Director – Mike P. Nelson (Summer School, The Domestics)
Starring – Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket, The Dark Knight Rises), Emma Dumont (The Gifted, Pretty Little Liars), and Charlotte Vega ([Rec] : Genesis, The Lodgers)
Release Date – 2021
Rating – 3.5/5
When I was in high school the first Wrong Turn film was released. I quickly became obsessed with it. I rented it from the local video store a few times and when I was able to travel out to a big box store I snagged a copy of it on DVD. In the following years I bought all the Wrong Turn films when they were released but I never bothered with watching passed the third film.
When I heard that the series was getting a reboot I was on the fence about it. I fucking love the first two Wrong Turn films so I was apprehensive to say the least. However, when I was given a chance to check it out I went ahead and jumped on it. Where was this reboot going to take me?
**Spoiler Alert** The film follows a group of young adults who head to Virginia to hike the Appalachian trail. When one of them fails to check in with her father for six weeks her father visits her last known location where he learns about a local group that lives deep in the woods known as The Foundation. They are a reclusive and self-efficient group that does not take kindly to trespassers. His daughter and her friends have an altercation with them resulting in the death of several of her friends but she is taken as their leaders wife. He’s captured and sentenced to death but she helps him escape and flee the woods but their horrors are not behind them just yet. **Spoiler Alert**
I was hesitant going into this one but I when it was all said and done I found myself really enjoying this one. It does struggle some with pacing issues but it is easy to describe this one as a rollercoaster of a film. We have a lot of ups and downs. It’s a fun one but I don’t think the Wrong Turn title should have been used here. There has been more horror movies set in the woods than I care to count and they were all able to pull in their own audience without having to recycle a popular brand. This film should have done the same.
The acting in this one is pretty solid. The characters are pretty cliched especially for a more modern contemporary setting. The cast does a well enough job with what they were given but the characters all lacked any sort of depth. They are easily forgettable and does very little to carry the film.
The story for this one is not a sequel of the original Wrong Turn films. Instead, it’s a reboot intended to relaunch the franchise in a new direction. However, it lacks what made the original series so much fun. What made the Wrong Turn films so enjoyable was Three-Finger, Saw-Tooth, and One-Eye. The inbred cannibals are what drove fans to the franchise. Not having them, or a reimaging of them, in this reboot really makes it feel incomplete. The movie could have used a different title and established itself as a new horror franchise instead of borrowing this title. With that being said, it’s still a fun flick. Having a group of extremists living deep in the woods that governs themselves is nothing that far fetched. It works on it’s own and the rollercoaster like pacing does make it fun.
Finally, this one has some pretty memorable and extremely graphic death scenes. The movie makes great use of practical effects to deliver some seriously brutal death scenes that look fantastic. Overall, Wrong Turn is a fucking solid horror flick. The title is a bit misleading but the movie speaks for itself. I highly recommend it but don’t expect to see inbred cannibals!
