Written by Turi Meyer And Al Septien
Directed by Joe Lynch
Jake: "Nice ride. You want to take it for a spin?"
Nina: "Why not? It's the least this fucked up family owes us."
In a surprise move, you've got a first sequel that might be somewhat better than the first movie. Don't get me wrong, this still ain't a great franchise but there's a degree put behind the characters this time that the first movie didn't necessarily going for it.
It's also funny because taking a leaf out of Halloween: Resurrection, this movie decided to down the reality TV route with a Survivor influenced show focusing on six celebs being put through their paces by Colonel Dale Murphy (Henry Rollins). Surprisingly, he's a far better character than expected.
Anyways the contestants in question included Kimberly Caldwell (as herself), former football player Jake Washington (Texas Battle), lesbian war vet Amber Williams (Daniella Alonso), skateboarder Matt Jones (Steve Braun), lingerie model Elena (Crystal Garcia) and graphic artist Nina Paps (Erica Leerhsen). Of course, Kimberly's an open kill and got quickly replaced by the similarly unfortunate Mara Stone (Aleksa Palladino).
With these characters, there's something of an effort to try and make them a bit more dimensional and it mostly. Except for Elena, who really was just vacuous and fame hungry but the rest, there's that effort, so I have to give the movie it's due on that front.
It's also interesting the pairing choices. The somewhat immature Matt being paired with the more serious Amber as he comes to respect both her and the fact that she's a lesbian. Then there's the romantic undertones between Nina and Jake as the two of them bonded over tragedy while Dale himself seemed to actually care about the contestants lives to the point where he endangered his own to save them.
Even the inbred hillbillies in this one seemed to have a bit more going for them as characters. They were still picking off the contestants, one by one but there was an effort to explore their disturbed family dynamics. In particular, the creepy Ma (Ashlea), Pa (Ken Kirzinger), Brother (Clint Carleton) and Sister (Rorelee Tio), who were the main threat in this one.
- Three Finger was played by Jeff Scrutton this time while Patton Oswald had a voice cameo.
- Adding to the disturbed scenes, we had that hillbilly baby sucking on a human finger while being bottle fed toxic sludge.
- Original ideas included using both Jessie and Chris from the first movie as well as having Eliza Dushku play herself for the opening kill.
- Chronology: Still set in West Virginia and not long after the events of the first movie.
Wrong Turn 2: Dead End does show that when there's more effort on character, you can get a pretty decent sequel. That's the film's biggest strength, and even the reality TV idea was better handled. I liked this one.
Rating: 6 out of 10
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