Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines

The Wrong Turn series is one of my favourites, with their outrageous graphic gore and splatter effects, they inspire people to create horror movies. I also find them quite disturbing and fun on an intense level. They’re meant to be like that, as well. The fifth film in the series is no exception. It follows a group of partying teens at a mountain man festival, who are then (quite predictably, besieged by the murderous hillbillies). This film didn’t really have a wrong turn, where the characters drive up the wrong road and then find themselves in the clutches of these murderous mutant cannibals. I thought that that would detract from the action, because it was a weird move to name it Wrong Turn and not be true to its name. However, in the end that proved the only thing that wasn’t true to this franchise, because the rest of the film was filled with nasty gore. I like it, but still think that this fifth one is one of the worst in the series. It’s got some good gore and visual and practical effects. It just feels a bit like it’s a parody of itself sometimes, e.g. the jokes made towards or by the mutant cannibals are lame. And it’s not as gory as the other entries in the series, which is a must for this franchise, as its main focus is creating gory tension. That’s not to say there aren’t any great gory scenes (there are), but they’re shot mostly in the dark, so it’s hard to see them, which is a pain. The characters weren’t likable and you could just feel that they were there just to be picked off by the mutant cannibals. But that’s why we watch these films and also to see who survives at the end. There was a completely extended sex scene. I guess you can say it shows what the cops are up to and how wild the festival is, but it went on too long, and felt like it was just there to show some more sex and nudity. I just felt that it went on too long and didn’t bring anything new to the story really much. It’s not hard to see that the Wrong Turn films following Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, didn’t just rely on showing the audience the bucket-load of gore (actually, in this case, buckets-load), but actually relied on showing graphic depictions of the sex act. Well, gore does sell, but sex does, as well. That doesn’t mean that I dislike it in these movies. It’s built in with all the slasher films, either it being Friday The 13^th or Halloween, it’s the same formula of sex-and-death. I like that the Wrong Turn series are testing the boundaries of horror franchises. The horror genre has a lot of sex in it. It sounds worse than it is, though, because this film is a good film, it’s just not up to the standard set by the others (except for the third one, which I think is also one of the worst in this series – but still good). It had the gore we expect (just maybe not enough of it) from this series and it was intense and inventive. It’s also good that we have a lot of mutants in this one, not going down the path of Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead, where there was only really one chasing all these people. If you are fond of this series, then you will definitely like this movie. So I do recommend it to all of you out there who love this series.