Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

For a Straight to DVD horror movie to stand out from its throng of competitors this Straight to DVD horror movie would have to be pretty good. ‘Wrong Turn 2: Dead End’ was that rarest of movie. So apparently the inbred cannibalistic hillbilly movie has gone and turned itself into a genre which leads us to the third movie in the series, not that I’ve ever seen the first one, with ‘Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead’. The good news is that I’m told that this movie, just the like the one that preceded it, is also better than the original ‘Wrong Turn’. The bad news is, unlike the movie that preceded it, this one will do very little to separate itself from the mediocre offerings that it will undoubtedly be lumped in with.

Say hello to some crazy white water rafting college kids. The only one we’re going to concern ourselves with at this particular time is Alex (Lauren Montgomery) because the other ones will be inbred hillbilly stew in a little bit. Sure, one does take off her top to show off a well formed set titties, but where you might spy a set of playful funbags, Three Finger, the Inbred Cannibalistic Hillbilly, only sees more tasty meat.

Now switch to a prison down the road where we meet a prison guard named Nate (Tom Frederic). Today is Nate’s last day as he’s going on to law school. Nate’s boss however is obviously a dick and has assigned Nate to transfer some hardened criminals across the way to a new facility. On Nate’s last day on the job. They’re doing this because they’ve gotten word that the chief criminal Chavez (Tamer Hassan) is in legion with some racist skinheads led by Floyd (Gil Kolirin) and have planned a breakout so this transfer has to be done NOW. Again, you would think bossman could’ve gotten somebody else to do this that wasn’t on their last day on the job.

So Nate, his soon to be dead African American partner Walt (Chucky Venice) and a sooner to be dead unnamed guard load up the bus and head to parts unknown. Of course it’s not long before our crew makes a Wrong Turn! Or more like Three Finger

forces the crew to make a wrong turn and now our heroes are on the run being chased by a very hungry Inbred Cannibalistic Hillbilly. Worst still is that the tables has turned as the completely psycho Chavez has gained control of the situation and is punching everybody in the face. Hard. Our heroes have also stumbled upon poor scared Alex who the racist immediately wants to invite to his rape party. Chavez ain’t having none of that because he’d much rather punch her in the face. Our crew also stumbles upon Three Fingers young son who Chavez punches in the face and then mutilates. This does not make Three Finger happy.

Thus our hero the law student is really up against it. A psycho ‘Mexican’ on one hand and a pissed off three fingered inbred cannibalistic hillbilly on the other hand with millions upon millions of lost cash in the balance. It’s complicated.

I did have one major disappointment in the movie that’s not really indicative of the quality of this movie and that was that character actor Todd Jensen was in this movie. In the past week I’ve seen this somewhat little known actor killed by an angry baby, harvested for his organs and eaten by a giant mutant bug - twice - so I was really excited to see how he was going to get it from an Inbred Cannibalistic Hillbilly, but alas my man didn’t show up until late and thus didn’t die. Very disappointing.

But that disappointment aside ‘Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead’ wasn’t all that bad it just wasn’t as good as ‘Wrong Turn 2’. This one was obviously more of a lower budget affair as it didn’t feature near the number of B-list caliber actors that ‘Wrong Turn 2’ was working with, didn’t have nearly as many spectacular gory kills and it also only had one Inbred Cannibalistic Hillbilly that we had to deal with. While the one invincible monster thing worked in a Jason / Freddy kind of way, it is more way oppressive and hopeless to watch our hillbilly food deal with an army of those suckers than just one.

Still director Declan O’Brien squeezes the most out of what he had to work with as there was plenty of gore to be had, the cast of British actors pretending to be American Black People, American Racists, American Final Girls, American Mexicans and American Heroes was pretty good. Especially Tamer Hassan, who is about as Hispanic as I am, doing his best Scarface on a bad Acid Trip impersonation. Couple that with an epic fist fight between the characters of Chavez and Three Finger and you have probably the best fight scenes ever filmed between a ‘Mexican’ and an Inbred Cannibalistic Hillbilly.

It all just wasn’t enough bring the movie up above the level of mediocre however. And then it had a closing scene straight out of left field. But all things considered, especially when you look at the stuff we’ve seen in the recent past, ‘Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead’ was fairly entertaining, it just couldn’t fill the massive shoes of its meaner, bloodier, angrier big brother ‘Wrong Turn 2’.