Wrong Turns 6, 1, and 2

BLOT: (20 Jan 2015 - 09:09:02 PM)

Wrong Turns 6, 1, and 2

I watched, recently, half of the Wrong Turn movies—featuring sexy-young-things versus incest cannibal hillbilly mutants in West Virginia, for those not in the know—in the following order: 6 (aka, Last Resort), 1 (the original), and then 2 (aka, Dead End). There's a reason behind that. I had mostly skipped Wrong Turn, having gotten it mixed up a bit with Joy Ride and even though I kind of liked Joy Ride, the first one, alright, I did not really see too much of a need to dive into even more 2000's sequel-horror. However, I heard that Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort had an issue where the studio had to blur out some photographs, because it decided to spice up some missing persons posters in-film by using a real-life missing person photo, and I had to see that. How did the studio handle it? Like this (unedited by me):

In both, they left shots involving actors from the movie unblurred, but took out the others with a sledgehammer of a blur tool. Some photos are being discussed by the characters, but a few of the finer points of what they are discussing are lost. It makes for an intentional surreal moment. Since presumably the pictures not related to the actual missing persons case are possibly re-insertible, there might be a re-release that has these unblurred, but I have no idea if anyone would care to fix part 6 of a direct-to-DVD release sequel-horror.

As for the movie itself, it was ok. I would say that it was in no way objectively a great movie, even though it did have a couple of scenes—most notably the juxtaposition between the hunting of the sheriff and the hunting of the deer—that were well shot and set up a decent mood, and it handled the ironic salvation of the main character well—by becoming closer to his mutant hillbilly cannibal incest family, he is gaining humanity. It also has strictly-consensual-sex, which can be kind of odd for the genre that tends to toss rape scenes in because why not (something that is actually sort of explained in movie). Topping it off, it continues to [apparently] build up on the mythos of the Wrong-Turn-iverse, and all-in-all, still seems to care somewhat about the series, something not always true when it comes to sixth-installments.

Anyhow, had enough questions and so I pried into the first one, the only theatrical release one in the bunch, and found out that the sixth (as well as the fourth and the fifth) is a prequel, which gave me the false notion that the eponymous resort would somehow tie into the other movies. No. All the family story. The resort. News about the region. All that is dropped. What is explained is why the three "brothers" that ran around in 80s-camp make-up were meant to be taken seriously. In the original, the effects are Stan Winston Studio designs, and they are pretty damned amazing as practical masks that can take a beating as the actors run around and fight in them. By the time the budget bottoms out, the best special effects are gone, but as something like stand-ins for the originals, I get it. I even kind of respect it.

Watching the first one, I was fairly impressed. The acting is not always superb, but it works, especially in the two leads [Eliza Dushku and Desmond Harrington] and the strange mutants. The set-up is pretty simple—young sexy things are stranded in the woods after a car accident and decide to walk for help—but it gets in old cabins and pine farms and rustic gas stations (the kind that Cabin in the Woods warned you about) and old fire towers and it has this ridiculous slow chase scene through pine branches that is simultaneously its nadir and zenith, and an explosion. In a log cabin. Damn. Good times. In fact, my review is best summed up with a tweet:

So now I'm hooked. I want to see how one became the other, and so sat down and watched Wrong Turn 2: Dead End and it is exactly the kind of movie that is good in ways that most people wouldn't like it. I don't mean "It's so bad, it's good," I mean that it has a lot of heart—from Henry Rollins having a damn good time hamming it up as a drill sergeant type to the director wearing a Battle Royale t-shirt—and kind of a fun, high-concept story—the characters are contestants in a reality show whose theme is that they are in a backwoods apocalypse having to survive things like...well...mutant hillbilly incest cannibals...but then also has annoying characters and really contrived set-ups that are kind of funny but not always good movie-material. The behind the scenes machinations of the reality-TV show were probably too few, and the mutants are a bit more superhuman this time around, but the set-up is overall the good parts of Troma without quite the full-Troma package, including an explanation for things a lot more Troma than what Wrong Turn 6 set-up. And the effects are still quite functional. It is not a perfect hit, but it is very much so the kind of movie you can get drunk while watching.

So now I am on to the other half, the end to the original trilogy and the first two prequels. I have no idea what to expect, but I'm a little excited. See you with an update in a few days. Will the Wrong-Turn-iverse be split by conflicting Dead End/Last Resort origin stories? Time. Will. Tell.

Horror Movies

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