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WRONG TURN
Rating: 
USA/Canada/Germany. 2003.
Director – Rob Schmidt, Screenplay – Alan McElroy, Producers – Erik Feig, Brian Gilbert, Robert Kulzer & Stan Winston, Photography – John S. Bartley, Music – Elia Cmiral, Music Supervisor – Randy Gerston, Visual Effects – Mr X. Inc (Supervisors – Dennis Berardi & Aaron Weintraub), Special Effects – Amce F/X (Supervisor – John McGillivray), Makeup Effects – Stan Winston Studio (Supervisor – Shane Mahan), Production Design – Alicia Keywan. Production Company – Constantin Film Productions/Summit Entertainment/McOne/Stan Winston Productions/Newmarket Capital Group.
Cast:
Desmond Harrington (Chris Flynn), Eliza Dushku (Jessie Burlingame), Emmanuelle Chriqui (Carly), Jeremy Sisto (Scott), Lindy Booth (Francine), Kevin Zegers (Evan), Julian Richings (Three Finger), Garry Robbins (Saw Tooth), Ted Clark (One Eye)
Plot: Chris Flynn is hurrying home to an appointment along the West Virginia highway when he finds the way ahead blocked by a jacknifed truck. He takes an alternate route along an unpaved backroad, only to crash into the RV of five friends that has had its tires punctured by barbwire strung across the road. With both vehicles out of action, the group hike back along the road to get help. But then they find themselves stalked and hunted by a group of genetically mutated in-bred rednecks with seemingly invincible strength who salvage the vehicles and feed upon the bodies of the victims they lure.
Wrong Turn is a modestly effective revival of the 1970s Backwoods Brutality genre. Although Wrong Turn is probably a film I would have rated more highly had I not seen the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) only a week earlier. Wrong Turn was actually released in the USA several months before The Texas Chainsaw Massacre so one should not come down it heavily and call it derivative. Nevertheless there are a remarkable number of similarities between the two films.
In both cases the Backwoods Brutality genre of 1970s films such as Deliverance (1972), The Last House on the Left (1972) and the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) has been reprocessed through the modern teen horror film. In both Wrong Turn and Texas Chainsaw 03 we have a cast of good-looking twentysomethings played by just becoming known faces plucked from tv. (Both films even feature semi-regular guest stars from the tv series Six Feet Under (2001-6) – Eric Balfour and Jeremy Sisto – and both play boyfriends that get offed early in the show). In both films said twentysomethings are pursued by a family of hideous and malformed backwoods in-breds; in both cases the family cannibalize the bodies and keeps a graveyard of car wrecks belonging to their victims; in both cases the family live in a filthy, rotting house strewn with debris and souvenirs taken from victims. And in both films the makeup on the in-breds (which here comes from Oscar-winning creature effects man Stan Winston, who also co-produces the film) has been exaggerated to the point that it is almost cartoonishly overstated. The same year also saw an even further Texas Chainsaw homage with Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses (2003) (which also featured a Six Feet Under alumnus in Rainn Wilson).
It’s more a case of remarkable coincidence rather than derivativeness. Wrong Turn is modestly effective, even if it does fall in the other film’s shadow. Director Rob Schmidt does quite a reasonable job of generating suspense. The characters are not drawn with much more depth than the faceless victims that appear in slasher films, but at least the actors cast do a fair and convincing job of bringing them to life, especially Jeremy Sisto in his seemingly improvised monologue about his and Emmanuelle Chriqui’s engagement. (Although the film does follow slasher movie cliché characterizations upon one point – it is the couple that have sex and smoke dope that are killed first). Like Texas Chainsaw 03, Wrong Turn should also be welcomed for dispensing with characters that are constantly ironically referencing their situation back to other horror movies – Jeremy Sisto does have a line of dialogue that refers to Deliverance, but that is it.
Where Wrong Turn falls short of being genuinely effective, ironically, is in comparison to Texas Chainsaw 03. Texas Chainsaw delivered the goods in terms of satisfyingly gory impact – one saw limbs being chainsawed off, bodies brutally impaled on meathooks and struggling to free themselves – but Wrong Turn, in comparison, almost delivers – there’s a nasty shot of one victim lying on a table with a leg gorily amputated – but mostly shies away when it comes to providing as though it were ever so afraid of invoking the MPAA’s ire. It generates horror and a reasonable intensity, but ultimately it remains ever-so-toothless and safe in terms of pushing the envelope.
Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007) was a sequel.
Copyright Richard Scheib 2004
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