Wrong Turn (2003) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 21

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Turn to the left. Turn to the right. Just don’t turn down this creepy dirt road.

Wrong Turn sounds like the name of a classic thriller, and you wouldn’t be incorrect in assuming that. It harkens back to the classic slasher and splatter films of the 70s and early 80s, with more emphasis on harrowing thrills and less on anything else.

Before Viewing

The trailer for this film tells a seemingly common story. A group of young men and women get into an accident in the middle of nowhere and discover a cabin in the woods while looking for help. They are then attacked by a deformed, possibly inbred mountain man, living in those woods. How will they be able to escape their Wrong Turn?

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

In the Greenbrier Backcountry of West Virginia, rock climbers Rich (Joel Harris) and Halley (Yvonne Gaudry) are near the end of their ascent. Rich makes it to the top of the cliff, mocking his girlfriend’s slow route when he suddenly slumps over the edge of the rock, blood dripping off him. Halley is yanked up violently by her rope. She cuts herself free and falls to the ground making a run towards her car. She is tripped by a spiked chain, grabbed, and pulled rapidly off screen. Elsewhere, Chris (Desmond Harrington) is on his way from Pennsylvania to Raleigh for a job interview when a traffic accident causes him to re-route.

He stops to ask an old man (Wayne Robson) for use of a phone and directions, but the man is helpful for neither. Checking a posted map, Chris decides to take a road that appears to connect back to the main highway. Unfortunately while distracted by a dead deer he rear ends a parked Jeep belonging to five college students who ran over some barbed wire in the road. No one is injured but Jess (Eliza Dushku) and Scott & Carly (Jeremy Sisto & Emmanuelle Chriqui) ask Chris to show them the way back to the gas station. Francine (Lindy Booth) and Evan (Kevin Zegers) stay behind with the wrecked cars in case anyone else shows up. After making love on top of the car, they are attacked by three mutated Mountain Men.

The other four find a creepy cabin in the middle of the woods surrounded by damaged vehicles and trash. They pop inside to see if there’s a phone and so Carly can use the bathroom. They find lots of junk, piles of car keys, and eventually human remains. They decide to leave just as a large yellow tow truck shows up dragging their cars behind them. Three deformed, strong, inbred Mountain Men (named Three Finger, Saw-Tooth, and One-Eye in the credits) drag Fran’s mangled body inside and begin to cut her up while the others hide. After the three hillbillies fall asleep, Chris leads the others out of the house, but a noise gives them away and they hide in the junkyard.

Chris offers to lead the Mountain Men away so the others can get to the still running tow truck. When he is shot in the leg, Scott takes off the other way so the girls can help Chris and still get to the truck. Jess drives towards where Scott is running and as they are about to let him in the vehicle, he is shot with three arrows and dies in front of his fiancée Carly. The road dead ends into a muddy pit by a fallen tree. They begin to hike through the woods until they discover an old watchtower which they climb into. Using an old radio, they attempt to call for help as the Mountain Men climb up the ladder and set the structure on fire. Unable to wait for help, the youth jump out the window into the nearby trees.

Carly is surprised by Three Finger and gets an axe in her mouth. Jess leads him back towards Chris who has devised a trap. They knock him out of the tree with a pulled back branch, but that only slows him down. By a waterfall Jess breaks down believing this is all her fault. They see a State Trooper truck on a nearby road. Chris slides down the hill, but Jess is grabbed by the cannibals. As Chris explains himself to the officer, an arrow pierces the deputy’s eye, killing him. Chris hides under the car as Saw-Tooth drives back to the cabin. Inside the creepy killers tie up Jess as they begin to hack the deputy apart.

Chris lights fire to the cabin and drives the State Trooper car into it creating a hole. He frees Jess and they fight off the mutants stabbing or maiming each one. But none of them are truly down and they start to come for the remaining two students. Chris grabs one of their shotguns and shoots a spare gas canister on the truck causing a huge explosion that envelopes the cabin. They take the yellow tow truck back to the gas station, which the old man assumes are the Mountain Men. Chris rips down the map and he and Jess drive off for good. Later a search and rescue officer shows up at the burned down cabin and is attacked by one of the Mountain Men, who is still alive.

“We are never going into the woods again.” – Scott

Wrong Turn creates a tense and unrelenting thriller in the vein of classic slasher movies like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes. This week has ended up being almost a theme week unto itself, with similar movies like The Descent, The Last House on the Left, Hostel, and this one. All these films feature a group of characters that enter into unfamiliar territories only to be confronted by malevolent forces, be they psychopaths, cannibals, troglodytes, or any combination thereof. This particular film creates a new breed of killer that is different from anyone of the films above. Yet, as with the antagonists of these other films, very little time is spent on any explanations of why they do what they do. The Mountain Men characters are more monster than human, and as such don’t really need much explaining.

The biggest complaint about the film is the lack of extra personal or thematic elements for the characters. The main characters of Chris and Jess, of course, get the most. Audiences know that he is a medical student on his way to Raleigh for a job interview, and that she was recently left by her boyfriend and her friends arranged the camping trip to cheer her up. From there, the character traits come down to almost single words. Scott and Carly are engaged, while Evan and Fran are “stoners.” There’s no particular trauma that is being worked through like the loss of Sarah’s family in The Descent, or having a repetitive motif like Paxton staring into dead people’s eyes to trigger his memories, like in Hostel. The film works like a non-stop roller coaster thrill ride that forces the audience to keep up as the youth stay one step ahead of the cannibals.

Another strange omission from the film is its lack of humor. Early on, Scott provides a few chuckles in his awkward relationship with Carly, but once the Mountain Men come after the kids there’s not another laugh to be had. This is certainly strange for films like this, especially in the 21st Century. Most proper horror films have a balance between the scares, and some lighter character moments. But Wrong Turn barrels ahead without so much as an accidental laugh to break the tension. This makes the last half of the film quite intense and somewhat difficult to watch. Perhaps the filmmakers are taking cues from the earlier films mentioned above which lack more overt moments of levity (except for the zaniness of the police officers in The Last House on The Left). A nice balance of shocks, scares, tingles, and the occasional laugh make for a perfectly balanced horror film.

The one thing about Wrong Turn that is not in question, is the phenomenal makeup effects of Stan Winston and his studios. The deformed characters of Three Finger, Saw-Tooth, and One-Eye are all creepy characters who each have their own personality and look. And while it might not immediately be apparent which character is which, careful rewatching of the film provides all the necessary clues. It would have been nice to get a little more backstory on these characters. The only revelations about this group are gleaned from the montage of news articles in the opening credits that use words like “inbred,” “genetic mutation,” and “psychosis.” These characters must enter the normal world at some point, even if it’s just to get gas, which is evident by the way the old man reacts when he sees the yellow truck pull into the station. They might get everything else they need from the cars they scavenge and the bodies they eat.

Wrong Turn must have made a proper turn somewhere, as the film spawned five sequels and a reboot. Between 2007 and 2014 parts 2 through 5 were released, continuing the saga of Three Finger and the various cannibal family members associated with him. No human characters appear to return, with the exception of the old man, who is given the name Maynard Odets. Because which survivors of this type of incident would choose to return to these woods? Seven years after the last sequel, in 2021, the original film was rebooted featuring new characters and a new-ish storyline. All proof that new ideas in horror films will get franchised and milked for every last drop of money they can make out of them.

Assorted Musings

• The Mountain Men in Wrong Turn inspired the creation of the Buckner family in The Cabin the Woods, a similar group of creatures known colloquially as the “Zombie Redneck Torture Family.”