mexican gang boss, a loudmouth car thief, and an army vet who accidentally killed somebody in a bar fight, plus the sleeper agent who is trying to get information from the Mexican. Hey! It’s Con Air only with a bus and hillbilly mutants.

But even before we get introduced to the primary dinner selections the movie starts off just like the first two, with a stunning flyover showcasing the mountains, the woods, and a rocky whitewater river with two inflatable rafts carrying our first victims. Upon beaching their boats the boys head into the woods to gather firewood while the girls decide to strip down and get some sun. One guy returns prompting the cute innocent girl to leave so her overly endowed friend can straddle her boyfriend, but before they can even get started an arrow shoots through her body, out her breast and through the hand of her boyfriend who was groping her at the time. As they roll around screaming a second arrow flies through her skull, popping out and skewering her eyeball, which our mutant archer quickly pops into his mouth like a rare delicacy. Mmmm...

Meanwhile, the other guy is getting the egg-slicer treatment - sliced into three equal vertical parts (take that Kimberly Caldwell from Wrong Turn 2 who only got split in two), in one of the cheesiest visual composite shots in the film. It’s so fake it’s funny. Flash ahead to the aforementioned prison stuff complete with “wrong turn” onto a dark and lonely road, and a mutant hillbilly in a tow truck shreds the prison bus tires with razor wire sending it over the hillside to explode, but not before the prisoners and the guards escape.

Knowing that Nate is from around these parts he is forced to guide the prisoners to safety, or at least to the ranger tower where they can use the radio, but fans of the series already know this tower was burned down in the first film. So Nate decides to lead them around the woods in a circle until sunrise and the authorities start to look for them, but hungry cannibals have other plans. The plot thickens (if that is even possible) when they stumble upon an abandoned armored car loaded with cash, and the cute innocent girl from the beginning joins the party.

Armed with a shotgun, a few handguns, and plenty of harsh language, our cons put up a valiant fight, but killing and decapitating one of the young boy mutants only serves to unleash a new rage on papa mutant who finds all sorts of grisly ways to dispatch these cons like encasing them in a web of razor wire or slicing off a face with a guillotine blade swinging from a tree. The fact that everyone is shackled together makes things even more interesting.

Filmmaking: 4
Wrong Turn 3, like most sequels, is a movie that was neither necessary or even expected by fans of the first two. The whole hillbilly cannibal thing has kind of run its course, and the fact that this movie features fewer mutants than either of the first two films detracts from the variety of killers or any sense of that family unit we got in part 2. Instead, we get Three-Fingers, the grand pappy who seems to keep surviving these movies to reappear in the next. Who knows where the kid-mutant came from unless that was the infant from Wrong Turn 2 grown up. It’s just a poorly conceived plot that pits stereotypical cons against a single mutant hell-bent on revenge...or a midnight snack.

Visuals: 6
Wrong Turn 3 continues the tradition of merely passable visuals with this latest 1080p/AVC transfer. This third installment was shot on film, which would normally mean a significant improvement from the shot-on-video second installment, but since Left for Dead takes place almost entirely at night expect lots of grain, lousy contrast levels, and blacks that look more like grays thanks to frequent use of that "moonlight spot". The opening scene on the river is excellent with rich colors and sharp visuals, but once we get to the prison sequence and into the nighttime second and third acts the visuals fall apart. The green screen shots for driving in the bus and the tow truck were painfully obvious, and even the blood and splatter effects sink to new lows with two CG slice and dice sequences that are laughably bad. I did like the razor web effect - very painful.

Sound: 6
The DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix for Left for Dead isn’t nearly as dynamic as the original film, but pretty much identical in scope and presence as the second. My subwoofer got a minor workout when the bus crashed down the hillside and exploded. The twang of the bow and hiss of arrows across the side channels followed by the thud of impact was about the only impressive part of the mix. Dialogue was nicely balanced and the generic horror score punched up the emotional level of the experience as best it could.

Value: 2
No need to worry about having to re-watch this movie one or more times. Director, Declan O’Brien couldn’t be bothered to discuss this film for the entire runtime. Instead, you can hear his comments in a 3-part feature that covers the action scenes, the actors, and some fight choreography. The whole thing totals up to about 18 minutes and then you have two deleted scenes that really aren’t worth your time or the space they occupy on the disc.

Overall: 5.0
Sequels tend to dilute the source material the higher their number. Much like Friday the 13th, I found the second installment the best in the franchise, and assuming Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead marks the end of this franchise (as we can only hope it does), I can say the same here. The first movie was fun and original and a nice throwback to classic horror. The second film mixed things up with a cool reality show premise and an insightful look at the mutants, but this third film seems like a hastily made (shot in 24 days) knockoff to milk the consumers of their Halloween movie cash. If you can’t get enough of mutant hillbillies eating wayward travelers then give this a rental, but I can’t seriously recommend spending any real money or wasting shelf space making this a permanent addition to your collection.