Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead (Blu-ray)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

It is always nice to have a day off of work. I decided to do so after traveling two hours to Philadelphia to watch the opening night of the Pearl Jam dates to close down the historic Spectrum where the Flyers won their two Stanley Cup trophies and Kate Smith sang "God Bless America." What I question about my decision to take off and catch up on sleep is the idea I had to watch the two direct-to-video sequels of the subpar "Wrong Turn" film back-to-back. The second film wasn´t too terribly bad and was marginally better than the first. However, the second sequel was an entirely different story and whereas I applaud writer Connor James Delaney for trying to create a deep and involved situation for the cannibal Three Finger to enjoy a romp through the woods of West Virginia, this film is an example of horrible execution and I´m not talking about the gory death scenes.

In "Wrong Turn 3," the supposed surviving villain of the first two movies returns with a third different actor and third different physical look that leaves one wandering if Elmer Fudd and Freddy Krueger managed to have an offspring together, would this be what it looked like? "Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead" is cartoonish not only in the look of this third iteration of Three Finger, but even the over-the-top murders and poorly rendered special effects shout "cheap" as this second direct-to-video entry in the West Virginia cannibal chronicles is officially now just trying to collect a paycheck for doing marginal work. The brains working at Twentieth Century Fox keep finding ways to have Three Finger coming back for more human flesh, but in "Wrong Turn 3," they simply went too far in making the mutated cannibal far too superhuman and making death a cheap spectacle.

The third movie has Three Finger still lose in the woods after he quickly kills the film´s token hot topless actress and Alex (Janet Montgomery) is the only person to survive when her three friends are brutally killed by the quick moving and always smiling mutant. I should have guessed this film was going to be a string of poor clichés when Alex was discussing her friends "perfect" bare breasts and the one located over her heart was pierced by an arrow. Poor form. Some horror movies would have just taken their time killing most of the party of four, but "Wrong Turn 3" moves quickly through Alex´s friends and introduces a whole busload of transported convicts lead by Officer Nathan Wilson (Tom Frederic). Three Fingers no longer waits for people to get lost in the woods before butchering them, he takes out the whole bus of convicts to hunt them down in sport.

There is a number of subplots involving the prisoners and others. Chavez (Tamer Hassan) and Crawford (Jake Curran) make a ´business´ deal and become adversaries over control of the prisoners and the situation. Chavez rises above his German friend and becomes the heavy of the fugitive chain gang as they try to survive against Three Finger and at one point must sever the legs of a corpse so that they do not need to drag him along. Nate finds himself under the command of the gun-toting Chavez and must listen to the prisoner. However, to bide time he continually leads them in circles as they are hunted down by the sporting cannibal. Alex re-appears after the initial brutal opening and becomes the target of the randy prisoners, but is protected and becomes a love interest of sorts for Nate. Another prisoner, Brandon (Tom McKay) claims he is innocent and eventually sides with Nate in helping the three of them survive Chavez and Three Finger.

The plot continues and the film ends horribly. I´ve seen a good bit of discussion around the Internet about this much disliked ending and the stage is certainly set for a fourth film, but the faults with "Wrong Turn 3" are hardly confined to the cheap feeling ending that was tacked on solely to remind viewers that there are numerous three fingered cannibals living in the hills and forests of West Virginia. The prospect of the prisoners and their struggles against the lawman that accompanies them and the pretty young lady that joins their fight for survival was a better idea than anything in the first two movies, but it was so horribly executed that once the bus left the station, the journey hardly mattered.

With a budget of roughly a million dollars, the cast assembled for this film was of the lowest quality. Tamer Hassen, who drove a limo in "Batman Begins" is perhaps the film´s biggest name. He is a physically imposing presence and when Hassen is the only star power, you know the being watching a film with low expectations. Tom Frederic and Janet Montgomery add very little to the film other than being the resident ´pretty´ people who manage to survive while other more capable people fall like flies to the hungry cannibal. Borislav Illiev takes over as the primary villain and has a lot of energy and I really did not like this take on Three Fingers as the cannibal was a caricature of what you would think of given the first two films. Truly, the only bright spot involving the cast was Louise Cliff´s bare breast and the filmmakers put an arrow through that in the only good gore moment in the film.

The biggest problem I have with "Wrong Turn 3" is how horribly the special effects look throughout the film. Director Declan O´Brian clearly wanted to make "Wrong Turn 3" a bigger and badder film than the first two on a smaller budget and the over-the-top murders look so poor that they are more laughable than grotesque. How many times can you truly cleanly slice up a human body in one film? The effect was first used on poor Kimberly in "Wrong Turn 2," but they recycled it over and over in this film. You get to see a face cleanly sliced off and then a body cut into three parts in one of the most comical gore-filled sequences in cinematic history. Even the green screen used for the tow truck escape sequence was piss poor in execution. Between the goofy Freddy Kreuger-esque villain and the awful special effects, "Wrong Turn 3" was painful to watch.