Wrong Turn 4: Director Declan O'Brien's Uncredited Cameo Role Explained
Director Declan O'Brien had a brief, uncredited cameo role in Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings that can easily be overlooked, but was part of a crucial scene in the movie.
The Wrong Turn movies never ushered in much fanfare like other major horror movie franchises, but managed to enjoy a fair amount of success despite the majority of the installments being released direct to video. The original Wrong Turn, which released in 2003, is arguably the best and was also the franchise's only theatrical release. Director Rob Schmidt passed the torch to Joe Lynch for Wrong Turn 2: Dead End and after Lynch's tenure in the director's seat, Declan O'Brien took over for Wrong Turn 3: Left For Dead. O'Brien continued with the franchise for two more installments, Wrong Turn 4 and Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines.
While none of the Wrong Turn movies have a rich plot line, O'Brien tried to add more substance to a horror franchise that mostly focuses on sexual content and brutal, cannibal violence. Taking the three main cannibals who were featured in 2003's Wrong Turn—Three Finger, Saw Tooth, and One Eye—O'Brien worked off of what Lynch created in Wrong Turn 2 and explored the family's history by giving them not only a richer backstory, but a prequel movie. Wrong Turn 4 highlights the origins of the cannibal brothers and adds details like their ages, as well as how they got to where they were for the original movie's events. Many directors have made little cameos and appearances in their work before, so O'Brien is no different. While his role is certainly one of the movie's "blink and you'll miss it" moments, the scene that bookends his brief on-screen inclusion, is incredibly vital not only to Wrong Turn 4, but nods to the canon that O'Brien created.
After the events that transpire in the beginning of Wrong Turn 4 where the brothers lead a violent, bloody coup and escape, a group of young people stumble upon the old asylum during a snowstorm. They wander around the seemingly abandoned facility and eventually make their way into a large auditorium, where there's a conveniently located film reel and a projector. Curious, they start the movie up and see what—presumably—the patients used to watch, once upon a time. The footage on the film reel appears to be formal documentation of electroshock therapy being performed on a patient. In the footage, there is a patient on the table being tended to by a doctor and a nurse who appear to be setting up the treatment. The doctor is Declan O'Brien. It's unconfirmed as to whether this might be a younger version of the doctor who ends up being gruesomely murdered by the brothers during their escape, but that role was played by a different actor, Arne MacPherson.
O'Brien's role is really just background, but the movie sets the stage for Lauren (Ali Tataryn) to remember the local legends and folklore she was told not only about Greenbrier County, but the asylum when she was growing up. Apparently, the stories of the cannibal family and their stint at Glenville Sanatorium were well-known, and seemed to be used as some sort of cautionary tale. However, Lauren's friends are quick to write her stories off as urban legends of bogeymen, nothing tangible to be concerned about. The camera work during this sequence, where someone is clearly watching them from further up in the auditorium, is a sign of their impending doom.
Wrong Turn 4 received mostly negative reviews, but the franchise continued under O'Brien's direction for one more movie. 2019 brought news that a seventh movie, titled Wrong Turn: The Foundation was in the works from a new director, Mike P. Nelson, and the original movie's writer, Alan B. McElroy. Currently, Wrong Turn 7 is set for a 2020 release. O'Brien's origin story might not have done any major favors to the Wrong Turn franchise, but the attempt to establish some kind of cohesive narrative in movies that could easily be overlooked is commendable.