Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. I met Joe Lynch about a year ago, and it was obvious as soon as we started talking that this is a guy who loves horror on a profound level. I’m sure some of you may say, “Who cares about a WRONG TURN 2?” and in a general sense, I’m right there with you. But having heard from Joe just what he had in mind, I am interested. I always root for a hardcore fan when they suddenly find themselves in a position to call the shots. Has he got the goods to make his gore dreams come true? Well, the Frightfest audience got a chance to see for themselves this week:
Hey Harry. I saw WRONG TURN 2: DEAD END at London's Frightfest festival. If you use my review, call me Jack Torrance. Thanks! WRONG TURN 2: DEAD END (MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!) How many good DTV sequels can you name? Whatever you can think of, I bet you can only count them on one hand. Most of them have sucked ass. I thought DARKMAN II and DARKMAN III were excellent (so sue me) but there has also been AMERICAN PSYCHO II. And let's not forget SPLASH TOO. Actually, let's DO forget that. So when I first heard there would be a DTV sequel to WRONG TURN, I wasn't exactly overjoyed. I thought WRONG TURN was fun and initially I thought I'd have to give the sequel a miss. But then reports started coming in on the production which indicated that this might not be a typical throwaway cash-in sequel. I read an interview with the director, Joe Lynch, in which he was described as a "degenerate gorehound." He wanted to amp up the gore in the sequel. And speaking as a degenerate gorehound myself, I hate it when splatter movies don't deliver on the goods. I'm not saying every horror movie has to have buckets of gore and blood. It wouldn't work for terrific movies like THE OTHERS or ROSEMARY'S BABY. But for a splatter flick, you want what it says on the tin! And then I read they'd cast Henry Rollins. Now I was definitely interested to see how this would turn out. So I went to the London Frightfest festival on Saturday to see the world premiere of WRONG TURN 2, with none other than director Joe Lynch in attendance to introduce the movie and take questions after. WRONG TURN 2... fucking rocks big time! The audience lapped this up. We didn't cheer and applaud just certain kills - we cheered and applauded EVERY kill! The opening sequence has a wonderfully gruesome death that sent the audience wild. I don't want to spoil it for you (well, if you really can't wait to find out..SPOILER...two inbred cannibal mutants gut a woman, spilling her intestines, and then hack her in half straight down the middle. They each pick up one half of her corpse and carry it to their truck). This is one of the most insanely gory movies I've ever seen. There's real variety in the kills. Amongst other things, there's characters exploding into fountains of blood and body parts after being shot with arrows that have sticks of dynamite strapped to them, arrows through eyes, stabbings, dismemberments, an axe in the head, and cannibalism. It's not just the carnage that makes it fun. Henry Rollins OWNS this movie as a badass marine in charge of the pilot for a Survivor style reality show where six contestants take part in the backwoods of West Virginia, where they discover they're not alone. Surprisingly for a horror sequel, let alone a DTV sequel, the characters of the young wannabe reality stars are well written, there's funny banter, but Rollins is definitely the star. Once he starts fighting the mutants, we just went nuts. After the screening, Joe told us that when he was 9 years old, he heard the term "video nasty" being used in the UK in the 80's to describe movies like Evil Dead. He said that right then he decided he wanted to make "video nasty" type horror movies. He said Fox were so happy with the movie, they wanted it to go theatrical. But he said that would have meant cutting the more brutal kills just to get an R rating, and he gave as an example the kill in the opening sequence. He was adamant that people see it completely uncut. He said the version we saw was the uncut "street trash video nasty version" that will be released on DVD. Joe said Fox are in very early development on WRONG TURN 3 but he wasn't certain if he'll come back for it. This does deserve a theatrical release - it beats the living crap out of HILLS HAVE EYES 2. But if it's a choice between seeing a neutered version in the cinema and seeing it in all its uncut gory glory on DVD, then I can understand the decision to go for a DVD release only. After some terrible horror movies this year like THE HITCHER and CRAPTIVITY, WRONG TURN 2 is a fantastic gorefest and throwback to old school splatter.
