The Franchise Comes To A Dead End (Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (DVD))

Member Name: plipplop

Product:	Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (DVD)
Date:	22/02/08 (121 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's gory as hell and bizarrely funny

Disadvantages: The plot makes little sense and it just isn't frightening

Six individuals are transported to the woodlands of West Virginia to take part in a reality game show. Staged in a fictional apocalyptic setting, the six contestants must work together and in isolation to get through a series of trials, with only one prize of $100,000 available to the winner. Filmed in real-time via remote headset cameras, the six are supported by a producer, his technical assistant and a hard-faced military guru, who will guide them through the various challenges they must face. However, none of them is prepared for the "reality" of these woodlands. A family of inbred cannibals lurks just beyond the tree line, and for them the prize is altogether different......

Released straight to DVD, it was unwise to expect good things from Joe Lynch's sequel to the 2003 original. Rob Schmidt's original tale was an atmospheric, brutal, suspense-driven slasher. Lynch sets about a new take on the idea, but whereas Schmidt focused on the desperation, and the isolation, Lynch (unwisely) decides to focus on the gore and the grue, with limiting results.

Initially, the film almost feels like a slapstick comedy. The opening scene is as gruesome as it is ridiculous, but it quickly becomes apparent that the dark tone of the original has been replaced by something else. It's not helped by the jazzy camerawork, a combination of footage shown through the various "head-cams" (straight from the Blair Witch school of film making) and normal footage that occasionally throws in a few gimmicks to add to the overall effect. This effect is undeniably fast-paced and fresh but the reality is that it all feels a bit forced, rather like somebody is trying to be a bit too clever. It contributes, even more, to a feeling of very limited budget too.

The contestants are consistently (and deliberately) irritating, marking another notable difference to the original film where the victims were generally a sympathetic bunch. Not here. You've got a hard-faced lesbian, a selfish bitch, a failed jock, a wise-cracking skateboarder and a drippy, lovesick television producer. Throw in a slut and sex-mad director and you've got the perfect combination to get the audience salivating for imminent slaughter. Surprisingly, there are characters to whom you warm; the military guy (Henry Rollins) ends up being slightly less superficial than he appears and the "bitch" finds hidden depths. Full marks to the writers for a mid-way shock killing (didn't see that one coming) but then otherwise it's murder by numbers.

Big numbers. If the film had a limited budget, the reality is almost certain that most of it went on the blood. There are buckets of it. The killings in part one were brutal but nothing compared to the events of part two. Somebody is cut in half, shortly after her face is partly bitten off. Somebody gets scalped. Somebody ends up in a mincing machine. One poor chap is beheaded and another falls via garrotte. It's not nice. But it's not frightening, either. Somehow, the buckets of blood and sausage-like intestines really have no effect further than gross-out factor five. No suspense here. You see it all coming a long time before it actually does (again, a contrast to the first film) and the director seems content to exchange making the audience jump for making them barf.

This doesn't mean that there is a complete absence of ideas. It's just that they don't belong to this film. Recognising some of the comments made by viewers of the first film, Lynch goes to some lengths to introduce a back story. Ripped straight from The Hills Have Eyes, the premise is ridiculous and poses more questions than it asks (do chemicals that cause birth defects REALLY have a warning to that effect on the packet?). Theft from other films in the genre doesn't seem to bother Lynch at all. The dinner scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre is copied almost in absolute detail as the film draws to a conclusion and there are bits of Deliverance scattered here and there, rather like cinematic body parts.

Lynch doesn't even get the sound right. There is no sense that you are actually lost deep in a forest and the cannibals themselves are now reduced to making constant giggling / heavy breathing noises that aren't frightening, they're just plain silly. Overall, the cannibals in part two are far less effective than their previous counterparts. Reduced to masturbating in the bushes, and having ridiculous sex on a woodland table, the once fearsome clan is no longer very frightening and the make-up effects are far less accomplished too. As if to provide some balance, female family members are introduced for the first time, but they too are really only there for gratuitous, grisly birth scenes and an added element of homicidal, jealousy-driven rage. (It must be noted, however, that the sight of two of the cannibals sharing a slurpy, deformed kiss post-murder remains one of the most disturbing images I've seen for some time.)

Clocking in at around an hour and a half, it comes as quite a relief when WT2 finally comes to an end, if only to enable the audience members to start eating again without throwing up. Entertaining only in a brief, superficial way, this is a bad sequel to what was a pretty competent original and I'd be surprised if there were further instalments in the series.

Not recommended

Wrong Turn 2: Dead End is available on region 2 DVD for around £13.

Summary: Poor sequel to the 2003 original