WrongTurn

Wrong Turn (2003)

The movie opens up with a guy named Chris driving a vintage Mustang to a job interview. He runs into traffic and decides to take a detour to make his appointment on time. While tooling down an isolated road he runs into (literally!) a group of friends on a camping trip. 2 destroyed vehicles later the 6 city folk are now stranded in the middle of the woods. If that weren’t bad enough they are in the territory of some crazed hillbillies who have put them on the menu! They do their best to survive as they are picked off one by one. Eventually, as normally happens in these movies, they turn the tables and get a little payback on the family of cannibals.

You know I liked this movie when it first came out and I still like it. There is a cool old school vibe to the flick with the crazy rednecks hunting down people and butchering them. The story is pretty straightforward and wastes very little time getting down to business. I suppose the movie does suffer from following the formula a bit too much (the stoners are the first to go!) and you can easily predict the order in which the characters will die. But honestly so what? Wrong Turn and director Rob Schmidt aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel. The movie tries to be a bit scary, a bit gross, and a whole lot of fun. I think that it does all of those admirably.

The cast is mostly forgettable, especially the supposed hero of the movie played by Desmond Harrington. Honestly his performance is kind of flat for me and I just didn’t think he was as interesting as he should be. I know he is a much better actor than this because he is great in Dexter. The one person who stands out is Eliza Dushku who really sells her character and seems genuinely scared on screen. Her performance really is by far the best in the movie.

All of this said the real star of the movie are the inbred killers and more importantly the incredible makeup job from the late Stan Winston and his crew. Each of the killers has their own unique look that is scary as hell. While there are only a few onscreen kills they are all very creative and fun. Early on there is a neat killing with some barbed wire, but the best kill of the movie involves an axe and a falling body. This one always gets me and is one of the most memorable kills that I’ve ever seen on screen. Trust me if you haven’t seen the movie watch for it.

Speaking of the special effects there is an excellent special feature on the Blu-Ray called Stan Winston: Monster Mogul that is a neat look at the makeup effects. Along with Fresh Meat: the Wounds of Wrong Turn, a making of, and a special bit on Eliza Dushku there are some really entertaining special features on the disc. I also wanted to mention that the transfer looks amazing on Blu-Ray and is worth the double dip for those that already own the DVD.

If you dig the classic lost in the woods/hills flicks of the 70s and 80s then I think you will enjoy Wrong Turn. It really does a wonderful job of capturing what made those movies so much fun.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer