Post by Mr.HoRrOr on Jan 20, 2013 17:19:13 GMT -5
Plot:A small West Virginia town is hosting the legendary Mountain Man Festival on Halloween, where throngs of costumed party goers gather for a wild night of music and mischief. But an inbred family of hillbilly cannibals kill the fun when they trick and treat themselves to a group of visiting college students.
Cast:
Doug Bradley
Camilla Arfwedson
Simon Ginty
Roxanne McKee
Paul Luebke
Oliver Hoare
Kyle Redmond-Jones
Amy Lennox
Duncan Wisbey
Radoslav Parvanov
George Karlukovski
Borislav Iliev
Peter Brooke
Finn Jones
Andrew Bone
My Thoughts:And the beat goes on.
Review:"Wrong Turn", one of the best slasher films of all-time. Was originally made and released in 2003. Ever since then, as of now...2013? There've been four sequels produced to the original film. In my opinion...those sequels rank starting with "Wrong Turn 2". Which I thought was the best sequel thus far. Following that, would be "Wrong Turn 4", then "3", and then part "5". Aka..."Bloodlines". Which by far is the worst sequel up to this point. Again...in my opinion. "Bloodlines" is a sequel to part "4". It follows the inbred trio after their incursion at the abandoned, snow-drifted, and snow-banked...mental hospital. This time around, they have help. In the form of Maynard (Doug Bradley). A guy who might be related to these three somehow? It's never really revealed if he "is" or "isn't".
But he refers to the trio as..."his boys". And his "motives" are introduced early on in the film when he takes out an unsuspecting young lady who's on the run from the deadly threesome. So, he's their "keeper" of some sort. Which means he keeps their activities hidden from the cops. But Maynard has a past of his own, which is revealed later on in the film. So anyways, a group of teens roll into town just in time for the "Mountain Man Festival". Yes...they really are celebrating something this lame.
Of course this is a small West Virginia town so, what else are they gonna do on Halloween? Go trick r' treating? The Mountain Man Festival plays right into the hands of our villainous threesome, who can now go around town hacking up anyone they can get their hands on, Un-acosted and un-bothered. Because it's kind of like Michael Myers on Halloween. Who's gonna investigate the sighting of a masked man on Halloween? With the blood-letting becoming more and more frequent, and the body count rising...it soon falls to a local female sheriff (Arfwedson), to stop the bad guys before it's too late.
Not to sound like a party pooper or anything, but I think at this point it's time to stop making these sequels. I mean, we're in prequel-sequel territory now. Meaning, we're making sequels to prequels! That's never a good thing. Especially for a franchise that didn't have very long legs to begin with. Also, the younger versions of Three-Finger, One-Eye, and Saw-Tooth...just get worse and worse looking with each new installment.
Not even close to being as cool-looking as they were in part 1, and at least a decent job was done on 3-Finger in part 2. Doug Bradley really steps to the forefront in part 5, as a villain more sadistic and dangerous than the inbred threesome. He's really the guy to fear in this movie. He's really the major bad ass in the film. And is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, it depends. It adds a new dimension to the movie. Something it desperately needs. But at the same time, this is "Wrong Turn".
And we should be afraid of the three killer redneck ghouls. Not some old guy who lives in a shack. But because Bradley was picked to play the part, it works on screen. But Bradley's character is far different than the old guy from part 2, who seemed to be working in conjunction with the mutant rednecks. Maynard truly establishes himself as "the boss" of the gang. And considering he knows "where all the bodies are buried"...literally. The trio decides to heed to his authority. And besides, it's not like this films cast gives us any real threats to the madness. These people are sitting ducks! To put it nicely.
In fact, of all the "Wrong Turn" sequels, these folks are the "sitting'est"...of all the "sitting duck" characters, this franchise has ever established or introduced. And that's what hurts this movie. In part 4, the teens fought back, and if not for a few bad decisions late, probably would've survived their ordeal. In part 5, these kids are practically waiting to die. And so are the lawmen and law-women whose job it is to protect the public. While watching this movie, you really get the feeling that it's 'that' mean-spirited. That these characters are all set up to die. And not in normal horror film fashion, persay.
But you can look at these characters as a horror flick enthusiast, and know none of them have a chance in hell of surviving till the end. So you're forced to watch some gruesome things take place, and happen to these folks. And the body count quickly rises like the temperature of a pot of boiling water. Until we reach the conclusion of the film, that tries to keep things interesting by having our friend Maynard be taken into custody by the cops. But Maynard is one of those "Hannibal Lecter" mofos, so he effortlessly out-thinks, outwits, and out-matches the cops and the teens.
All the while, "his boys" are outside carving their way towards the police station in preparation for a 'deadly rescue mission'. So with all of that, "Wrong Turn 5" is just a standard slasher sequel. That capitalizes on the franchise name to sell and rent more DVD copies. Some horror nut will see this listed on Net Flix, and rent it. Or blind buy it at Walmart because of the franchise tag...."Wrong Turn". But to the horror fan who knows 'what's up?", it will feel like this is the first sequel where they just gave up even trying anymore. And this is further punctuated by a final scene in the movie, where a surviving character is simply walked to their doom. In very comical yet sinister fashion.
THE GOOD:The kills are nice and bloody. The ending has some gruesome demises as well, and the final scene is just the epitome of twisted. Doug Bradley's performance was excellent.
THE BAD:It really felt that this time around the writers didn't even try to create decent protagonists who could battle the villains. Establishing Doug Bradley's Maynard as an evil above that of "the trio" was also not a good idea.
OVERALL:One star out of four.