Wrong Turn 3: Left For Dead

I know what you're thinking: there was a Wrong Turn? A quick IMDB search reveals that the first instalment of this low-budget horror series, in which a monstrous hillbilly terrorized Eliza Dushku and other less famous teenagers, was released in 2003 to almost overwhelming public apathy ($15.4 million box office) and was followed in 2007 by an even less noteworthy straight-to-DVD sequel. In a spirit of generosity, Fox Home Entertainment has deemed the public worthy of one more chance to catch Wrong Turn fever. Alas, I suspect the film-going populace will likely remain indifferent. The chief problem may be the saga's hillbilly monster, a creature unlikely to ever join Dracula and Frankenstein in the pantheon. He looks like an attempt to crossbreed Gollum and Larry David. Similarly unpleasant are the protagonists: a group of convicts and a police officer lost in the woods after an auto accident that encounter a terrorized woman. Somewhere between the first suggestion of rape and the last creative variation on the word "fuck" ("fuck-stick," in case you're interested), emotional investment in these characters dwindled severely. All of this tedium takes place in a forest that director Declan O'Brien has made look uncannily like an over-lit soundstage with phoney grass and Styrofoam trees, and even the periodic killings are rendered with such cheesy special effects that their artifice might have seemed downright Brecht-ian had I been in a more generous mood. DVD extras are limited to deleted scenes and a documentary titled, I swear to god, "Wrong Turn 3 in 3 Fingers… I Mean, Parts," in which actress Janet Montgomery says of the director, "I haven't actually worked with someone who is so sure of exactly what they want." Tricky editing makes it unclear whether or not she bursts into tears shortly after making this statement but I have my suspicions.