Wrong Turn, 2003 – Movie Review – 31 Days of Horror

Director: Rob Schmidt
Starring: Desmond Harrington, Eliza Dushku, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Jeremy Sisto, Kevin Zegers, Lindy Booth

This review by the awesome Action Flick Chick – Check out her site.

All part of my 31 Days of Horror.

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It always gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside after watching two people kick the asses of three inbred, disfigured cannibals who have been killing a ton of people. You can rest easy tonight knowing that there are no more cannibals, and the world is a safe place… that is, until the two sequels, anyway. Well, you can rest easy knowing that the ass kicking fun isn’t over with Wrong Turn.

Wrong Turn was written by Alan B. McElroy and directed by Rob Schmidt. Starring Desmond Harrington (Chris) and queen kicker of asses, Eliza Dushku (Jessie), Wrong Turn is about 6 young adults who get lost in the woods in West Virginia. When trying to find help, they find horrifying, disfigured cannibals instead. Don’t be so quick to judge, the cannibals did offer to help the youngsters…by putting them out of their misery and eating them; however, the group decided that it was more in alignment with their plans if they weren’t the main course of dinner so they ran.

Wrong Turn is a hillbilly hoedown of a good time. It’s really gross and is capable of making you grab the edge of your seat. If you’ve seen any horror flicks at all, then you know that probably everyone doesn’t make it out alive. Gasp! I know, I just ruined every horror flick for you. However, it is really fun to play the game “Who’s going to die next, and in what horrific way will they die?” Everyone didn’t die the same, predictable way and that is always bonus points in my book. The baddies sure were creative for inbred cannibals.

Another thing I liked about Wrong Turn was that the film gives you two really strong characters in Chris and Jesse. It wasn’t just one hero, and it wasn’t automatically the male. It’s nice to see a heroine standing beside the hero. Jesse was a tough female who yelled at the other girls for freakin’ out and also partook in the beatings of the asses. Yeah baby!

Sadly, there wasn’t a ton of action happening. It was a little slow to start, but then it does pick up. There was a lot of hiding and running from the baddies before they ever face each other for the showdown.

Overall this is a good one to watch with a group of friends for Halloween. It’s gory, it can make you jump, and has some decent action. Just make sure you don’t go into the woods for a hiking trip, or if you do make sure you go armed and with your hillbilly radar on full power.

Time until initial action: ~ 3 minutes

Time until the real action starts: ~ 22 minutes

Baddies: Disfigured, inbred, cannibalistic mountain men.

Best Line: “Can you hold this? Cause we’re going to knock this f***er out of the tree!”

Most Unique Kill: Two of the six people decide to stay with their car while the others walk back to town to get help. Francine (Lindy Booth) is not paying attention to her boyfriend, Evan (Kevin Zegers), as he wanders off into the woods and gets killed. She finally notices that Evan is gone and she is all by her lonesome, so she goes off into the woods looking for him. As she sees his shoe and bloody piece of an ear, she gets a string of barb wire put into her mouth and wrapped around her head. The unseen cannibal pulls the barb wire tightly making it cut into her cheeks and lifts her up off the ground. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the cannibals take her back to their shack and hack her up into pieces and do what cannibals do best, eat her.

Best Explosion: Wrong Turn is a little better than your average horror film because it actually has an explosion, and a pretty good one at that. Towards the end, Chris and Jessie are having their final show down against the inbred cannibals. They’ve escaped the cannibal’s shack and are looking back at it. The three cannibals are still inside. Earlier, a truck with some gas tanks on the back was crashed into the front of the shack. Chris shoots the gas tank and it explodes. The whole shack explodes and pieces of it float down from the sky.

Biggest Lapse in Judgment: Carly (Emmanuelle Chriqui) is one of the last three survivors. Carly, Chris, and Jessie are all jumping and running across the large tree tops to get away from the baddies. Carly gets a little tired and scared when they have to cross a narrow limb, so she decides to sit down and rest while the others cross. Well, that was about as productive as a booger eating contest. I mean seriously, what are you really getting accomplished? A clean nose maybe but you will forever be known as the one who ate their boogers for fun, which is not something most people brag about. Carly won’t be doing any bragging about how she stopped to rest and gather her thoughts because with that lapse in judgment she won a fast pass to her own death. She was gathering her thoughts a little too long because one of the cannibals caught up to her. Swinging and axe from behind Carly, the cannibal landed it right in her mouth chopping the top of her head clean off.

Action Rating: 2 Wrong Turns/Right Turns, out of 5

Previous 31 Days of Horror reviews: The Unborn, Don’t Look Know, Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror, Christine, Pontypool, Diary of the Dead, Doctor Terror’s House of Horror, Wrong Turn 3, Zoltan Hound of Dracula,  Home Movie, The Thing, Vamp, Audition, The Fury, Blood Feast, Paranormal Activity, Braindead, Halloween, Friday the 13th Part 2, Martin, Fright Night, Zombieland