Runtime: 91 minutes
Rating: 5
Release Date: October 23, 2012
Director: Declan O’Brien
Wrong Turn 5 literally starts right after Wrong Turn 4 ends, which is a nice bit of continuity. One-Eye, Three-Finger, and Saw-Tooth reunite with their dad Maynard (Doug Bradley, Hellraiser). Apparently, this is supposed to be the same guy from the first two films in the franchise, but he looks nothing like him since this is an entirely new actor.
They make their way to Fairlake, West Virginia, which conveniently is getting ready for the annual Mountain Man Festival. Billy and his girlfriend Cruz start having sex in their tent when their friends interrupt them. While making breakfast, Billy promptly reveals that he brought massive amounts of drugs with them, right before driving away with the drugs in the car.
Maynard decides to basically throw himself in front of the car so he can snag some hot booty for his sons. They go back to check on him, but when he stabs one of the guys in the leg, they retaliate by kicking the crap out of him. Just before his boys jump out of the woods, the police arrive. Sheriff Angela Carter (Camilla Arfwedson) decides that the easy thing is to just arrest everyone and sort things out back at the station.
While loading the guys and girls (who by the way did nothing) handcuffed into her car, her deputy discovers Billy’s collection of drugs. This gives her more reason to haul them into the station. Once there, his friends gang up on him, and the sheriff reluctantly lets the others go free. When running Maynard’s fingerprints, she discovers that he is wanted in multiple states, and that pretty much leads to her keeping him locked up for the night.
Back at the accident scene, the deputy she left behind finds himself attacked by the mutant cannibals. The mutants then decide to head to the police station and get their daddy an early release…
As a fan of the first two Wrong Turn films, I never know what to expect from the franchise. The first film is a favorite, the second film was a great outlet for Henry Rollins, the third put me to sleep, and the fourth was entertaining. Wrong Turn 5 somehow manages to fall somewhere in the middle of the films.
I often talk about suspension of belief/disbelief in horror films, and this one takes the cake. The festival is somehow such a big deal that literally everyone leaves town for it. The sheriff sends all of her men to the festival except for the one left behind, which leads to her deputizes a bunch of random kids and a man that she literally locked up hours earlier for public intoxication. Even as our characters wander through town, they only encounter a few teenage boys making trouble and the sheriff’s husband. There’s a small town like this near here that has an even bigger festival every year, but the shops are still open and people still walk around because not everyone loves the festival.
Once you get past that though, this is actually a solid little film. The mutants don’t look as great as they did in the earlier films, but I can overlook that given the shrinking budget. The characters are all pretty one-dimensional, but most of them die off pretty quickly so that isn’t a problem.
Wrong Turn 5 also has the classic deaths that we want in these films. One (two actually) involves a man buried in the ground with only his head sticking out as a mutant rides a commercial lawn mower, and another occurs in a Saw-like trap involving a car. Then there’s the moment when Maynard decides to dispense with one character by cutting out her eyes with nothing but a letter opener.
Not everyone is going to like Wrong Turn 5, but if you were disappointed by the last few films, this one will make it all better. It has the appeal of the original with some modern twists.
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