"Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead" review

Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead (2009)

Director: Declan O'Brien
Writers: Connor James Delaney Alan B. McElroy

Tom Frederic ... Nate
Janet Montgomery ... Alex
Gil Kolirin ... Floyd
Christian Contreras ... Willy
Jake Curran ... Crawford
Tom McKay ... Brandon
Chucky Venice ... Walter (as Chucky Venn)
Tamer Hassan ... Chavez
Jack Gordon ... Trey
Louise Cliffe ... Sophie
Charley Speed ... Brent
Borislav Petrov ... Three Toes

A bunch of teens are going kayaking, getting topless and smoking dope. Their revelry is interrupted by a mutant cannibal with a bow and arrows. Of course it is. Just when you thought the movie was over, our attention is diverted to a prison where there will be a high risk transfer of their most dangerous prisoners. On the way through the backwoods, the hillbilly freak attacks the prison bus and makes it fall down a hill. The prisoners have taken a Wrong Turn. Well, not really a turn so much as a Wrong Roll. The rest of the movie has the guards and prisoners debating survival tactics and money management as the hillbilly cannibal picks their bones clean.

"Wrong Turn 3" is a corporate exploitation movie. It is a ruthlessly efficient vehicle for blood, guts and multiple dismemberment scenes. It's pretty much an hour and a half of pure violence. It also doesn't have anything to do with the previous "Wrong Turn" movies. Well, there are people running through the woods from a hideous hillbilly but Eliza Dusku wasn't one of them so it wasn't as interesting. I saw the first "Wrong Turn", (and loved it), but I didn't see the sequel. It feels like this movie was made because the filmmakers had a script about convicts escaping through the woods and they weren't sure what to do with it.

But is there a right way to make a "Wrong Turn" movie? Is there only one way these films are supposed to play out? Why can't a "Wrong Turn" movie have convicts and prison guards getting slaughtered instead of the usual teens? Oh sure, I'd rather see a busload of sorority girls running from the freaks but you can't have everything.

Speaking as a sleazy exploitation fan, "Wrong Turn 3" has some enjoyable aspects. It is shameless gore entertainment. Body parts are hacked off regularly and there are plenty of scenes of torture as the hillbilly chops his way through his victims. What the movie lacks in imagination, it makes up for in blunt force trauma to the viewers head. The violence is unrelenting. Blood effects are let loose on a constant basis.

However, if you were a big fan of the original "Wrong Turn", you may despise this movie. Everything about "Wrong Turn 3" reeks of cheapness. From the dismal CGI effects to the rubbery masked mutant, the budget was not spent on making convincing special effects. They didn't have the funds for a whole clan of cannibals so they had to settle for one and a half maniacs. But the real exploitation at work here is on the goodwill associated with the "Wrong Turn" franchise. They took their convict action script and added a few scenes of a deformed backwoods freak to make it seem like a "Wrong Turn" movie. The slaughter scene at the beginning was probably added on later to at least give the illusion that the filmmakers actually watched the first two movies.

So if you're looking for a faithful sequel to the "Wrong Turn" movies, you'd be better off letting this one go. But if you're just looking for some mindless gore entertainment, "Wrong Turn 3" has some scenes worth watching. It's not trying to be a horror movie. It just wants to spend ninety minutes throttling you with scenes of blood and destruction. It's quite content to be a gory action movie. Whether it succeeds or not depends on how low your standards are.

SCORE: 2.5 out of 4 mutant hillbillies