Perhaps Schmidt's greatest achievement, with this film, is his keen eye for locations. We learn through newspaper clippings which show up in the opening credits that the area is known for such people being its only likely inhabitants. The set-up for the film is that four young men and women (two per sex) are stranded in the Wes Virginia woods and happen upon a family of violent, inbred cannibals.
I don't feel like naming the characters - because they're practically lacking in identity - and I feel as if more time went into the setting and villains, so I shall only describe those in considerable detail. But for me, it rang almost completely hollow. This is a shame, because there was a part of me that really wanted to like the flick it was recommended to me by a good friend of mine, and I respect those who enjoyed it.
Those who enjoy slasher films with just a touch of satire thrown in will have a blast but those, like me, who can't stand formulaic films - for the most part -, will be bored for most of the time. I'd even say it's a knock-off of "Deliverance" all-together but at that, it's a self-aware "Deliverance" knock-off, and we don't get many of those.ĭirector Rob Schmidt tries his best to make the film interesting, and it has its moments, but overall, I just didn't find it to be as entertaining as I would have liked. The film is far from perfect, so that's really saying something.Īs a film that includes cannibalistic hillbilly psychopaths as one of its major pleasures, "Wrong Turn" is one of those many movies that just-plain reminds you of "Deliverance" from the minute it starts to the minute it ends. I think at bare minimum all popcorn and vomit flicks need to be as well put together as Wrong Turn. Though you can see the ending from miles behind it takes you through it's acts with the enormous energy the new slashers lack and is overall entertaining. It's gritty, scary and hugely suspenseful. Out of all the asinine shlock that's been released in the last ten years like the empty torture porn movies that have given horror a bad name I would much rather watch Wrong Turn to remind me that there are still some good people in the horror industry today. The defining moment of the entire film for me, was when a character said "need I remind you about a film called Deliverance". It's also very up front about the films it references which makes it's underlying playfulness and utter predictability that much more fun. But it never became innocuous and remained consistently scary. Personally I can't remember sitting through a generic slasher without wanting somebody to die within the first 10 minutes. But the bonus in all this is decent performances of characters that you actually grow to care about as it unfolds. It fits tab A into slot B perfectly well with some fairly inventive direction, good shock horror, a fun set up and some good gore.
If completely conventional Wrong Turn nevertheless manages to get everything you'd expect and would want from a wilderness horror movie right. But Wrong Turn is none of the above apart from the latter. Originality is definitely not the film's strongest point and it's numerous similarities with vintage pieces like "Deliverance" and "The Hills Have Eyes" are so obvious that one might dismiss it as a stupid, lazy, ordinary, ruthless, derivative slasher flick. This throwback nature slasher is likely to be a love or hate piece among most horror fans.