Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (video) (2007)

Wrong Turn 2

7/10

Well, this was a tough one for me. I liked it much better than the original "Wrong Turn", but it still suffered from the usual problems raised in movies involving people in remote areas under siege from crazies and/or mutants. More on that later. I'm going to have to give this movie an averaged score, which is a combination of what was done well and the aforementioned problems.

The only really recognizable actor here is Henry Rollins, who does a rather good job. Another actor, though, has a great name- Texas Battle. He's been in a smattering of movies, including "Final Destination 3". Erica Leerhsen (Erica from "Blair Witch 2") rounds out pretty much anyone you would have likely heard of. The other actors have some movies and a bunch of TV under their belts, so the acting was better than I expected.

The premise of the movie is that 'Dale Murphy' (Rollins) is making a reality show where the contestants are in a "post-apocalyptic" world, complete with missions and blah blah. Unfortunately, the show is set in an out of the way woods already claimed by mutant/inbred/somethings, as evidenced from the opening scene. I gotta say, that opening scene was pretty cool, if a bit far fetched. The overall feel is "The Hills Have Eyes" in the woods. If you can't guess what happens next, well, I explain it. People and mutants start dying in various fun, strange, gross, and nifty ways. I thought the deaths were overall more fun than the first movie, if you can understand that.

There was plenty of gore and violence. As I said, I liked most of the death scenes. The FX were decent. A bit too much screaming, but that is to be expected with a half female cast in a horror movie. The mutant/Charles-Manson-descendents were suitably freaky. The camera work was mostly well done, with a lot less 'shaky video' you would expect from a movie featuring a reality show. Plot wasn't the best, but it can only go so far given the confines of the setup.

Now I do have some problems with the movie.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

OK, the area is supposed to be remote. I can understand that, but there are paved roads running around the place. Anyplace with a paved road, especially a forest, is not THAT remote! Kids will go out there to party, at the very least. Next up is the mutant family, which is shown as being from inbreeding. To get to that level of disgusting, we're talking many, many generations. Which might explain their huge spread, complete with a rendering plant(?!). Did their great-great grandparents set up some way out-of-the-way slaughter house which everyone forgot about? Also, how can these 'people', who can't really even speak, be weapon masters? One of them is a crack shot with a bow from over 100 yards at moving targets. Also, why are mutant freaks always unbelievably strong? Wouldn't the freaked out genes cause more problems than upsides? And what is up with the super regenerative powers? One freak gets a stab into the shoulder, which starts SPURTING blood, indicating a rupture of the axillary or subclavian arteries. These arteries come straight from the aortic arch, which in layman terms means, you're dead in about 60 seconds. Only a hospital could possible save you at that point. And the scene where the mutants truck shows up just in time to chase some of the good guys almost made me throw something.

*** END SPOILERS ***

Ok, with that rant done, I have to say that the 'good guys' don't all act like total dunces. I was particularly impressed with Rollin's character, very proactive. Sure they did some dumb stuff, but I've seen much, much worse decisions made in horror movies. There is the usual bad guy teleporting (and a very suspiciously convenient truck appearance) around, but I guess that has to be let go since otherwise everyone would run in a straight line until they hit civilization and the movie would just be a travelogue.

I started with an 8 for this movie. I dropped 2 points for my annoyances listed in the spoilers. I dropped the required point for no monkeys, but added one back on because the monkey co-reviewers liked the opening scene so much. I added another point because the protagonists acted above the norm for a survival type movie.

My final rating is a 7.