Wrong Turn 2: Dead End

Do you like Henry Rollins? Are you a fan of old Black Flag songs? I’m not. Henry Rollins annoys me. I hate his spoken word addition to the song Bottom on Tool’s Undertow album (“In order to survive you, I must first survive myself”…lame). I think the guy is a jackass. So, why am I ranting about Henry Rollins? It turns out that he’s in the sequel to everyone’s favorite hillbilly cannibal movie, Wrong Turn. I saw Wrong Turn in the theatre and actually enjoyed it. It was decently directed and featured some pretty intense moments and some clever kills. I guess it didn’t make enough money to warrant a theatrical sequel; instead, we are treated to a direct to DVD sequel entitled Wrong Turn 2: Dead End.

Wrong Turn 2 is helmed by first-time director Joe Lynch. I don’t know anything about this guy, but he comes across as a douchebag in the special features stuff on the DVD. Oh well. The plot for Wrong Turn 2 is basically the same as the plot for Wrong Turn. A politically correct (i.e. racially diverse) sampling of young, attractive losers gets chased, mutilated, killed, and eaten by a bunch of mutated, inbred, retarded, hillbilly cannibals. The setting is rural West Virginia. Henry Rollins stars in this movie. Eliza Dushku does not. Damn.

The film begins with some annoying, spoiled, wannabe actress driving a red, convertible Mustang down some winding mountain road. She’s talking on the cell phone to her agent, asking why she has to take part in this reality show she is currently traveling to. This actress is Kimberly Caldwell, playing herself. I didn’t know who she was until I watched the behind the scenes stuff. I guess she was one of those American Idols or something. I don’t watch that shit; I watch this shit instead. She ends up losing her cell phone connection and takes a wrong turn, hence the title of the movie. The post-colon, Dead End part of the title is there because people die when they make this wrong turn. There are no Dead End road signs in this movie. As Kimberly is driving down the wrong turn road, some dude goes bouncing off her windshield and flies over her car, landing on his back on the pavement. Kim stops her car, gets out, and stoops over him to see if he’s alive. The fucker suddenly leans up and bites off her lips. Then his hillbilly cohorts come along and chop her in half, vertically, with an axe. Half her body falls to the right, half falls to the left, and her innards splat to the ground directly beneath her. The two cannibals each take a half of her and drag her off into the woods. Whoa…that’s some hardcore craziness. Could this be the direct to DVD sequel I’ve been waiting for?

Nope. Enter the rest of the actors, the feculent dialogue, and the moronic set-up. A film crew is shooting a new TV reality game show (think Survivor) in the woods of West Virginia. The show is called Apocalypse and is hosted by Henry Rollins. He plays a combat experienced veteran named Dale Murphy. No kidding. [Tangent: My friend’s dad is Dale Murphy, the two-time National League MVP who played for the Atlanta Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies. His name has now been immortalized in a DTV movie that I’m reviewing. That can’t be a coincidence. I don’t believe in coincidences; I believe in God.] The goal of the game is to get the players separated from each other so that each can more easily die a grisly death (not really, but it sure makes the director’s job easier). The players are supposedly trapped in a post-apocalyptic world where they have to find food and avoid imaginary radiation leaks and mutants and shit. Ironically, real mutants live in these woods and the reality show becomes reality but it’s just a movie so it’s not really reality but it seems like reality for the characters in the movie. Postmodernism and stuff. This reality show formula is not new to horror films; it is also used in the unwarranted Busta Rhymes Halloween sequel.

The inevitable comparisons between Wrong Turn and Wrong Turn 2: Revenge of the Inbred Mutant Hillbilly Cannibal Retards:

The first film is much better. It is competently directed. Its characters are interesting and somewhat likeable. It is a survival horror picture where you actually care if the protagonist lives. The tension in certain scenes, especially the scene where Eliza Dushku is hiding under the bed in the hillbilly cabin, is palpable. Stan Winston’s creature effects and make-up are amazing; the hillbillies look disgustingly great. The sequel features a few cool directorial flourishes (a camera-attached-to-the-actor scene where a character gets an axe to the head and the opening scene) but is mostly a bland, run-of-the-mill DTV production. This movie tries to imitate the survival horror feel of the first film but fails miserably. The characters are so lame that I didn’t care if any survived; I ended up rooting for them all to die. This strips the movie of any tension it strives to create. I found myself apathetically anticipating each successive kill (what’ll it be next…meat-grinder, arrow, axe, dynamite…?). The hillbilly make-up in this film consists entirely of lumpy heads and bad teeth. I didn’t find these inbreds nearly as compelling or terrifying as those in the first film.

From my review so far, you’re probably thinking that this film is totally worthless (or you’re thinking why is this review so goddamned long and why doesn’t this reviewer have a life?); it’s not. If you like to watch horror movies for creative kills and tons of gore, this is your cup of ass. Blood and guts aplenty. One arrow, two heads. Look out, there’s a stick of lit dynamite in your belt. Boom. Splat. Finger binky. Meat-grinder massage. Hillbilly sex and a BJ. Lunchtime. Shit ghost. PS: If you like boobs, you’ll be happy to know that Crystal Lowe (Elena) shows off a nice pair.

Odds and Ends:

Henry Rollins turns into Dutch from Predator.

A dinner scene in this movie pays homage to TCM (that’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the uninitiated).

Daniella Alonso is in this movie. She is also in two other movies I have reviewed: The Hills Have Eyes 2 and Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror. Is this a coincidence (see my above comment about coincidences)?

This may be the first movie to use the line, “This is so effed in the A.”

Ramba is the feminine form of Rambo (think Spanish 101, folks).