Movies
[Interview] Director Declan O’Brien Goes Snowbound With ‘Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings’!
Declan O’Brien was given the reigns to your favorite mutant hillbillies with Wrong Turn 3 and now he steps back up to the plate with their origin story, Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings.
This time he changes things up a bit by shifting the shooting location to snowy Winnipeg and filming inside a historic hospital for the insane. As for the body count? Well it’s as high (maybe even higher) than ever.
“At an isolated hospital deep in the West Virginia wilderness, three hideously deformed mutants go on a merciless killing spree. Now, decades later, this family of blood-thirsty cannibals is stalking new prey: a group of young skiers trapped by a blizzard. The abandoned medical wards soon become killing fields as the panicked victims come face to face with a chilling choice — fight back or die. With bonus footage too graphic for theaters, ‘Wrong Turn 4’ takes you to the most terrifying place of all…the beginning.”
I recently caught up with O’Brien on the phone and had a quick chat about the shoot. Check it out after the jump!Bloody-Disgusting: Did you approach Wrong Turn 4 from a different angle than Wrong Turn 3?
Declan O’Brien: Well on this one I had a lot more freedom because it’s an origin story. I was a little more free to create how everything began. So in terms of story I could do pretty much anything I wanted to. ‘Wrong Turn 3’ had to follow 2 and 1 chronologically, that sort of stuff.
BD: This one has a different visual template from the others in the sense that it takes place in a snowbound environment. It’s a totally different color palette. Was that exciting for you to work with?
DO: Yeah that was a ton of fun. The movie was shot in Winnipeg in February, which was minus 45 degrees one night while shooting which wasn’t too much fun. But visually, changing the color palette and giving it a creepy vibe, as opposed to being out in the woods in the bright daylight the entire time, [I found] there was a lot more you could do in a dark, wintery cold environment.
BD: In terms of the ensemble, it’s fairly large. What was it like pulling that together?
DO: It was hard at times, you have to service all of these characters. But it was satisfying because the more people you have, the more people you can kill.
BD: As with all the Wrong Turn movies there’s a great sort of gonzo nature to the kills. What was your favorite one to orchestrate?
DO: My favorite one is the effed up fondue scene. I’ve never seen that before and I think the actor did a really good job in dying. And the practical effects guys did a really good job in pulling it off. I found it was really disgusting yet perversely funny at the same time, which is what I was going for.
BD: It seems like you use a lot more practical than CGI. How many hours did a typical kill take to set up?
DO: The hanging scene took the entire day of shooting. Each big kill that I would do I would take the entire day. The CG on this movie was minimal, just snow enhancement and stuff like that. I really wanted to go practical and see what we could achieve and I had a really good crew out of Toronto and they pulled it off.
BD: How did you find the location of the sanitorium?*
DO: It was funny, I came up with the idea for the script and I knew of an old hospital that I had shot at before in Bulgaria or Romania. And I kind of wrote the script around this location that I knew existed. But then, I got a call from a producer in Winnipeg who thought they had exactly what I was looking for. And soon enough I had pictures of this abandoned mental health facility called the Brandon Mental Health center which was built in 1910 and went out of service in the 80’s. And it was just completely creepy and had literally everything I had written for this other hospital. So we decided to go to Winnipeg.
BD: What’s up next for you?
DO: I just finished a screenplay for Fox and we’ll see if that goes into production. Other than that, a lot of golf.
BD: A lot of golf?
DO: Mmm-hmm.
BD: Nice. Any hints as to what the screenplay is?
DO: Can’t talk about it yet. Literally just handed it in last week.
Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings hits DVD and Blu-ray on October 25th.
It was almost one year ago that Warner Bros. brought the entire original A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise to 4K in one massive 7-movie collection, with the limited edition SteelBook version of the set quickly selling out and becoming highly sought after. But we’re happy to report tonight that the SteelBook set is currently back in stock over on Amazon!
While supplies last, grab the Elm Street SteelBook collection for $154.99 right now!!
Orders placed for this re-release are scheduled to begin shipping out September 15, 2026.
[Related] Freddy’s Back: New ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ Movie in the Works at Paramount
From New Line Cinema, the collection includes the original seven films – A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988), A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989), Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991), and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) – along with the uncut versions of A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Dream Child.
Two BRAND NEW SPECIAL FEATURES for this set include:
- Boiler Room Confessional: The king of slashers, Robert Englund, takes us on a journey through the dream world, sharing what inspired Freddy Krueger, his rise as a cultural icon, and the legacy of A Nightmare on Elm Street, plus his favorite kills, scenes, and more.
- Freddy’s Footnotes: Robert Englund and original A Nightmare on Elm Street filmmakers revisit iconic scenes, revealing the movie magic and chaos behind our favorite nightmares. Pull back the curtain and relive epic moments through the eyes of those who made them.
Here’s the full breakdown of included Special Features for each movie…
A Nightmare on Elm Street
· Ready Freddy Focus Points
· Commentary with Wes Craven, Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, Ronee Blakley, Robert Shaye, and Sara Risher
· Commentary with Wes Craven, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, and Jacques Haitkin
· Alternate Endings – Scary Ending, Happy Ending, Freddy Ending
· The House that Freddy Built: The Legacy of New Line Horror
· Never Sleep Again: The Making of A Nightmare on Elm Street
· Night Terrors: The Origins of Wes Craven’s Nightmares
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge
· Freddy on 8th Street
· Heroes and Villains
· The Male Witch
· Psychosexual Circus
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
· Behind the Story: Burnout
· Behind the Story: Fan Mail
· Behind the Story: The House that Freddy Built
· Behind the Story: Onward Christian Soldiers
· Behind the Story: Snakes and Ladders
· Behind the Story: That’s Showbiz
· Behind the Story: Trading 8’s
· Dokken Dream Warriors Music Video
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
· The Finnish Line
· Krueger, Freddy Krueger
· Hopeless Chest
· Let’s Makeup
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
· Behind the Story: Womb Raiders
· Behind the Story: The Sticky Floor
· Behind the Story: Take the Stairs
· Behind the Story: Hopkins Directs
· Behind the Story: A Slight Miscalculation
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare
· 86’D
· Hellraiser
· Rachel’s Dream
· 3D Demise
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare
· Commentary with Wes Craven
· NEW – Boiler Room Confessional
· NEW – Freddy’s Footnotes
· Becoming a Filmmaker
· Filmmaker
· An Insane Troupe
· The Problem with Sequels
· Two Worlds
· Welcome to Prime Time: It Really Happened
· Welcome to Prime Time: A Childhood Memory
· Welcome to Prime Time: Sometime in the Early 80s
· Welcome to Prime Time: So It Began
· Welcome to Prime Time: Beauty and the Beast
· Welcome to Prime Time: Making the Glove
· Welcome to Prime Time: Shapeshifter
· Welcome to Prime Time: The Shoot
· Welcome to Prime Time: The Revolving Room
· Welcome to Prime Time: All’s Well that Ends Well
· Welcome to Prime Time: Talalay’s Tally
· Welcome to Prime Time: It Couldn’t Have Happened
· Welcome to Prime Time: Alternate Ending Version
· Conclusion: Where Gothic Plots Come From
· Conclusion: Why We Like Gothic
· Conclusion: Sadomasochism
· Conclusion: Freddy vs. Pinhead
· Conclusion: Freddy’s Manic Energy
· Conclusion: Creating Lasting Characters in Horror
· Conclusion: No More Magic Tricks
· Conclusion: Monster with Personality
· Conclusion: Freddy as Sex Machine
· Conclusion: Campfire Stories
The Elm Street collection is available in this collectible SteelBook packaging (exclusive to Amazon) and as a standard 4K collection that’s also available now over on Amazon.
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