Review: Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings

This prequel begins in the 70s where the inbred cannibal killers we came to know and love in “Wrong Turn” are in an insane asylum where they overpower their keepers and escape. Years later and we cut to a group of horny young twits (including two lesbians played by Kaitlyn Wong and Tenika Davis) who get lost on a ski trip in the middle of a blizzard and come across the now abandoned Sanatorium and decide to take refuge. But is it really abandoned? Of course not, or else there’d be no movie, stupid. Shouting, walking down long dark corridors, and occasional murderising ensue.

 

The original “Wrong Turn”, essentially a modern “Hills Have Eyes”, was one of the better horror films of the 00s (and better than the official remake of “Hills”), and I can’t say that any of the subsequent entries into the series have been outright terrible. In fact, the second one (co-starring the inimitable Henry Rollins) really wasn’t bad, and each subsequent film has taken the basic concept of inbred hillbilly cannibal mutants and put it into a new environment or basic plot. This 2011 film from writer-director Declan O'Brien (“Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead”), in addition to being a prequel, puts the inbred cannibal nutters into a much colder climate. You’d think such a change really wouldn’t work (though that might be because of my ignorance of the geography and weather patterns in West Virginia), but as it turns out, it’s one of the few problems that don’t arise here in what is essentially 90 minutes of searching long, dark corridors and rooms that all look the same.

 

It’s the abandoned nuthouse setting that is the problem, not the cold climate. The film is basically “Halloween II” with a different menace, whilst the blizzard keeps our characters mostly indoors. It’s pretty boring stuff that wonderful lesbian sex can’t even liven up much, especially when it is frustratingly and pretentiously intercut with boring hetero sex. Mr. O’Brien has a special place reserved for him in an imaginary hell of my own devising for that alone. How dare he ruin the fun for us perverts. Shut up, I am not the only one, and you know it. A second lesbian scene is ruined by that other irritating ploy, the horny hetero dude seen spying on them. We get it, he’s perving just like we are, so what? I’m sorry, but the only reason to include lesbian sex is to titillate a male audience, and hetero males such as myself don’t get turned on watching dudes watching chicks.

 

It’s not an awful film, just a clichéd and monotonous one, and far too slowly paced for what is the fourth film in a series. I mean, aside from the opening, it takes about 40 minutes for someone to die. For a fourth film in a series, that’s far too long. The characters and actors are all interchangeable, except the lesbians and that’s only because one of them is Asian and the other is African-American (and the only non-inbred chick in the film who isn’t attractive to me, much as I love women of all colours and races). Otherwise, they’re all twenty-somethings and all conveniently romantically paired off in that boring and clichéd way about 99.99% of horror films (especially American ones) operate. I’m sick of it.

 

I will give credit to one small mercy we can all be thankful for, however; Slow as the film is to get going, once the fit hits the shans, it doesn’t take long for these characters to get proactive and be willing to fight before the numbers truly start to dwindle. I really wish they wouldn’t split up so often, however. Haven’t they ever seen a horror film before? The makeup is interestingly different this time out, more of a Cro-Magnon look to them, and thus a bit more realistic. They’re by far the best thing about the film, and sadly underused.

 

The film starts well, with a pretty strong and disturbing opening scene, if a tad elongated. A cute musical cue undercuts it with humour. The film looks great, thanks to the snowy exteriors and it’s well-lit by Michael Marshall, who even lights the night scenes really effectively. You can see the foreground well, but the background is made pitch-black in a manner I recalled seeing in another snowy film, the terrific “Frozen”. Colour filters continue to be the bane of my existence, but in this instance, having white snow would make things rather bland, so adding a bit of blue didn’t bother me in the least. The interiors being dark blue/green, however, were another matter entirely and quite annoying. I just don’t get it, folks. There’s a really nice hanging/throat slash combo with blood trickling down onto the camera below, but it’s born out of stupid-as-hell human behaviour, however. Speaking of stupid human behaviour, I’m a pacifist and self-preserving coward, but one character’s rationale for non-violent resistance as a kind of ‘let’s not stoop to their level’ seems patently absurd when the chief menace are a band of inbred cannibal killer mental defectives. Meanwhile, when you get to the finale, does it not seem like one of the characters forgets who their romantic partner is and seems more concerned with saving someone else? It appeared that way to me, and seemed awfully stupid. The ending is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in my life, though I’m not sure if that makes it great or terrible, or just hilarious.

 

Look, this film isn’t awful, but it’s not awfully interesting either. Probably about as average as the previous film in the series and miles behind the rather effective original.

 

Rating: C