Yeah, that’s right, they actually made a third Wild Things sequel. Why do people watch these films?

Oh yeah, that’s why.

Andy Hurst & Ross Helford, the writers of 2004’s Wild Things 2 returned to write this 2005 direct-to-dvd sequel, directed by Jay Lowi. Once again set in the same fictional town of Blue Bay, Florida, where the rich kids and poor kids all go to the same public High School. Serah D’Laine (aka Sarah Laine) stars as Marie Clifton, a High School senior who is about to turn 18, when she’s due to inherit two diamonds worth millions that were left to her from her deceased mother. But her stepfather Jay (Brad Johnson), a wealthy businessman in construction, is contesting her mother’s will, claiming that Marie is too immature to inherit the diamonds. Marie is a champion diver, and at one of her swim-meets Jay meets one of Marie’s classmates, Elena (Sandra McCoy), a poor girl from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks. She’s on probation for drug possession and therefor is working as the towel girl at the swim-meet, because she has to have a job. Jay starts flirting with her and invites her to Marie’s 18th birthday party at his house the next day. At the party, when Elena shows up, Marie is less-than-pleased, to say the least.

After the fight, Jay breaks up the party and then that night Elena goes to meet with Jay alone in his office. We don’t see what happens next. But the next morning Jay is arrested, because Elena is accusing him of rape. Linden Ashby returns as Detective Morrison who, along with probation officer Kristen Richards, investigates the case. Ron Melendez plays Dr. Chad Johnson, who does the rape kit exam on Elena and then testifies in court that he believes that he believes Elena was raped by Jay. Marie says she believes in Jay’s innocence and convinces him that he should just pay Elena off to make her drop the charges. But since Jay doesn’t have any money at the moment, it’s all tied up in his construction business, Marie offers to sell her mother’s diamonds to raise money to pay Elena. So Jay agrees to sign over the ownership of the diamonds to Elena. And once that’s done, Marie calls Elena to meet with her to discuss money, that’s when discover (to the surprise of NO ONE who has seen either or both of the first two movies) that the girls have been secretly working together.

Along with Dr. Johnson, who faked the rape test. He’s in on it with both of them and (again, to the surprise of NO ONE) that leads to a celebratory threesome.

Elena gets paid $250,000 and Jay thinks he’s in the clear. But of course, Elena double-crosses him, and the next day in court, instead of recanting her story, she adds that Jay threatened to kill her. After an hour of jury deliberation, Jay is found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Case closed.

But officer Richards thinks something is fishy, so she convinces Detective Morrison that Elena is lying, based on the fact that Richards herself was raped when she was in High School and thinks that Elena used details of Richard’s assault to make up her own story. I don’t want to spoil the rest but if you’re familiar with these films you can probably guess where this is going. One of the protagonists panics which leads to the other deciding to kill that one and they all turn on each other and there’s another conspirator that is revealed with some surprising backstory that is finally revealed at the very end, with the exact details of the plan laid out in flashbacks during the closing credits.

The first film was genius, and the sequel was much better than I’d expected. But with this one, it just became routine and predictable. This isn’t a knock on the cast, especially the lead actresses D’Laine and McCoy, who do the best that they can with the material that they are given. But this is formulaic and just average.

Chacebook rating: 3 STARS

This film is available on single DVD or you can get the Wild Things Collection which has all 3 movies together.