Wrong Turn (2003) – Review

In the 2000s, horror found itself at something of a crossroads. Having being fairly dormant at the box office for most of the 90s, the self-aware snark of Kevin Williamson’s script and the measured direction of Wes Craven had meant that Scream had virtually brought an entire genre back into the game overnight. However, things come full circle in movies and almost as fast as they can into vogue, and as  the smug, meta-slasher film started to splutter to a halt, the same old question rang out: what’s next?
The good news was that a move back to the grittier tone of the 70s was next on the agenda – the bad was it mostly was in the form of a large amount of splashy remakes which gave older horror fans a rather nasty case of deja vu – but lurking somewhere between the cracks lay a movie that was both a sexy, new slasher that wasn’t a remake, but that strived to invoke the harsher edge of movies such as The Hills Have Eyes – which ironically brought us back to Craven again (See? Circles.).
The movie was Wrong Turn; but was it a right one for a genre in desperate need of new ideas?

Medical student Chris Flynn is diving through the mountains of West Virgina in order to get to the type of business meeting that these days could be cleared up in a fifteen minute Zoom call, but after running into a snare of immovable traffic, he’s forced to weight up his options: wait in traffic and be late while listening to his Queens Of The Stone Age CDs, or drive back the way he came and try to fins an alternate route.
Josh Homme fans will be upset to learn he chooses the latter, but after discovering of another road from the type of run down gas stations you tend to get in movies like this, he takes this new turn, blissfully unaware that he’s taken a wrong one. Before you know it, he’s crashed into the parked car of a bunch of college students who themselves got into trouble due to a puncture cause by some suspiciously laid razor wire.
No one is hurt in the crash, but Chris volunteers to head off with tomboy Jessie, brain box Scott and his girlfriend Carly while the flakier Evan and Francine stay to watch the car and possibly have sex if the mood calls for it. However, it doesn’t take long for them to realise that their respective trips have hit a definitive dead end when they discover that they are being stalked by a trio of misshapen, inbred mountain men that each go by the charming monikers of Three Finger, One Eye and Saw Tooth. To make matters worse (what, you think this could get better?) this brotherly trio are rather partial to human flesh and will stop at nothing until this attractive cluster of potential cold cut are in little pieces and bubbling in a stew.
As more of the students fall before axes, arrows and other pointy weapons of survival, the ones who are left have to figure out how to beat these disfigured douche bags at their own game.

It’s funny how time distorts the memory. Back in 2003, when I first saw Wrong Turn, I had it initially pegged as something of a breath of fresh air that. Yes, it was filmed very much in the same, mock-gritty style as Marcus Nispel’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake that roared into cinemas the exact same year, and yes it featured the same type of impossibly attractive “youths” you’d get in a Scream movie with all the female characters kitted out in some form of push-up bra/crop top/low rider jeans combo just for good measure. Yet while there are unavoidable comparisons to be made with the aforementioned The Hills Have Eyes and Texas Chainsaw (what, you think mutant cannibal families grow on trees or something?), the fact that Wrong Turn wasn’t a sequel, a remake or stuffed full of knowing wisecracks seemed to be something of a step forward for a genre that seemed to revel in gking round and round while savaging its own tail.
However, after over twenty years (!) since it’s release, a more modern, level-headed viewing exposes it as possibly one of the most derivative and cliché ridden horror movies of the decade which ends up somehow being less innovative than most the frequent remakes that continued to pop up like weeds for the rest of the decade. The cast, while attractive in a sweaty, hip kind of way are the usual kind of one dimensional victim fodder that slasher/survival flicks have always fallen back on, it’s just these guys seem a bit more purely because their fashions and slang is newer than the stuff we got in the 80s.

However, it certainly helps that the film has hired a better breed of actor, with the likes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s Eliza Dushku taking the lead role, but it’s kind of squandered when her character’s sole defining trade seems to be that she’s being played by Eliza Dushku. However, we don’t even get the ass-kicking Faith version of Dushku and watching her play a more passive role who’s most memorable lines of dialogue contain such zingers as “Get off me!”, “Let me go!” and that old favorite “Aaaaaaaaghh!” just seems like a waste of the charismatic, spunky actress. Elsewhere, Jeremy Sisto plays his affable boffin somewhere in the region of a young Jeff Goldblum which helps grease the wheels when you consider that Desmond Harrington’s uncomplicated lead is as vanilla as a Mister whippy.
Of course, matters shift a bit once we swing our attention over to the movie’s villains and it’s probably no surprise that special effects legend, Stan Winston is present as a producer considering how well thought out the trio of antagonists really are. While the triptych of Three Finger, Saw Tooth and One Eye may not be instantly as iconic as the many variations of the Chainsaw clan or the Hills family, they still prove to be an intimidating bunch who display more character thanks to the little details that the entire, “normal” cast do with a script full of dialogue. Without being told, or looking them up on Villians Wiki or whatever, it’s fairly obvious that the hulking Saw Tooth is the older bro who is more measured, while the cackling Three Finger (who went on to become the franchise’s poster boy in the endless sequels) is the gibberish babbling wild card and One Eye is the axe swinging brute. While there’s an intriguing air of mystery about these guys (who exactly was going around teaching 2000s horror villains how to drive rusty trucks?), you can tell that it’s the rather inventive kills that really hooked director Rob Schmidt as Wrong Turn pulls out some impressive stops to get that blood flowing freely.

Be it a spot of razor wire in the mouth, a freshly decapitated head sutting snugly on the axe blade that just separated it from its body or some devilishly accurate archery, the kills and the set pieces that lead up to them are energetically thought our with a scramble through the tree tops being nicely memorable.
Hardly a game changer despite the fact that the sprawling sequels, prequels and remakes that spiraled out of its wake might suggest otherwise, Wrong Turn is something of a right turn if you’re looking for undemanding thrills or plentiful spills of crimson lifeblood – but anyone hoping for anything new might find the road ahead closed…
🌟🌟🌟