This morning we were the first press to hop on the phone with the pleasurable Declan O’Brien, director of Fox Home Entertainment’s forthcoming Wrong Turn 3, which is expected to arrive on both DVD and Blu-ray this fall. Beyond the break you can chew on the first two official stills from the film, alongside our exclusive one-on-one chat with O’Brien about his prisoners vs. backwoods cannibal horror flick that stars Tom Frederic, Janet Montgomery, Tamer Hassan, Gil Kolirin, Mike Straub and Chucky Venice. Are you guys excited for tis? I know I am!
While Fox had journalists on set for the filming of WRONG TURN 2, this time filming went quietly underneath everyone’s noses. In fact, the third film in the franchise is 100% finished.

“I’m finished filming. I’m done. The movie is completely done,” O’Brien tells Bloody-Disgusting. “I finished [post production] up early last month.”

“There was a fair amount of post production in terms of CGI, but it wasn’t too heavy because I decided to do most of the effects practically,” he continues. “CYCLOPS was like 338 CG shots, which I did with motion capture, very heavily CG based. I wanted to do WRONG TURN 3 more old school. It was a luxury to do more practical effects…we had a bit more money and time to do it.”

O’Brien was highly aware of the fan base of the franchise and knew he had to spice it up a bit.

“I knew the fan base really enjoyed the first and second film and the sheer terror and gore to it. I had that in mind and decided to give the fans what they wanted,” he explains. “Plus, hopefully we took it up a notch by adding more action sequences to it. It’s a big film. I get to blow stuff up…the thing I liked about the first film was the car sequences and explosions, you know, giving it that theatrical feeling.”

We all know the WRONG TURN franchise revolves around a group of cannibals in the woods, but what differentiates this one from the previous two? This time we have an anti-hero.

“I helped shape and develop [the screenplay written by Connor James Delaney]. When I first talked to Fox about it, I said the first [WRONG TURN] was a bunch of beautiful people in the woods being hunted down by cannibal hillbillies, WRONG TURN 2 was the same, beautiful people in the woods, shooting a reality show while being hunted down by cannibal hillbillies – and we kind of came up with the idea that, what’s the sport in that?” (laughs) “We wanted some people to fight back, so we got some of the badass prisoners that escape, so it’s bad vs. worse – like a battle royal,” he explains. “There are some really cool fight sequences [and] a nice twist to the film [so] you don’t know who to root for. You’ve got some bad guys, a good guard guy you want to survive, but at some point you’re voting for Three Finger (Borislav Iliev) a little bit. It’s interesting that way.” He tells us that the film would likely be compared as “CON AIR meets WRONG TURN,” and that he likes no having a clear hero. “The thing I like about some of the classic films is that there is never a clear hero…there are many shades of grey. We decided to take that direction.”

Just like the second film, WRONG TURN 3 will arrive unrated, but this time it will also be on high def Blu-ray!

“[It will be] unrated and on Blu-ray I believe,” also noting some extras. “We had a full EPK crew there the entire shoot. We have all of the behind-the-scenes videos setting up these big complicated action sequences,” he continues talking about a moment he hopes the EPK crew caught on film. “At one point I’m shooting on a highway and – I don’t know if they got this on video or not – we have a port-a-potty in the way and I’m trying to get the shot off and the lights (the sun) are coming up…so I hop off the camera truck and am pushing this sh*tter off the highway! I really hope they got that on camera,” he jokes.

As for the gore, he had to keep everything under wraps, but he did give us a tease.

“I will tell you this, the movie opens with a nice action sporting sequence. Then, within the first 2-minutes of the film, you get a few kills. It grabs you by the throat and you run from there -there are some very inventive sort of kills. Three Fingers is up against 6 hardcore criminals,” he explains, “he has to be inventive in how he traps them and kills them.”

Just like with WRONG TURN 2, he didn’t have a time limited and could take the film wherever it needed to go. Still, he decided to trim it a bit and make it flow.

“I didn’t have a set time, I ended up probably shooting more,” he tells us, “I know there are extra scenes you’ll get on the DVD that I shot – scare scenes, not gore scenes – I ended up trimming them out of the movie for pace, because this movie goes really quickly. It’s kind of relentless in that way, I wanted to give that feeling. The movie starts at like 3 in the afternoon and they’re transferring the prisoners, and it ends at dawn, so it all happens in real-time. ”

Have there been any rumblings of a fourth film? No, but Fox is happy once again.

“I haven’t [heard anything[, but I know Fox is really pleased with this film and have high expectations. Hopefully we’ll meet them…”

When it was all said and done, O’Brien had this to say: “I’m a big fan of your site, I really appreciate the fan base. Its fun making these movies and I hope they enjoy it as much I enjoyed making it!”

The Bloody-Disgusting readers are sure to chime in when the film streets later this fall.