Wrong Turn

The first Wrong Turn film was released in 2003. It was an unremarkable backwoods horror riding on the dying coattails of the slasher film boom reignited by Scream in 1996. It was memorable only for it's cast of well known TV faces and it's propensity for gory kills that made Scream and it's ilk look like episodes of the Teletubbies. It's popularity on DVD saw it get 5(!) sequels over 11 years and now, 7 years after Wrong Turn 6, the franchise has been rebooted. You wouldn't have high hopes for it would you? You'd be wrong. Because it's the best of the bunch. 

Scott Shaw (Matthew Modine) has travelled to Virginia to look for his daughter Jen (Charlotte Vega) who, along with her friends, has been missing for 6 weeks after beginning to hike the famous Appalachian Trail. Despite warnings to the contrary those crazy kids have strayed off the beaten track and fell afoul of some.....rather strange individuals living in the woods. Will a suburban dad be able to rescue his dearest? Will their app designing/barista/non profit organisation skills be enough to keep them alive in a leafy world of brutal booby traps and kangaroo courts? Who knows?

I wouldn't go so far as to call Wrong Turn fun because there's a bit too much bloody eye gouging, impalement and brutal skull crushing in it for it to be enjoyable but it does what it does well. It's story kicks off in the hoariest, most cliched manner possible with a minority cast member biting the dust first but then just as you roll your eyes and tweet #herewegoagain the film sets off on a different tact entirely and things get a bit more interesting than you expected. One thing horror movies have always done well is to use genre trappings to make social commentaries and Wrong Turn makes a decent stab at cocking it's eye at the state of modern day America and the divided society it's become. It's thinly sketched though and comes too late in the film's running time to make a real impact but it gives the film a substance you wouldn't expect. Especially when you hear one main character's very telling feelings on it all... 

There's no denying series creator and writer Alan B. McElroy political leanings and there's definitely not denying his skill with a kill. There's crunchiness in here that will make even hardened horror fans gasp and director Mike Nelson (who directed 2018's very underrated The Domestics) films his shocks in short, sharp, vicious bursts, never letting the camera linger too long over the carnage in a way what makes other horrors feel cheap and exploitative. It feels like a far cry from the earlier films on the series and in a good way. It's nice to watch a franchise reboot that does it properly, changing not only direction but style too. It even gives us an ending that feels fresh, a rarity in today's horror movie climate. There's no shabby jump scares, no deus ex machina moments, just an earned walk towards the screen. BTW, keep watching after the credits start.

Wrong Turn is available to rent on google movies now. It's worth your time and you don't have to have seen the 6 previous films to know what's going on either. Always a bonus.