1 out of 5

Director: Joe Lynch

Odd.  Odd that WT2 is better received than the first one, when Wrong Turn at least had the decency to give its characters some intelligence and turn the typical hillbilly inbred horror badguy into something actually frightening by lumping it into the unknown and insane Texas Chainsaw Massacre category of hick.  Wrong Turn was average, but it was a GOOD average, whereas Wrong Turn 2 just brings back all the regular horror tricks and tropes and makes something pretty tedious.  But I get it – there’s some way over-the-top gore, and some guy is wearing a Battle Royale shirt, and they make some “smart” decisions with the characters (the jock isn’t roped in by the tart) but in doing so actually follow the new-school horror rules… Anyhow, more specifically, we’re back in the woods and some teens and Henry Rollins find themselves up against our backwoods cannibals.  They try to “develop” the hicks by fleshing out their story and showing them as a family, but man, it just doesn’t matter when you don’t care about anyone they’re killing.  I do appreciate the attempt at expanding beyond the barebones story, but it’s requirement of showing the actual characters more is a mixed blessing, as it doesn’t work in quite the same menacing way as Stan Winston’s makeup did in film 1, instead looking – sorry makeup guys, cause I know I can’t do anything close to what you can – but, these end up looking like Halloween store purchases.  Total DTV, through and through.