By Geno McGahee
Why am I so insistent on watching all of the WRONG TURN movies? I can’t seem to help myself. I have reviewed a couple of the later ones including WRONG TURN 5 BLOODLINES and WRONG TURN VI: LAST RESORT. I have to admit that I really did enjoy the fifth entry but found the sixth not so great. The second film WRONG TURN 2: DEAD END was made in 2007 and was a straight to video follow-up to the big screen release of WRONG TURN in 2003. Although the original film wasn’t an outstanding film, the straight to video producers have decided that this is a series that merits many sequels.
WRONG TURN 2: DEAD END, a 20th Century Fox release, was directed by Joe Lynch and received “surprising critical success” according to Lynch’s IMDB bio. If the critics loved this one, I would consider it a huge surprise. Perhaps it would be up there with the top 10 biggest surprises in history. Turi Meyer and Al Septien, known for their splendid writing work on Carrot Top’s “CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD”, were behind the screenplay of this horror film.
Now the year is 2007 and the reality show was trending. So, I sort of get why this film went in the direction that it did. It wanted to capitalize on the fad and did that even more so with AMERICAN IDOL finalist, Kimberly Caldwell, playing herself in the beginning of this film. She drives along in a red Mustang, listening to “Electric Avenue,” a great song, and is arguing with her agent about the reality show she is booked on. She hits a mutant hillbilly and when she gets out to check on him, he bites her face off and she is then cut in half with an axe. Her cameo is over. I have to say that Caldwell was doing rather well. It’s too bad that she died so early. Then again, considering the material, getting out early was probably the right idea.
So, the show that is being produced is a take on SURVIVOR and shows like that. It’s the end of the world and these contestants have to survive chemical attacks, starvation and each other. Dale Murphy (Henry Rollins) hosts the show and he is a military tough guy and speaks to the people as if they are soldiers and this is boot camp. Jonesy Lewis (Steve Braun), an extreme sports athlete, Elena (Crystal Lowe), a sexy chick that will do whatever it takes to win, Nina (Erica Leerhsen), a vegan with an edge, Amber (Daniella Alonso), a tough lesbian marine, Jake (Texas Battle), a former football player, and Mara (Aleksa Palladino), the producer’s girlfriend that is injected into the show when Kimberly does not show up, makes up the cast. They are put into teams of two and there are cameras set up everywhere. Mike (Matthew Currie Holmes), the cameraman and creator of the show, follows around the teams and leads them into situations. The behind the scenes manipulation of reality TV was covered quite well in this film. So, add a point for that.
Amber and Jonesy team up and there is no question that Jonesy is one of the most annoying characters in the history of film. He makes sexual references for everything that any woman says on the show and makes silly gestures for emphasis. I don’t blame Steve Braun. Obviously, he played this role as instructed, but he looked like Kirk Cameron and was twice as annoying. How is that possibly you ask? Watch it and you’ll find out.
Nina and Mara are together and the mysterious past of Nina begins to be exposed. When the duo runs in on Mike getting a blow job from Elena, Mara realizes that her relationship is over and she is devastated. Nina suggests beating him within an inch of his life like she did to her ex. She put him in the hospital but not before he ruined her credit and broke her heart.
Forced romance between Elena and Jake isn’t working. Jake notes that he will have family watching the show and he didn’t want them to see him get romantic with a woman. He storms away as the half-naked Elena gets frustrated. She sees this as her moment to shine and apparently Jake is playing for the other team, or so it seems. She decides to lie in the sun, but she has a visitor. A mutant hillbilly is watching on and masturbating. I hate when that happens.
Dale Murphy gets captured by the hillbilly mutants, led by Three Finger (Jeff Scrutton), and we see something new. Three Finger is apparently worried about his appearance and scalps one of the victims and wears his hair as his own. This may be a nod to TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and Leatherface’s tendency to wear the faces of his victims. Another TCM reference happens at the end when Nina is tied to a chair and forced to sit at the dinner table with the mutants. I appreciate their appreciation of the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, but this film has nothing on it.
Using his military training, Dale escapes, and has a battle with Three Finger. Now, keep in mind that Three Finger is in the later films. Anyway, Dale gets a shotgun and shoots Three Finger right through the chest, launching him into the lake, which was about twenty feet away. That was one powerful shotgun. Dale is now on a mission to kill all hillbillies and to save the contestants.
Jake and Nina are trapped by the mutants and the leader looks remarkably like my uncle. I wonder if they used him as the basis for the character. Jake is hanging on the wall and Nina is tied to the chair and they are eating human body parts and forcing poor Nina to eat some as well. Dale shows up and saves the day, but he dies in the process. His toughness only went so far. He eventually succumbed to the hillbillies, but he died a hero.
OK, WRONG TURN 2: DEAD END is terrible, but it has its moments and positive things that I want to note. Erica Leerhsen did a great job in this and had a great look. She had a presence and did the best she could with what she had. The rest of the cast was rather lackluster. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t tremendous either. Some of the deaths were rather inventive. I did enjoy watching the old hillbilly getting blown up by dynamite, but some of the CGI was less than convincing. The mutants were fun, mostly, and I did like when the brother mutant was nailing his sister and she was wearing the face of one of the friends. When the group stumbles across them having sex, she takes off the face and smiles. They pulled a fast one. It was rather amusing.
The biggest problem with WRONG TURN 2: DEAD END is that there really wasn’t any story. It just dwelled on this bad reality show and the mutants were thrown in sporadically. It was very empty. I’m curious if the other entries ignore this film because Three Finger returns in the later films and he was killed in this one. The camerawork in this film was strange, repetitive and distracting too. The same motion shots are used over and over again and the cameraman was in love with the shot where he walks in a circle around something. I found it very distracting, but he sort of lost his interest in that shot a few others as we got into the final third of the film.
WRONG TURN 2: DEAD END is the worst one I’ve seen thus far, but there’s hope for it. I have a couple I haven’t seen and they could be, theoretically, worse. Even if you’re a fan of the series, you will find this one meaningless and without thought. I may be the only critic that hates it, but I can live with that.
Rating: 2/10