‘Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings’ – Gory Prequel Revels in Backwoods Carnage

Wrong Turn 4 is a heartwarming family movie about 3 young boys who, despite their individual physical and mental deformities, are able to band together as one and survive in a world that is cruel to them at every turn.

Nah, I’m just f**cking with you. It’s a prequel to the original Wrong Turn and it has lots and lots of blood, gore, dismemberment and decapitation. It tells the story of Three Finger, One Eye and Saw Tooth from the time that they are kids incarcerated at Glenville Sanatorium in 1974; to 2003 when they entrap, torture and kill a group of teenagers holed up in the now abandoned building to escape from a horrific snowstorm. Hmm, I really think that it might have been in their best interest to take a chance with the blizzard.

With 2011’s ‘Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings’, the slapdash horror franchise embraces splatter over substance, unleashing a grisly prequel fixated on blood and brutality. Charting the backstory of Three Finger and his deformed clan, this entry aims solely to up the gore ante rather than develop the lore. Fans of the series’ trademark carnage get it in spades.

Set in an eerie, abandoned asylum, a group of friends seek shelter from a blizzard, unaware the facility once housed feral young cannibals. Now adults, the grotesque ‘Hilliker’ clan pursue their love of mutilation within the snowbound ruins.

Director Declan O’Brien dispenses with any pretense of plot beyond stranding fresh victims for the hideous villains to torment creatively. A garroting offers gruesome kicks before a liquid nitrogen bath turns one girl into human slush. Later, a cleaver severs two heads in one chop.

With zero character development and lifeless acting, the adolescents are merely props on which to hang each gory set piece. And the ‘Three Finger’ origins prove perfunctory, failing to enrich the mutant ringleader.

For better or worse, ‘Wrong Turn 4’ embraces its reputation as the schlockiest of slasher franchises. Logic and three-dimensionality are sacrificed at the gore altar, but for splatter junkies, that tradeoff hits the guilty pleasure sweet spot.

Now, anyone who is a fan of the Wrong Turn series knows that it’s famous for one thing and that is lots and lots of gore. That’s why I was a little worried when I saw that the writer/director for this film was Declan O’Brien. O’Brien was the director of Wrong Turn 3, which was by far the weakest film in the bunch. So I was a little worried. But after the death by garroting/decapitation and the human fondue scene I can easily say my worries were for naught. O’Brien seems to have learned from his mistakes and his time behind the camera for this installment is well spent.

Wrong Turn 4 is not going to appeal to everyone. If you like a gory horror film then it is definitely for you. If not, there’s always Twilight.

Trivia

Sean Skene, the actor who portrays Vincent, also doubles as Three Finger in the film.

In the special features section of the DVD, Terra Vnesa, Jenny Pudavick, Caitlyn Wong and Tenika Davis name the cutest of the inbred Hillbillies.