Main cast: Doug Bradley (Maynard Odets), Camilla Arfwedson (Sheriff Angela Carter), Simon Ginty (Billy), Roxanne McKee (Lita Marquez), Paul Luebke (Gus), Oliver Hoare (Julian), and Kyle Redmond Jones (Deputy Kevin Biggs)
Director: Declan O’Brien
If you ever wondered what the cinematic equivalent of a flaming dumpster filled with festival trash and questionable hillbilly stew smells like, look no further than Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines. This movie makes one thing clear: not every road leads to redemption. Some just take you straight to the bargain bin, and even then, they’re overcharging.
Doug Bradley, our dear Pinhead of Hellraiser fame, famously declined to appear in Hellraiser: Revelations because of the “bad script”. That’s like a chef refusing to work at McDonald’s and then opening a hotdog stand in a gas station parking lot when he shows up here to channel his inner Walmart Hannibal Lecter.
He plays Maynard Odets, a verbally abusive serial killer-cum-hillbilly mentor. Think of him as the hillbilly Tony Robbins, but instead of empowering his protégés, he inspires them to kill teens in increasingly stupid ways.
The setting is the Mountain Man Music Festival, a name so generic it might as well be Budget Bash 2024. The town of Fairlake is supposedly bustling with festivalgoers, yet the streets are so empty you’d think there was a zombie outbreak. Spoiler: there isn’t. The town is clearly just a cheap studio set, and the extras are MIA. Maybe they took a Wrong Turn on the way to the casting call.
The plot, such as it is, hinges on the idea that every character makes decisions dumber than the last. Sheriff Angela Carter is the reigning queen of bad judgment. She could write a book titled How to Die Dumbly: A Comprehensive Guide for Law Enforcement Professionals. Angela insists on splitting her meager team to the point that even Scooby-Doo would disapprove, sending rookies out while she stays in the station, handwringing about “justice”. Justice? Lady, your town is being overrun by murderous mutants, not jaywalkers.
Meanwhile, the teens deliver Darwin Award-worthy performances. One trusts Odets after seeing him orchestrate multiple murders, another decides carrying his dead girlfriend around is a logical survival strategy, and a third goes off to investigate noises in true horror-movie fashion. By the time the snowblower death scene arrives, you’re actively rooting for the hillbillies to wipe out this entire cast.
Even Doug Bradley’s gravitas can’t save this trainwreck. He’s reduced to snarling the same three lines about chaos and death, which lose all impact by the third act. By the time he says “My boys are coming!” for the umpteenth time, you’re wishing he’d direct that fire at the script.
Speaking of scripts, this movie reeks of last-minute rewrites or, more likely, the clumsy repurposing of a rejected pitch for a Saw knockoff. The hillbillies aren’t even cannibals anymore, just homicidal pranksters with a penchant for creative dismemberment. Are we supposed to miss the nuance of the original Wrong Turn films?
The film’s lone highlight is the aforementioned snowblower scene, where gore fans can delight in the sheer absurdity of it all. But even this bright spot is dimmed by the slog that surrounds it.
If Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines were a festival, it’d be Fyre Festival. If it were a road trip, it’d end in a pothole-filled cul-de-sac with a flat tire. It’s a crime against cinema that demands justice—just not from Sheriff Angela Carter, because she’ll mess that up, too.
Take the next exit, and for the love of all things horror, let Declan O’Brien’s Wrong Turn days be as dead as this franchise deserves to be.
