WRONG TURN 5: BLOODLINES (2012) Review

Directed by: Declan O'Brien

Starring: Doug Bradley, Camilla Arfwedson, Roxanne McKee

You’d think I would have learned my lesson after watching the abysmal fourth entry into this withered franchise but apparently not. Another straight to video effort from the same director as WT4. Did I somehow expect this to be good? I honestly don’t know. All I know is that by the time the credits rolled I had wasted a good hour and a half watching a completely pointless movie. And when I say this is a pointless addition to the franchise I mean it. As bad as the fourth film was at least it was (trying) to tell an origins story but this fifth one has nothing. Even Doug Bradley couldn't save it.

Following on from the prequel WRONG TURN 4, this movie shows the three inbred fucks after leaving the abandoned mental hospital. They have somehow managed to shack up with a deranged killer Maynard (Doug Bradley) on the edge of a small West Virginia town. And by a huge coincidence this town just so happens to have an annual ‘Mountain Man Festival’ – a festival which according to the film is as big as Lollapalooza and in which everybody dresses as – you guessed it – mountain men. A group of pill-popping, shroom-munching kids on their way to the festival run into some trouble when they meet Maynard and they all (including Maynard) get hauled back to the town jail and locked up. But Maynard doesn't seem too worried because as he keeps reminding the Sherriff (Arfwedson) “My boys are coming”.

Maybe it’s just me but it seems that the core of this movie has been borrowed straight from 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, with Maynard locked up in police custody waiting for his boys to descend on the town and break him out. In 30 DAYS all of the cell phones are destroyed and the power station is sabotaged. Here the cell tower itself is destroyed and the power station is sabotaged. Coincidence? I think not.
But just because WT5 shares some similarities with another film is no reason to hate it right? Right. Because there are plenty of other, better reasons for that.

Like this one for example: The ‘big as Lollapalooza’ Mountain Man Festival is apparently in full swing yet there is no sign of it. We don’t hear it and apart from a few people wandering around early in the film we don’t see it either. And if it really is as big as Lollapalooza and this town is so small, how the hell do a group of kids manage to get a hotel room at such short notice? Does this festival even exist? I might be nitpicking here but I can’t help it. The film puts so much importance on this festival that its absence is really obvious and confusing.

If there is one single thing about this movie which annoyed and frustrated me more than any other it has got to be the Sherriff. She let loose four kids (found with an assload of drugs in their car which they crashed into a tree just prior to kicking the crap out of a man) essentially because they asked to be let go. Then to make things worse she lets the remaining boy out of his cell, deputises him and gives him a fucking shotgun. Insanity.
At one point much to my surprise I found myself giving the film a mental “Hooray!” because the Sherriff at least had enough sense to tell everybody to stick together instead of splitting up. But that feeling didn’t last because about 2 minutes later the Sherriff ran off on her own to try and find a radio…

And while we’re on the subject of annoying characters I’d like to nominate some more, like for example ALL OF THEM. But most notably Doug Bradley’s Maynard who would not shut the fuck up and the three inbred fuckers who for some reason giggled through the whole movie like a pack of retarded hyenas. Then again maybe they’re just laughing at how bad their makeup looks. Have I mentioned the makeup yet? No? Well it’s by far the worst of any of the films in the franchise. It just looks lazy and all too obviously fake to me.

At least we get to see some nice death scenes (and there’s hardly any nasty CGI in sight) but even these aren't as good or original as they could have been and they somehow come across as if they are clever or intricate even though they aren't. Like if Jigsaw created a trap right after he had a stroke.
So there you have it. There’s pretty much nothing good about this movie at all unless you’re satisfied with sitting back and watching a whole lot of pointless and mediocre death scenes glued together with the thinnest of plots. WRONG TURN completionists will want to see this but I don’t recommend it to anybody else living or dead.