Wrong Turn 5 (2012)
Directed by: Declan O'Brien
Written by: Alan B. McElroy, Declan O'Brien
Starring: Camilla Arfwedson, Doug Bradley, Simon Ginty
WRONG TURN 5 (2012)
Five teenagers hit the road for Fairlake, where the annual Mountain Man festival promises good music and fun times for the youngsters. After getting into a fracas with local resident Maynard, the teens and Maynard are locked up in the cell for the night by the town’s sheriff, Angela. After fingerprinting Maynard, Sheriff Angela discovers he’s a fugitive and orders for him to be collected the next morning by the state police. However, a creepy Maynard informs the Sheriff and the teens that they’ll be long dead before the police come and that “his boys” are on their way to set him free.
Inventive bloody deaths? Check. Horny teens having lots of moany, groany sex? Check. Saw-tooth, Three-finger and One-Eye? Check. Yes, it can only be the latest in the WRONG TURN saga – WRONG TURN 5.
If you’re already a fan of the Wrong Turn series, then you’ll know what you’re getting yourself into. If not, then imagine a film where the death count is high, intelligence level is low and the pure drive of the film is to churn out as much blood, guts and gore as possible. This is where I have a problem with Wrong Turn 5 – the lack of tension and story. The film just seems to introduce a set of characters as quickly as possible, with them having about as much depth as a paddling pool, just to serve as meat for the hillbillies to slaughter in various, bloodthirsty ways. Despite being a gorehound, I found WRONG TURN 5 a bit gratuitous, as not one moment was there a build up of tension to strike fear into the heart of the viewer. For me, it felt like mindless slaying just for fun, which I suppose is the whole idea, but as a film love I don’t buy into it. The script is not spellbinding and the plot is pretty much non-existant, which leaves the only thing it’s good at remaining: inventive kills. I can’t deny that director Declan O’Brien has gone out of his way to come up with interesting methods to tear people apart, from feeding a character their own intestines to a very bone-crunching death involving a football pitch and a motorised cultivator. Whilst I applaud the variety, I’m also disappointed with the lack of suspense prior to the killing. This has a lot to do with the lack of sympathy towards the characters too, who, besides Cruz, town drunk Mose and Sheriff Angela, are very unlikable and the viewer doesn’t get to connect with.
Of course, the biggest draw to WRONG TURN 5 is the inclusion of Pinhead himself, Doug Bradley, who plays Maynard, a distant relative of the infamous bunch of inbreds, One-Eye, Saw Tooth and Three Finger. Under his guidance, the three are taught to cover their tracks, something they fail to do later in the film, though it’s without consequence. Unlike the hillbillies, Maynard is perfectly normal physically, but is pure sadistic and psychotic mentally, with a lust for blood and the intelligence not to get caught. Though it would appear his luck has run out when the Sheriff picks him up and locks him in the police cell overnight. This doesn’t deter Maynard one bit and actually might have been part of his plan all along. Whilst Bradley is a great villain for WRONG TURN 5, his character soon gets boring, repeating the same lines over and over again, “My boys are gonna get you!”. The best bits are when he’s given something to do, but these come few and far between. In short, despite a good performance, his character isn’t that well written and not even Bradley can save Wrong Turn 5 from the murky depths.
One of my other gripes with this movie, as with many teen movies, was the almost constant appearance of sex scenes. In Wrong Turn 5 we had three sex scenes to endure, with naked young ladies bouncing their ample bosom in the face of their horny guy. One sex scene wasn’t really needed at all, one happened in the first 5 minutes and the other was stuck in the middle of the film to set up a relationship issue between two characters. It feels like the scenes were set up to fill some time and to purely appeal to the American Pie generation.
Many of the scenes felt like a means to an end, without an actual story to go by. The Mountain Man festival itself isn’t even shown, and I thought they could have used this as a perfect location for some kills and thrills.
I’d say Wrong Turn 5 is very much for the fans of the series or teenagers looking for a bit of blood on a Saturday night. Wrong Turn 5 is definitely meant to be taken with a pinch of salt, but slashers like Scream did it so much better and were smart about it too. So if you fancy a bit of mindless mass slaughter, this is your film, just don’t expect much else.
Rating: 
Terrible movie. As usual there are some nice deaths, but the script is wooden, Bradley has nothing to work with and the low budget just leaks out of every frame. There’s also no tension whatsoever.