John’s Horror Corner: Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort (2014), neither best nor worst in this hillbilly horror franchise.

MY CALL:  This remains watchable for those seeking some guilty pleasures in the form of boobs, gore and uninspired kills. Watch this for fun, not for “horror.”  MORE MOVIES LIKE Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort:  Well, of course, you need to go back to Wrong Turn (2003; the best one), maybe Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007; more silly but fun), but probably skip Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead (2009) and go straight to Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings (2011; the best of the sequels) and Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines (2012).  More to try include The Hills Have Eyes 1-2 (1977, 1984, 2006, 2007), Just Before Dawn (1981), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Hatchet (2006) and its three sequels, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) will all continue to satisfy the hillbilly horror subgenre, and then maybe Cabin Fever 1-3 (2002-2014) for the gore hounds.

Director Valeri Milev (Re-Kill) follows the sloppy patterns of his predecessors, opening with a breasty sex scene and a gory murder sequence. And with these death scenes this sequel reintroduces us to our favorite inbred hillbilly cannibals: Three Finger (Radoslav Parvanov; Undisputed 2-3, Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines), Sawtooth (Danko Jordanov; The Hills Run Red) and One-Eye (Asen Asenov). Unfortunately, they don’t look as good as they used to (in terms of make-up quality) and they lack any sense of personality that differentiated them in past franchise installments (e.g., Three Finger was the loony and hyper one whereas now they’re all equally off-kilter). Instead they’ve been reduced to ugly, mutant hillbilly cannibals 1, 2 and 3.

In this shakily written sequel, a mysterious inheritance brings a twenty-something and his friends to a West Virginia Appalachian resort with a dark history and a weird pair of sibling caretakers. Keeping things classy, this movie boasts more sex scenes than death scenes, a stupidly convoluted plot (much as Texas Chainsaw 3-D) and—if we’re being honest—not quite enough horror. It almost goes into pervy territory with its sexualized storyline and themes (even with respect to the kills). Not that it doesn’t have its moments… they’re just heavily biased towards the final third of the film.

The razor wire death scene is engaging for gorehounds (and a nice call back to part 1), but much of the slashy/stabby gory effects rely on CGI finishing (e.g., an arrow through the head, the beheading). Such has been the case with the last several Wrong Turn sequels. At times I wonder if this is really less expensive than approaching them from a fully practical angle, or if it’s simply easier to handle these issues in post-production. But at the end of the day, these films continue to entertain me.

We enjoy a brutal leg break and dismemberment, an awesome headwound, the unforgettable anal firehose death scene, and a really weird family reunion reminiscent of Bleeders (1997) or Basket Case 3 (1991).

All in all, this was a moderately satisfying flick for a rainy Sunday afternoon. Certainly not worthy of being main event of the evening, but I got a few chuckles. The writing might be terrible, yet this sequel manages to entertain without much regret.  You’ll feel more fun (or tedium) than fear.  But this could make for a great Bad Movie Tuesday if you’re looking for some gory laughs.