That’s a lot of attention lavished on the second sequel to a thirteen-year-old film, so I like to think the studio really cares to do right by this impromptu franchise, which will hopefully continue on.

A 12-minute making-of featurette joins some pre-viz sequences, deleted scenes, a short feature chronicling one character’s casting, and trailers for other Fox releases. The extras are quite abundant as well: O’Brien provides a feature commentary and about ten minutes worth of “Director’s Die-aries. At least Fox has put together a pretty nice Blu-ray/DVD combo pack for the film’s home video release the high-def presentation is very solid, with the 5.1 DTS-MA track especially producing a lively, rumbling soundstage. It’s not a bad effort, but it’s tough to outrun the DTV trappings of the whole affair. With that said, he’s made some strides since Wrong Turn 3, as Roadkill works much better than that one, even if he is still a bit constrained by a small budget. The director here is Declan O’Brien, Fox’s in-house direct-to-video auteur having already shepherded a trio of Wrong Turn sequels to the small-screen, this is old hat for him. And I can say that sort of thing because my dad was a trucker during most of the 80s. I just assume most of them are hiding homicidal tendencies beneath the brim of their caps, and anyone who spends for than time than necessary at a truck stop is asking for trouble. You might consider him to be one of the more bewildering horror villains of our time because he’s just a trucker, but here’s the thing about that: truckers are terrifying.

Arriving six years after the previous entry, Joy Ride 3: Roadkill continues the exploits of Rusty Nail, the indomitable, enigmatic slasher from the first two films. Granted, it’s only limped on via a couple of infrequent direct-to-video follow-ups, but that’s still better than some films get (well, unless they’re housed at 20th Century Fox, in which case there’s a good chance they’ll get a new lease on life via home video). I suspect many others did as well, which probably explains how it’s inexplicably spawned into a franchise. Say what you want about the original Joy Ride, but I watched the hell out of it back when it was released on VHS.

Joy ride 3