Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines Review (2012) Worth Watching?

It's about a group of friends who travel to rural West Virginia for a mutant mountain man festival and freak out when they come across real mutant mountain men.

Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines was directed by Declan Obrien (who also directed Wrong Turn 3: Left For Dead and Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings) and stars Camilla Arfwedson, Doug Bradley (from In Search Of Darkness and Deer Crossing) and Paul Luebke (from Djinn).

The inbred hillbillies are back!

Forget the inbred hillbillies...Borislav is back! Throughout the entire Wrong Turn series, up to this point, we've seen a different guy play "Three Finger", the central villain and face of the franchise. Borislav Iliev is a stuntman who played Three Finger back in Wrong Turn 3. Before that it was an actor named Julian Richings, then a TV extra, then Borislav, then a stuntman, then another stuntman. It's kinda nice to see a familiar face for once. Could you imagine if every single Nightmare on Elm Street gave some random stuntman Freddy's glove to swing around?

So it's nice to have an old Three Finger back. Maybe not so nice that he looks like a total clown this time around. He's literally wearing a ridiculous Halloween costume.

Also not great that they went full on B-movie for this one. The acting is brutal and the entire movie takes place in such a basic movie set, absolutely nothing looks real.

From a Wrong Turn timeline perspective this movie should be the sequel to part 3, since part 4 was a prequel to part 1. But nothing in the story really fits into the timeline, Wrong Turn 5 is all over the place in every way. For one, the new patriarch is some British guy (same dude who played Pinhead in Hellraiser). He's nothing like the mutants, but has their undying loyalty for some reason. And Three Finger, who used to be a badass capable of hand to hand combating active marines, is now a total pansy.

The story takes place in Fairlake West Virginia during an annual "mountain man" festival, which is basically Halloween but where everyone dresses up as mutant hillbillies (which means Three Finger is free to walk amongst the crowd, killing and having a good time).

Oh, and hillbilly's old classic rusted out tow truck is back! It was swapped out in part 3 with a boring modern truck. Too bad the rusted out heap looks totally out of place in this fake, sterile cardboard studio set of a town.

The movie isn't all bad of course. There's some epic gore and a few clever nods to other horrors like The Hitcher and Misery. The tractor scene is the best by far. It's so stupid but also so awesome. It's so bloody and so stupid and so cool. I also actually love hearing Three Finger's stupid echoey laugh, it never gets old.

This was actually my second time watching through this series. The first time around I remember being frustrated because Bloodlines didn't follow the storyline of any of the previous Wrong Turns. But I was also dead sober when I watched it. Not a good idea. This time I had a couple of beers and some firewater in me and my God it was hilarious. Some horror movies you just have to go into a few beers deep to enjoy. Especially the 5th sequel in a ridiculous series.

Worth Watching?

This is a tough one. Most of me wants to say no way. Maybe if you're intentionally looking for something super dumb with a lot of over the top gore. Or maybe if you liked Texas Chainsaw 3D which also replaced a consistently gritty atmosphere with bright sunny colorful happiness. Seriously, since when does Three Finger start wearing clean shirts?

Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines Review (2012) Worth Watching? - ALL HORROR Tweet it