Wrong Turn Review
by John Ulmer (johnulmer2003 AT msn DOT com)October 6th, 2003
WRONG TURN
Rating: 3.5/5 stars.
REVIEW BY JOHN ULMER
Horror films always open with the mandatory jumpstart. This usually consists of a pair of (a) wandering teenagers looking to have a night of passion together or (b) innocent, and quite frankly, stupid passersby who have made a wrong turn. They always make wrong turns. And the baddies always get them - while managing to stay mysteriously O.S., a.k.a. off-screen to those unfamiliar with scriptwriting (which, I take it, the creators of "Wrong Turn" are indeed familiar with, or are either blunderingly naive, as they seem to cram their film with millions of horror cliches while managing to still make it plenty fun).
"Wrong Turn" is a horror film in the vein of those 70s cult classics such as "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." The 80s seemed to go for more trapped horror - people trapped in buildings or remote areas with madmen, as seen in the "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" pictures. The 70s always had people out in nature - whether it is "Chainsaw Massacre" or even "Deliverance," a key film in the horror of hillbilly folk. "Wrong Turn" continues that chain of Man Stranded in Nature vs. Its Bizarre Products sub genre, if there is such a sub genre (OK, I made it up).
What I find amusing is how the idiots in the beginning of the film who die without sympathy get killed in seconds and yet the idiots who are the main characters of our story manage to survive and outwit their hunters - though they seem to display the same keen flair for choosing the worst possible case scenario for every event they encounter. ("Quick, forget the car which will lead us back to civilization - let's flee into the woods and try to outrun them!" type of stuff.)
But I enjoyed "Wrong Turn" for what it is - a typical horror flick that offers plenty of stupidity and plenty of fun. But yet I do find it smarter than some of the other horror crap hitting the streets these days - much more so than a great many other films I have seen recently. Perhaps that has to do, in part, with the paranoia of being trapped in a West Virginia forest and being pursued by "mutated" hillbillies. Or perhaps it also has to do with the great creature effects by the best creature effects artist of motion picture history, 4-time Oscar-winner Stan Winston (whose credits go out to such films as "Predator," "Aliens," "The Terminator," and "Jurassic Park," to name the more mainstream projects he has worked on). Winston brings a sense of realism to his productions - I swear that the Predator was real; I would bet my fortunes on that T-Rex being more than just a sock puppet. And yet that's all it is - and Winston makes believers out of everyone. If this film had resorted to cheesy CGI effects and a more marketable PG-13 rating, I would have given it a bad rating - no doubt about it. But this project seems determined to prove good horror films can still be made - the plots and acting and scriptwriting are all still as weak as they were in the 70s (such as dialogue typically explaining, "Let's split up into random pairs of two and go look for the missing person, even though there is a killer on the loose and the missing person is undoubtedly dead, but we'd better just make sure!").
The plot: A doctor-in-training, Chris (Desmond Harrington) is passing through West Virginia. He has to be in Raleigh in a few hours, but there's a traffic jam on the highway. He takes a shortcut through hillbilly town (mistake number 1) and stops to ask directions at a gas station owned by a man who looks like the offspring of Elmo and Gollum (mistake number 2). He looks at a map and notices a small road leading through the state that will take him right to where he wants to go. He takes this as a good sign, even though the manager of the gas station doesn't seem to thing it's a good idea. He takes the route. (Mistake number 3.)
He gets in an accident with a band of six young adults about his age, one of whom (played by Eliza Dashku) is conveniently not with a partner like the other four people. She later gives some lame excuse for why she no longer has a boyfriend - but like that even matters.
They split into a group of four and two (mistake number 4) and the group of two get killed by shadowy creatures lurking in the woods. The group of four, which includes Harrington and Dashku, stumble upon a little cabin in the middle of nowhere and decide to go look for a phone inside (mistake number 5, 6, and 7 - it counts for three points since it's so blunderingly stupid a mistake).
Fun ensues as a gang of ugly, hideous, barbaric hillbilly folk come after them with axes and cross-bows and Lord knows what else. Winston's effects bring these gruesome characters to life - CGI would have been a huge mistake in this case. (I'm not entirely against CGI, I just believe it to be overused in too many films nowadays.)
We know who's going to live and die. We know exactly what happens long before the movie itself seems to. But yet I enjoyed "Wrong Turn" a lot more than I thought I would. In a time when modern horror films resort to cheesy CGI, truly awful acting, numerous money shots to attract male audiences, and deliver "thrills" that are less thrilling and scary than some comedies, I suppose that it's safe to say I was a bit refreshed by this film. The movie truly disappointed me in its lame, corny ending, which resulted in me giving it half a star less than I was going to, but then it dives into a catchy cliffhanger during the credits which actually had me looking forward to another "Wrong Turn."
I guess you can say that I made a right turn on this one.
- John Ulmer
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