Posted March 20th, 2010 by Jamie Lisk

• Straight to Video
• Director: Declan O'Brien
• Written by: Connor James Delaney, Alan B. McElroy
• Running Time: 92 minutes
• Language: English
• MPAA Rating: UNRATED
• Cast: Tom Frederic, Janet Montgomery, Gil Kolirin, Chucky Venice, Tamer Hassan, Christian Contreras, Jake Curran, Tom McKay, Jack Gordon, Louise Cliffe, Charley Speed, Borislav Petrov, Borislav Iliev, Mike Straub, Bill Moody, Emma Clifford, Mac McDonald, Vlado Mihailov, Todd Jensen, Tzvetislav Samardjiev, Petko Zhivkov

 

Everybody's taking a big shit on "Wrong Turn 3: Left For Dead" it seems and for the most part it's warranted. If any film deserves the brown shower treatment, it's definitely this one. Far from an acceptable entry into this franchise, this film doesn't even stand up as an acceptable entry into the 'you got yourself a purty mouth' hicksploitation genre. It's quite hilarious to think that a film might be a blemish on a genre that peaked the moment Ned Beatty bent over and squealed like a pig, Oink! Oink! On the other hand, I can't entirely write the film off. Yeah, crazy as this sounds, there were some things about this stinker that I liked. I'll get to that in a bit, though...

 

 

The writer of "Wrong Turn 3: Left For Dead" seems to have an objective early on, namely getting that damn checklist of clichés out of the way quick. They got more a comin' after that, don't you worry. First they introduce us to four hot yummy twenty-sumthins (two guys and two girls, of course) trekking across the West Virginia backwoods. After spending the day kayaking down a rapid river, the little wipper-snappers set up camp, get nekkid, do some drugs, split up, have sex and, minus one fast-footed final girl, get brutally murdered -- all in the first ten fucking minutes. Wow, these guys just blasted through an entire killer-in-the-woods movie in the first ten. What the hell were they gonna do for the next hour and change, I wondered?

 

 

Well, the answer was simple; introduce a half dozen more characters and re-arrange this forest-slasher flick into something that more resembles a survivalist 'prison break' drama (with "Alien Species", "Devil on The Mountain", "Chain Reaction" and that show there - it's pratically a sub-genre unto itself, yessir). Yawn. Moving out of the bush and inside the fence n' cement courtyard of Grafton Penitentiary, we meet some nasty looking blokes straight from central casting, Chicano drug lord, Chavez (Tamer Hassan) and a for-pay Aryan skinhead, Floyd (Gil Kolirin), as they discuss how they are gonna turn a routine prison transfer into a balls-to-the-wall breakout attempt. Double yawn! Next we are introduced to the prison guards, Nate ("The Oxford Murders" star Tom Frederic), a likeable young chap on his, yup... last day... before he heads off to law school, and his conspiracy obsessed pal, Walter ("The Dark Knight" star Chucky Venice), as they inform Chavez that his transfer is being pushed up a week, you know, to discourage any chance of that bust-out they've been so quietly planning. Floyd eases Chavez's fears by assuring him that he's got it covered, even when they learn that their route is being changed up. No worries, baldies got it on lock down, he's got it in the bag.

 

 

Needless to say, Three Finger (stuntman turned sometime actor Borislav Iliev), the hillbilly cannibal from the previous two entries, appears in his pick-up truck (ala "Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2") and, thanks to a MacGuyver-like trick involving barb wire fencing being dangled from the rear of his truck, manages to send the prisoner bus careening down an embankment. At first Floyd thinks it's his boys, and that he's midway into a daring prison bust-out, that is until the arrows start pinging a little too close to his head. Salvation arriving in the form of a deranged in-bred mutant with a penchant for booby traps and dining on human flesh, this isn't what Floyd had in mind. As the prisoners and guards reverse roles, Nate, a local, is able to use his knowledge of the area as leverage to keep Chavez and Floyd from blowing his brains out. The same can't be said for Walter, sadly. Also tagging along are three more prisoners, Willy ("Stateside" star Christian Contreras), an undercover officer trying to get the goods on Chavez (a minor sub-plot that goes absolutely fucking nowhere), Brandon ("Imagine Me And You" star Tom McKay), an Iraq war veteran who may or may not be guilty of murder (making for an interesting character, and twist ending), and an obnoxious car-jacker named Crawford ("Cold And Dark" star Jake Curran). While Chavez regards each of his mates with grand contempt, their value increases tenfold when they stumble upon an over-turned Brinks truck filled with bags of cash (doubtless, another trap set up by Three Fingers, or myabe I'm just giving him too much credit). With more arms to carry the cash, Chavez is free to "chick chuk" his shotgun and brow beat and scowl at everyone in sight, you know, because that's what meanie bad guys do. Triple yawn! Alex ("Hills Run Red" star Janet Montgomery), the saucy pothead with the fast feet from the opener, manages to run smack dab into the prison/guard caravan and just as quickly finds herself taking her place in line on the wrong side of Chavez's shotgun. Chick Chuk!

 

 

Thankfully, Three Fingers and his kid (?) Three Toes (Borislav Petrov) arrive to spice things up in a gorehoundy sense. Lots and lots of booby traps (some a little too intricate to be believed) set up in the woods that our protagonists walk but directly into, as if being instructed to. Dear god, this is ridiculous. A whole big forest to walk around in and somehow they manage to step exactly on the lever holding that morsel of cheese. Snap! You're dead! You get eaten! Instead of heightening the tension by exploring the dynamic of having prisoners and guards teaming up to outwit their crazed cannibalistic tormentor(s), we're left with copious scenes of characters spewing invective tirades at each other and getting into enough knock down drag-out fist fights to keep Don Cherry spanking it for a week. All the while, Three Fingers is around to slice and dice them at random. Chavez and Floyd soon catch up with an injured Three Toes and proceed to torture and decapitate him. There seems to be the hint the producers might be setting us up to root for the cannibal killer, alas, by the time we arrive at the big Chavez/Three Fingers scrap, that has all dissipated. We don't care about either of them, so their duel to the death rings hollow. This seems to be a big problem with the film in general, in that none of the characters, minus, say, the obvious ones, Nate and Alex, are particularly likeable. I have to admit, Tom McKay's character left me guessing, but it becomes pretty obvious that he's playing everyone up the middle as the end credits near. I did love trying to figure him out, though. He always seemed to be surreptitiously pondering his next move - as if sliding pieces around a board. I thought that was kinda cool.

 

 

Three Fingers is his usual animal-like self, a cannibal for the sake of being a cannibal; a one-dimensional and boring entity that seems to have developed the luck of the Warner Bros Coyote from the last two films to this one, as he keeps coming back from the dead time and time again, culminating with a truly preposterous ending in which he seems to teleport several miles up the road just in time to terrorize our heroes, even though a stake was rammed through his chest mere moments earlier. After awhile it all becomes a little too cartoony for its own good.

 

 

One of the big sticking points of the film for myself (and most of the other reviewers online) is the use of z-grade CGI in place of actual blood and guts and, well, backgrounds. It's a fact, the CGI that appears in this film is fucking horrid. Cheap! Cheap! Cheap! One sequence in particular, where a guy is chopped into three pieces thanks to some strategically placed fish-wire, had me groaning in disbelief. I could give my buddy Stan fifty-bucks and one afternoon, and he could, without a doubt, create something more realistic and gruesome than this computerized turd passing itself off as a gore effect. Also, several sequences involve a car being driven in front of a fake processed backdrop -- the kind they used to use in the 1950s, before digital screens and expensive side-mounted cameras. When Tarantino does it, he can simply say it's a homage to Jim McBride. When Declan O'Brien does it, it's because he's too cheap to set up a digital backdrop or even actually stage a camera outside a car being driven in the woods. O'Brien should be ashamed of himself, Fuck man, at least try!

 

 

Regarding the acting, it is respectable, in that everyone in the cast, most of which were born in either England or Bulgaria (where the film was shot), is doing their best to keep their various accents straight while projecting a believable American-born character. Tamer Hassan (2010's "Clash of the Titans") is fantastic, and seems to revel in his bad guy role, especially when he's bouncing his tough guy vernacular off of fellow on-screen baddie (and fellow Englishman), Gil Kolirin (2007's "Return to House on Haunted Hill"). These two at least keep it interesting, somewhat... kinda. Mix in Tom McKay's bizarre angst-ridden aloofness and Janet Montgomery's tough-girl sexiness, spotty line delivery and we're left with something that is, at the very least, watchable. Despite the fact that the material they are working with is utter dreck, these actors are committed, and I liked that. It's the thing that keeps me from dismissing "Wrong Turn 3: Left For Dead" altogether.

In the end, the question exists: Would I recommend it? Hells no! Double Hells no! However, if it's 2:00 am and it's a choice between a lame Kevin Trudeau infomercial or a screening of "Wrong Turn 3: Left For Dead", I'd suggest taking that wrong turn. Cool thing I did there, huh? No?