Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		1.5

Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead Blu-ray Movie Review

Three wrong turns certainly don’t make a right.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater October 21, 2009

Them thar studio execs done did it again and greenlit yet another Wrong Turn entry, making an unholy trinity out of one of the laziest, most unoriginal horror franchises to ever crib from better mutant movies. Let’s recap: Wrong Turn pilfered liberally from The Hills Have Eyes, Deliverance, and the "Home" episode of The X-Files, creating a whole that was infinitely less than the sum of its stolen parts. Wrong Turn 2: Dead End upped the gore quotient, introduced us to the mutants’ extended family, and gave us a badass Henry Rollins blowing up old people with sticks of dynamite. Definitely the highlight of the series. And now, Wrong Turn 3: Left For Dead abandons the over-the-top theatrics of the second film and reverts to the undeserved and ill-advised seriousness of the first. I’ll give you three little facts that will tell you everything you need to know about the third Wrong Turn installment. 1.) It’s a straight-to-video offering helmed by “Sci-Fi Channel movie veteran Declan O’Brien (Cyclops, Rock Monster).” 2.) For budgetary purposes it was filmed in Bulgaria—trying to pass for West Virginia—with a cast of mostly British actors—trying to pass for Americans. 3.) It’s terrible.

Three-Finger is back, whether you like it or not.

Going into Wrong Turn 3, my expectations were extraordinarily low. Like, subwoofer rumbling 36,000 feet down at the bottom of the Marianas Trench low. And yet, I can’t say I was surprised when the film turned out worse than I could’ve ever envisioned. Left For Dead is a veritable monument to hackneyed, uninspired filmmaking, fully deserving of a central spot on the Mt. Rushmore of cinematic awfulness. You know that saying about not being able to look away from a train wreck, about how something can be so horrible that you’re utterly fixated by it? Well, Wrong Turn 3 is nothing like that. You’ll want to turn it off after ten minutes, and not because it’s graphic or offensive, but because it’s indescribably dull, a Mandelbrot set composed of tepid action, frightless scares, and genre clichés.

In typical Wrong Turn fashion, the film opens with a kill sequence that’s only tangentially related to what could very generously be called the movie’s narrative. Gorehounds beware: the film prematurely blows its entertaining death wad, as less than five minutes into the movie, a ditzy, whitewater-rafting slut takes off her shirt and gets shot through her left breast with an arrow while one of her companions runs off into the woods to get diced in thirds by what amounts to a giant egg slicer. The subsequent kills pale in comparison, mostly because the film focuses instead on what it actually believes is a story.

Okay, get ready to count the clichés. Wrong Turn 3 is about a group of convicts who are being transported to another prison by bus via an “altered route” that takes them through the West Virginian backcountry. The prisoners are an assortment of criminal stereotypes—the Mexican gangbanger, the white supremacist, the wily car thief, and the wrongly imprisoned war veteran—all supervised by our hero Nate (Tom Frederic), a guard with law-school aspirations. It’s basically Con-Air, but on a school bus. Three-Finger, the surviving mutant from the second film, runs the bus off the road with his tow truck, and the prisoners escape—albeit all ankle-chained together—taking Nate hostage in the process. Then, and I wish I were making this up, the cons just happen to stumble upon an overturned bread truck filled with millions of dollars…in the middle of the woods. They’re free…and rich! But only, of course, if they can make it out of the woods alive. The prisoners struggle through the forest, lugging money bags and trying to outmaneuver one another, all while getting picked off by Three-Finger, who can somehow be everywhere in the woods at once, setting up traps that would fit well in a more sadistic version of Home Alone.

What makes the film seem nearly interminable is that it takes itself so seriously. Wrong Turn 3 is about a mutant redneck hunting down prisoners on the lam—a more appropriate tact would be to play the whole thing for laughs in a gory, ridiculously arch parody of the previous installments. When are we going to see the Evil Dead II of hillbilly cannibal movies? Instead, the film acts as through we should be dreadfully afraid of giggling, slobbering, overalls- wearing back-mountain inbreeders. There’s nothing scary about Wrong Turn 3 in the slightest, unless you count the extremely sloppy digital effects, the monotonous kills, and the frightfully straight-faced performances by low-rent British actors using obviously affected American accents. And I’m not even going to comment on how many times we’re ineffectually led to believe that Three-Finger is dead, only to have him reappear unexpectedly (read: expectedly), magically transported to the current location of our utterly lost heroes and apparently fully healed. Or how most of the driving shots use jarring and unconvincing green screen composite work for the views through the windows. Forget straight-to-video, Wrong Turn 3 should cut out the middleman and go straight to the nearest bargain bin.

Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

After Wrong Turn 2 dabbled in digital video, Wrong Turn 3 returns to the series' filmic roots, though I've been unable to find any information on whether it was shot on 35mm or 16mm. Evidence points to the later, as the film's 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer is coated with a thick spackling of grain that's especially prevalent during the nighttime scenes, which constitute almost the entirety of the run-time. The film is initially misleading—the opening whitewater and prison sequences are vivid and bright, with strong colors and good overall clarity. Unfortunately, once night falls, the film becomes a murky mess of grain, chroma noise, unsatisfying black levels and inconsistent sharpness. Wrong Turn 3's look is frequently dull and soft, with poor contrast, shallow colors and a permanent grayish cast that tries to pass for moonlight. Though the picture quality is better than that of the second film, this really isn't saying much. Considering the director's TV pedigree, it's unsurprising that this one has the looks of a cheapie Sci Fi, sorry, SyFy original.

Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Don't get me wrong, Wrong Turn 3 has decidedly low-budget sound, but the included DTS- HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is the highlight of the film, all things considered. I remember the first film having somewhat decent sound design, and this sequel (threequel?) follows suit, giving plenty of rear channel ambience, like lapping water, rustling leaves, and suddenly snapping twigs, along with directional effects like pinging bullets, running dogs, and wailing sirens. Not all of the effects are subtle, or even accurate—I caught one instance of the bus roaring the wrong way through the speakers during one motion-tracking pan—but I have to give the filmmakers some credit for at least attempting to fill out the soundfield here. The bus flipping down the hill sounds rather nice, as does the resultant explosion. Dialogue—as inane as it is—cuts through the mix with little trouble, and while the music is completely generic horror fare, it at least has a fairly broad sound, with decent bass response and a suitable high end. There's little to be impressed by here, but I also have few complaints.

Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Wrong Turn 3 in 3 Fingers…I Mean, Parts
Yes, that is actually the title of the disc's meager package of supplementary featurettes. Action, Gore, and Chaos (SD, 9:10) is a guided look at the stunt sequences by way of director Declan O'Brien, Brothers in Blood (SD, 5:23) features brief interviews with all the actors, and Three Finger's Fight Night (SD, 3:34) is all about the choreography of the clumsy fight sequences. "I wanted a battle royale, I wanted bad versus worse," says the director. No comment.

Deleted Scenes (SD, 1:24)
Includes two completely disposable scenes.

Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Wrong Turn 3 is so bad that, after watching it last night, I popped in No Country For Old Men as a kind of cinematic palate-cleanser. It's sad that I that desperately needed to have my faith in filmmaking restored. Stay away, stay far, far away.