Wrong Turn (2003)

What a waste of my time!!!

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Brilliant and touching

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Getting stranded in the Virginia backwoods, a man and a group of campers slowly come to realize they're being hunted and killed one- by-one by a family of deranged cannibalistic killers and must find a way of stopping them and get out of the woods alive.This here was quite the fun and highly enjoyable efforts. One of the film's better features here is the fact that there's a hugely enjoyable atmospheric touch here provided by the forest setting that makes this one so much fun here. This one really plays up the creepy and foreboding woods right from the outset here as the lush vegetation and dense tree-lines really give this a really beautiful, majestic air that's quite chilling as well. It's a nearly perfect playground for a backwoods-set slasher like this as there's plenty to like about those moments, starting with the tense and rather thrilling house escape chase back into the woods once they've realized the family's there as they go into the woods and stumble upon the deserted car park which is another stellar series of encounters trying to get away. A later attack in the forest as they attempt to get away and another highlight effort where they get trapped in a lookout tower and must fend off their assaults while the killers light the whole effort on fire and forcing them out into the treetops for a fine series of encounters and are able to battle back quite nicely. As well, there's the other really good encounter out on the road where they get ambushed along the roadside and leading to a highly enjoyable brawl where she gets abducted as well as the one rather brutal kill that sets up the finale here as the attempt to reclaim her features a slew of high-end action brawling around their compound leading to the final confrontation in the burning house which is rather exciting as well as adding in some brutal kills along the way. This is also helped rather nicely by the opening walk-through of their abandoned house which gives this a creepy, chilling vibe here with the scattered remnants of their collected items, broken-up belongings and scattered human remains stuck littering the grounds and gives this such a terrifying tone right at the beginning to really make for a dark, brutal slasher. Coupled with the nice gory kills and some imposing villains, there's a lot to really like here as this one has only a single detrimental element bout it. This one is really only hurt by one small fact in that there's a huge missed opportunity in having the group split up as early as they are which really creates an offbeat pace. By keeping the group so small and then killing off that many in the first stages, it causes such a long break between them that there are stretches without tension as they have to escape in order to keep the plot going. Likewise, these kills are all off-screen and then shown the aftermath afterward which is rather disappointing. This here is the only real flaw to this one.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

'Wrong Turn.' If you're into your horror flicks you've probably heard of it, if not the original then one of the – numerous – lesser sequels it managed to spawn. And, like with so many films, the sequels were all poor imitations of the original. Although 'Wrong Turn' was just about as generic as it could possibly be, it still contains enough charm to make it worth a watch – if you're into your slasher stuff.I'm going to talk about it now and you'll probably think that I hate it, however I don't. For a start, the plot is about as tired as they come – a group of youngsters are stranded and fall foul to the local nutters. The characters are paper-thin and the bad-guys are those clichéd inbred lot you get in so many horror films simply because you can tell they're bonkers just by looking at them. They don't need any form of backstory to explain their villainous behaviour – you just know they're the bad guys and they're going to be notoriously difficult to kill.Our gorgeous set of 'mutant-bait' is headed up by Eliza Dushku ('Faith' from Buffy, but kind of after she was famous) and Desmond Harrington (not yet that well known at the time, but probably most remembered now as 'Joey Quinn' from the Dexter TV series). Anyway, they're about the only two you'll really know. The rest are unknowns and barely have a definable character trait between them.Naturally, not all our heroes make it out alive, but the kills are hardly ingenious – they're okay, but nothing that special and there isn't that much gore either if you're watching for the red stuff.So, all in all, Wrong Turn is nothing that you haven't seen before (assuming you've seen one single slasher film). However, it's short and sweet – and that's something. It never gets bogged down with anything other than the constant chase between prey and hunter. Yes, some parts are unbelievable and it succumbs to almost every horror cliché going, but, if you're into your horror films this one is at least vaguely entertaining enough to warrant the hour and a quarter it takes up. Just don't bother with any of the sequels. Seriously.

A typical slasher movie that takes John Boorman's DELIVERANCE as its central concept, then delivers tons of action, bloodshed, and virtually no plot for the rest of the ninety-minute running time. It has to be said that WRONG TURN starts off well enough. Two climbers are brutally murdered in the wilderness, then there's a suspenseful car-ride/crash which almost had me bolting from my seat. The film builds in tension as unseen evil stalks our cast, but after the first major gore scene, things go downhill fast. The rest of the film is a chase between our heroes and the cannibal men which lasts right up until the last (gruesome) minute. It's not bad, but something we've seen a hundred times before, so those looking for originality should go looking somewhere else. They won't find any here.One very annoying thing about this film is the reliance on poor CGI effects in scenes you wouldn't expect to see them. In one shot the entire forest is done with CGI, it looks ridiculous, why the heck would they want to do that? In other shots, the cast are supposedly balancing on branches high above the ground, but the CGI influence is obvious again. Finally they climb a watchtower, but is it really a watchtower? Nope, just a CGI animation. I wish film-makers would get out of this annoying habit. When I saw Stan Winston's name in the credits, I thought I would be in for some GREAT make-up like he's done in the past. I was wrong. The mutants in this film have nondescript makeup, which looks very much like makeup. Director Rob Schmidt realises this and keeps their faces hidden as much as he can, but he's wasting his time. It doesn't pay-off, and it looks like Winston's losing his touch. About time he won back some credit – when's your next JURASSIC PARK gonna be, Stan? The cast is so-so. I liked Desmond Harrington's leading man, stern and authoritative throughout, never backing down, never losing his resolve. He's my kind of hero. Eliza Dushku is very pretty as the heroine, and kicks backside too, so you can't lose there. Jeremy Sisto is on hand to supply comic relief and he's great, it's a shame he dies halfway through the film but you can't have everything. The film has routine action but goes over-the-top in the gore effects which reach new heights of sickness. We get to watch heads being axed off (deeply unpleasant) and other implements impale the human body. I used to enjoy gore when I was younger, it seems a little bit too much here, and in bad taste as well. Still, it could be worse I guess. WRONG TURN's best aspect is the isolated forest setting, but even that seems too slick and glossy these days. I preferred the low-budget horrors that came out of the USA years ago, which really WERE filmed out in the wilderness (take RITUALS). That's where the real fear lies.

Chris Flynn is driving through the backwoods of West Virginia on the way to an interview when he has an accident with a group of five friends, writing off his car. Their car is also damaged, so four of them set off to find help, leaving two behind to watch the cars. One by one they get picked off by a bunch of mutated inbred hillbillies.One of the better inbred-hillbilly horror-thrillers (not that this says too much). While the whole hillbilly-horror genre is incredibly formulaic, unoriginal and predictable (as is the horror genre in general), this has some degree of originality. Yes, there is a large degree of sticking to a formula but it does take turns you don't expect and is not that predictable - it does keep you in suspense, at least.One other indication that this is better than your average horror movie is the cast. Horror movies generally involve no-name actors/actresses that never amount to anything. Cheap B-grade movies are the furthest they'll get. Wrong Turn has three actors - Eliza Dushku, Emmanuelle Chriqui and Desmond Harrington - who went on to bigger and better things. Performances are decent (another turn up for the horror books), especially from those three.Certainly the best of the Wrong Turn movies. Since this movie there have been five more (and counting...) and all of them have been incredibly bad. Pretty much the same plot, over and over, and pretty much your standard hillbilly-horror stuff. They should have quit after one.