Why film studios continue to make sub-par horror films is beyond me. Why these same studios continue to make even worse direct-to-DVD sequels to said sub-par horror films escapes me completely.
Fox Home Entertainment was kind enough to provide a copy of the latest outing in the ‘Wrong Turn’ franchise (yes, it’s apparently a franchise), ‘Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead: Unrated’ and my curiosity got the better of me. Coincidently enough, I had just viewed the original ‘Wrong Turn’ a few days prior, so I was ready to go. Admittedly, I’m not a fan of what movie studios have to offer in the way of horror films, and the ‘Wrong Turn’ series for me doesn’t escape this generality.
In all fairness, ‘Wrong Turn 3’ actually starts off okay. Opening with a very self-aware and intentionally cliche scene, we see hormonal teens fall victim to some graphic murders. For a brief moment I actually thought this film was going to be some pretty campy fun, but I was wrong. Essentially, what happens is a bus load of convicts being transferred gets hijacked and crashes in the woods. This allows the convicts to take the police officers in charge of their transport hostage. To make matters worse, a girl (the sole survivor from the opening murders) stumbles upon them in the woods bringing with her the inbred mutant cannibal things that anyone familiar with the series knows all too well. Of course, from this point on we have killing after killing -some creative, some just your basic run-of-the-mill horror staples. We also have our hero cop, our convicts that range from all around bad guys to misunderstood bad guys with hearts of gold, we have a kidnapped girl and unlikely team-ups. It’s all predictable, it’s all boring.
It seems like there is a killing every couple of minutes and the effects used are just okay. Director Declan O’Brien seems to be going for shock value with his “Unrated” killings than anything else -but I am curious to know what expectations the studio had for a Director they advertised as a “Sci-fi Channel movie Veteran”?. There is no fear invoked through the entire film, but that may be because we have seen these mutant killers before, so not only are they old news now, their numbers have dwindled down to just two. When I saw that the new “victims” of the ‘Wrong Turn’ series were going to be hardened criminals, I was actually hoping for a convict/freak showdown. Unfortunately though, while they do seem to put up more of a fight than victims-past, the mutant freaks still haven’t seem to have found their match.
Overall, ‘Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead’ is a movie with little more than people standing around talking about “what they should do” and then getting offed. O’Brien brings nothing new to the franchise, and in fact I dare say, made it worse. I was never a fan of the original ‘Wrong Turn’ but I found it at least tolerable; with the third installment, the director and screenwriter tried to add more action and a more serious tone and in the end somehow made a more boring film. You add a limited budget to this mix and you end up with a horror flick I recommend skipping all together.
Blu-ray Disc Features:
The Wrong Turn 3: Left For Dead Blu-ray Disc is presented in widescreen format 1.78:1 aspect ratio featuring English 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio and Spanish and French 5.1 DTS along with English, Spanish and French Subtitles. Bonus content includes:
• “Action, Gore and Chaos!” featurette
• “Brothers in Blood” featurette
• “Three Finger’s Fight Night” featurette
• Deleted Scenes
DVD Features:
The Wrong Turn 3: Left For Dead DVD is presented in widescreen format 1.78:1 aspect ratio featuring English 5.1 Dolby Surround and Spanish and French Dolby Surround along with English and Spanish subtitles. Bonus includes all the features listed above.
If you want to check out ‘Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead: Unrated’ for yourself, it cam out on Tuesday, October 20 and you can pick it up on Blu-ray or DVD anywhere DVD’s are sold or on Amazon.com!