Wrong Turn
(2003) 84 Min.
Rated: R (gore)
Country: USA
Director: Rob Schmidt
Starring: Desmond Harrington, Eliza Dushku, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Jeremy Sisto
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Some people turn down the wrong dirt road and get lost in a forest where a cannibalistic mutant family hunts them down.
Synopsis:
Chris Flynn (Harrington) is driving to a business meeting in West Virginia when the highway he is on has a huge traffic delay due to a large accident with a chemical spill. Trying to avoid the traffic, he heads to a tiny out of the way gas station and finds a map that shows a dirt road that will lead him around the area where the accident is.
Chris goes down the dirt road and gets distracted for a moment and rear-ends a car full of college-aged kids. Their car ran over a line of razor wire in the road. The college kids are Jessie (Dushku), Carly (Chriqui), Scott ( Sisto), Evan and Francine.
Evan and Francine stay with the car as the rest of the group and Chris go to find help or a phone. While Evan and Francine are rummaging through both vehicles, Evan suddenly vanishes. Francine looks for him and wanders into the forest to find a shoe and a bloody ear. As she backs away from the ear someone grabs her from behind and shoves razor wire into her mouth, cutting her up.
Meanwhile, Scott gets separated from the group while talking to himself. He gets scared for a moment, but then Carly, his fiancee emerges and laughs at him. It was just a prank. The group then comes across a shack. When no one answers the door they decide to enter it anyway since Chris badly wants to find a phone and Carly needs to use the bathroom.
Inside, the house is filthy and littered with dirty dishes and jars. There is no modern equipment and there is a Victrola playing a record. Jessie finds a bowl full of new-looking car key fobs. Carly finds a hand in the bathtub and Chris finds a container with human flesh in the fridge. The group tries to leave the house as a yellow truck approaches.
Without a backdoor, the group hides in pairs inside the house. Chris and Jessie hide under a bed and see the homeowners drop the body of a dead Francine onto the dirt floor. The homeowners chop her up.
Later on, the homeowners, who appear to be inbred mutants, are asleep. During this time, Chris, Jessie, Carly and Scott escape from the house, but not before waking the homeowners. The family piles into their yellow truck and drive off as the college students run into the woods.
They come across a lot of bloodied cars that look like they belonged to past victims of the mutant family. Soon enough, the yellow truck comes up a road and drives up to the cars carrying the family. Chris comes up with a plan to divert their attention so that everyone can board the truck.
Chris runs off and gets shot in the leg by the family. Scott runs in the opposite direction also distracting the family. They pursue Scott while Carly, Jessie and Scott escape to the truck. They find the body of Evan inside, but moving along, they drive the truck and try to pick up Scott, however he is shot in the heart with arrows before the group can pick him up.
The truck gets stuck in mud where a tree has blocked off the road. The trio must now continue on foot. They find a fire watchtower and climb up inside it. There Jessie and Chris are able to bandage Chris’ leg. Carly is able to find a radio and the trio attempt to radio for help as night falls.
Chris spots the family looking for them in the woods carrying torches and the loud noise of the radio attracts them. Carly, Chris and Jessie cover the entrance to the tower so the family can’t get inside. They do manage to make a call for help but are advised to wait inside the tower.
The mutant family lights the tower on fire and the trio decide to jump into the nearby trees and hope they are caught by the branches. Luckily all of them manage to land into the tree without major damage.
The mutant with three fingers goes up the tree to kill them. Carly hesitates to move from the tree and the three-fingered mutant cuts her skull in half with an ax as he sneaks up behind her. He follows Chris and Jessie, but they manage to knock him out of the tree and he lies injured on the ground, the other two mutants still in pursuit.
Jessie and Chris get out of the trees and hide behind a waterfall. There they rest until morning. They see a road and attempt to approach it, when they are attacked by the mutants. They push Chris down a hill and steal Jessie. Chris attempts to flag down a police vehicle, but one of the mutants kills the officer with an arrow. Chris manages to hide and as the mutant steals the police car and drives it home, he latches on underneath the vehicle.
They arrive at the shack where Jessie is tied to a bed screaming. Chris manages to drive the police vehicle into the house and unties Jessie, meanwhile the family attempts to kill them again and they won’t die. Jessie and Chris are outside the cabin and Chris shoots gas tanks attached to the car in the house which causes a massive explosion.
Chris and Jessie drive off in the yellow truck. They arrive the old gas station from the start of the film and steal the map on the wall. They then drive off together.
Meanwhile, a trooper goes to investigate the fire at the cabin and as he’s rooting around he is ambushed by one of the mutants.
Review:
This isn’t the first film about a cannibalistic wild family. That story has been told before and better in films like Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes. Here it is a solid horror film with all the traditional tropes to be found. A douchey med student redeems himself and proves to be the hero of the film. Horny people die in this film. The two established couples who talk about sex are the ones who die.
The mutant family in this film are virtually unkillable and that kind of adds to the tension (and the sequels). Not much is given in the film to really tell the mutants apart. All we know is that one is good with arrows, one has three fingers and an ax, the other has a gun, I think. All the background information we’re given is gleaned through newspaper clippings that appear in the credits at the start of the film. People disappeared, legends about inbred mutants exist. It’s rather vague.
The pacing of the film is rather good, so it does clip along fairly well. Some of the coincidences are a little too much, like how Chris happens to run into the college kids on an obscure dirt road. How it didn’t take him long to run into the kids, but when they walk back on foot it seems to go on for ages. How the tower was lit on fire and no more than one trooper is sent out to look around. Nevermind the fact that the trooper at the end of the film doesn’t call for any backup or help when he happens upon a burned up house. Chris can run a marathon on a leg that was shot.
Some of the acting was wooden and bad, but it’s horror. Despite the flaws it was still at least interesting to watch unfold and it wasn’t the most predictable film either. There’s plenty of chopped up limbs and kills to satisfy a horror film gore hound. This film has spawned at least 6 sequels.
