Wrong Turn 2: Dead End

Plot

Reality show contestant Kimberly Caldwell is driving through the West Virginia back country searching for the location of her next project. While driving, she accidentally hits a teenager. She stops to check on him, but the teenager is revealed to be Brother, a cannibal, who bites her lips off. She attempts to escape, but runs into Three Finger, who splits her in half vertically with an axe. He and Brother drag her halves away.

Former U.S. Marine Colonel Dale Murphy is hosting a survival reality game show The Apocalypse: Ultimate Survivalist, in the West Virginia forest with contestants including: lingerie model Elena, wisecracking skateboarder Matt Jones also known as Jonesy, U.S. Marine officer and Iraq veteran Amber Williams, former high school football player Jake Washington and a goth Nina Papas. After Kimberly Caldwell does not show up, the show's producer Mara Stone reluctantly takes her place.

When the game starts, Three Finger kills Neil, one of the television crew. While Dale prepares for the games, Three Finger and another cannibal Pa, attack and knock him unconscious. Nina and Mara find a log cabin in the woods. Mara enters the cabin to try to find a telephone as Nina follows her. While they look around the house, they hear the occupants return, so they hide in a bedroom. They witness a female cannibal, Ma, giving birth to a deformed baby. Her daughter, Sister, spots Nina and Mara in the bedroom, forcing the two to escape through the toilet pit. They run into the woods, but Mara is hit in the head with a thrown axe by Pa. Nina searches for the others as the cannibals collect Mara's body.

After showrunner M and Elena have sex, he returns to the RV while Elena stays by a lake to tan in her underwear. When Elena hears the cannibals, she starts to get dressed as Sister emerges from the bushes and slashes her to death with a machete. While M is in the RV, Ma and Pa hijack it. Pa attacks M and captures him. Meanwhile, Dale manages to escape and battles Three Finger. After a short fight, Dale shoots Three Finger with a shotgun.

As Jake, Amber and Jonesy are eating some meat they found, Nina returns and tells her story. When Jake realizes it was Kimberly's leg they had been eating, he, Nina, Amber and Jonesy attempt to escape. Dale finds the old man from the first film in his cabin. The old man tells him how the cannibals' mutations were caused by inbreeding and effluent dumped in the river by the abandoned paper mill. He then reveals that he is their father and attacks Dale. After a brief skirmish, Dale kills the old man by blowing him up with a stick of dynamite. After finding the RV gone, the others run towards the woods and encounter Brother and Sister. After fighting the cannibals, Jake searches for Nina while Amber and Jonesy go for help. Jake rescues Nina from a pit and they jump into the river to escape Sister.

Nina and Jake enter the mill and find a garage full of vehicles stolen from prior victims. They find the RV, and Jake enters it and witnesses M being decapitated by Ma on a live feed monitor inside. Nina and Jake attempt to leave but the cannibals, after they had murdered Amber and Jonesy in a trap earlier, capture them. The abandoned mill is revealed to be the mutants' home. Jake is strung up and Nina is strapped to a chair with barbed wire. The mutants eat dinner and force feed Nina.

Dale sneaks into the compound and distracts the cannibals. As the cannibals are searching for him, Dale manages to kill Brother and Sister with dynamite attached to an arrow. He frees Nina and Jake, but is killed by Ma and Pa, who were incensed by the deaths of their children. Nina successfully escapes, but Jake wanders into a room fitted with an enormous tree debarker, where he is attacked by Ma and Pa. Nina returns to the mill and kills Ma and Pa with the debarker. Nina and Jake find Kimberly's abandoned car and drive away. Meanwhile, Three Finger has survived and is feeding the mutant baby with a finger and a bottle filled with polluted water, before the film cuts to black and Three Finger's laugh is heard.

Cast

Production

Wrong Turn 2: Dead End began filming on May 29, 2006 and finished on June 30, 2006 in Vancouver, Canada.

Soundtrack

The score soundtrack was composed by Bear McCreary.

Track listing

1. "Main Title" (3:39)
2. "Ultimate Survivalist Theme Song" (3:20) by Captain Ahab
3. "Dale for Dinner" (2:33)
4. "Birth of Baby Splooge" (3:04)
5. "Nina's Theme" (2:43)
6. "Mutant Cannibal Incest" (3:01)
7. "Into the Mill" (2:49)
8. "Arrow Through Two Heads" (3:18)
9. "Dale Vigilante" (3:19)
10. "Hunting Dale" (3:40)
11. "Rescuing Nina" (3:04)
12. "Dale to the Rescue" (3:18)
13. "The Meat Grinder" (2:15)
14. "Baby Splooge Lives" (2:36)
15. "End Credits (Theme from Wrong Turn 2)" (3:39)
16. "Under Your Bones" (5:25) by Captain Ahab featuring Ivor

Release

The first film stills were released to Fangoria, Dread Central, and Bloody Disgusting, quickly followed by the release of the official cover art, DVD details, and disc specifications. A month later it was announced that the film was accepted at the London FrightFest Film Festival and Austin's Fantastic Fest, and premiered on August 25 in the United Kingdom, and September 21, 2007 in the United States.

The film was released on DVD on October 9, 2007, in an unrated version with extras include commentary by director Joe Lynch and actors Erica Leerhsen and Henry Rollins, a second commentary by writers Turi Meyer and Al Septien, a featurette on the making of the film and the trailer. The film later released on Blu-ray on September 15, 2009. It grossed $9 million in home video sales in the US.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that it received positive reviews from 78% of nine critics.

Steve Barton of DreadCentral gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, stating that the film "is a hot ticket for some gore-soaked backwoods mayhem that gets even better with repeated viewings and lots of booze." Brian Collins of Bloody Disgusting stated that "what could have been a cheap and lazy cash-in turned out to be one of the year's better genre offerings". David Johnson of DVD Verdict said the film is "a derivative and stupid outing" but very entertaining. David Walker of DVD Talk rated the film 3.5/5 stars and called it "a consistently entertaining film" that effectively parodies and homages genre films that have come before it.

At the Gérardmer Film Festival, the film won the "Best Direct-to-Video Film" award.