Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Traffic Incident

In a stretch to find more horror movie franchises to watch, but not quite feeling like chainsaws being used in Texas, I took the chance to watch the Wrong Turn series. How can you go wrong with cannibal hillbillies? Oh...wait...isn't that what those chainsaw movies are about? Whoops.

Wrong Turn: The first int he series, and I wonder how it even became a series after this movie. It starts out OK, with a young doctor trying to get to a new job interview. His attempt at a shortcut to bypass a traffic accident leads to the inevitable trouble you would expect. Cue a lot of bad dialogue, stupid decisions, and so-so effects. With the cast in this, I was hoping for a bit more. I mean, I recognized 4 of the named actors in the opening credits and they are all usually pretty good. This movie was so predictable that I actually got kind of bored watching it and found myself surfing the internet. I have seen worse, but this was not as fun as I would have wanted.

Wrong Turn 2: Dead End:A sequel that is better than the original. Not something that happens often, especially when the sequel is an obvious attempt to cash in on what must have been a relatively popular movie. This time we have a reality show about surviving a fake apocalypse to get our victims into place. Once I started watching this, i remembered having seen it a while back on television. Even then, there were bits I had forgotten which surprised me. The death of a character I assumed was going to be the protagonists was a nice touch, as was the fact that the entire thing took place in daylight. Not many horror movies go with the well lit thing, so it is always nice to see. There was one pretty cool bit of early movie gore that was both fun and ridiculous at the same time. Overall, much better than the first movie.

Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead:The inevitable, and dreaded, third movie. Not many series can hold up this long and fewer still can make something even passable for their third movie. This one is actually pretty fun, with an interesting and fresh plot. In this movie the hillbillies are after a group of escaped convicts, who are themselves pretty dangerous people. Much of the movie is actually just the escapees fighting amongst themselves, with Three-Finger the Hillbilly provoking a higher level of tension for them all. This movie had a couple of surprises in it as well, like the character I was sure was there just to provide another body having some real use for a scene or two. He does still die, of course. I also liked the twist at the end, and the twist on the twist. Half of it was expected, so good on the writer for throwing another level in there and catching me off guard. Not as fun as the lat movie, but still better than the first.

Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings: Movie four, and we hit prequel territory. That taken into account, it is not that bad. We get the expected torture, the usual horny teenagers doing stupid things, and the inevitable twist ending. Overall, I was pretty OK with this one. Nothing fantastic and original, but nothing so derivative that it ruined the movie for me. Plus, I liked how they ended it. Nice and sudden.

Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines: The final (for now) sequel. I'm not really sure where in the timeline or mythology of the movie this one takes place. I know it references the last one with the hospital. However, the protagonists in this have masks based on the look of the villains, so it must have some link to the other movies. Except it doesn't really feel like it fits in. Instead of kids in the woods getting picked off, we have hillbilly revenge for the capture of their...friend? Mentor? Not really sure. The redeeming factor in this was that Doug Bradley plays a pretty vile character, and one that isn't in leather bondage gear for once. Not a bad movie I guess, just feels out of place in this series.

So, big picture, this is a pretty forgettable series of movies. The villains have no real personality, other than the damned goofy laugh that Three-Finger has. Which gets old fast. The makeup for the killers is laughable, but the gore isn't too bad. Didn't like the first one for being too murky to really see anything, didn't like the later movies for being nothing special. Kind of liked the second one though. That was a fun idea that played well. Would have been better off as a standalone, though.

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