20 Years Of Taking The Wrong Turn

In 2003, the ‘backwoods’ horror Wrong Turn (Directed by Rob Schmitt) was released. Blending some of the beautiful, cinematic scenery of John Boorman’s 1972 classic Deliverance and utilising the incestuous villains inspired by the likes of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1974 and Wes Craven’s 1977 The Hills Have Eyes, Wrong Turn is less slasher and more survival of the fittest. It stands apart from other releases from around the same time period of the late 90s and early naughts by straying away from the spree of knife-wielding baddies after the success of Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer and others — instead using the wilderness and universal fear of being lost to imbue a very realistic and heavy atmosphere.

The film delivers a sense of trust with the opening title sequence showing various newspaper reports spanning several years informing the viewer that something is amiss in “them there woods.” This type of exposition sets a precedent;  the creators won’t be spoon-feeding information. They allow the viewers to work some things out for themselves and don’t feel the need to dumb things down, a vast change from the metaness of Scream.

The ensemble cast is quickly introduced beginning with Chris (Desmond Harrington), who is running late for an interview and makes the age-old mistake of asking a stereotypical-looking gas station loiterer about any shortcuts. Never do this as it will only ever lead to carnage, so that’s on you, Chris. He soon literally crashes into a camper van containing five college students looking to escape for a bit of R&R in the country, one of whom, Jessie, is the talented Eliza Dushku a.k.a Faith from Buffy. The pals need to find some help since they are now all stuck in the middle of Hicksville which leads to breaking the other rule one should NEVER overlook in a horror film — they split up. Evan (Kevin Zegers) and Francine (Lindy Booth) clearly haven’t met Randy from Scream and are the first to encounter the locals. Before long, the rest of the group, Chris and Jessie along with Carly (Emmanuelle Chriqui) and Scott (Jeremey Sisto) have become sitting ducks and a series of brutal killings kick off as the aforementioned hillbilly, cannibal inbreds from the start pick off the young people one by one. The characters are regular ‘monster fodder’ yet manage to not be unbelievably annoying and Dushku is a plausible Final Girl.

There are some great kill scenes facilitated by some excellent practical effects work courtesy of the Stan Winston studio. In an interview with Moviehole.net at the time of release, Winston said his intention was to, “scare the shit out of you.” and he certainly managed to achieve that goal, which is no surprise due to his long-term career in creature design. There was good reason for the monsters to be so unnerving too.

Said Winston, “We did a lot of research, checking out pictures of inbred families, medical journals, reading about people that were actually deformed as part of inbreeding. It was all rather unsettling, mainly because these people aren’t monsters; they’re human — just so darn terrifying still.”

Whilst Wrong Turn is undeniably extremely gory and violent (so much so that Fox had trouble securing the R rating rather than the studio-feared NC-17), it manages to toe the line of not being so over-the-top that becomes farcical and humorous rather than thrilling and scary. Schmitt’s tight editing and almost Jaws-esque technique of rarely showing the ‘baddies’ really builds the tension. A lot of the film is seen through the POV of one of the victims, allowing the viewer to feel that sense of dread and urgency whilst actively rooting for these city kids to make an escape and end the line for the ‘mountain men/monsters’ (spoiler, they don’t, otherwise it wouldn’t be a franchise!).

But what is it that sets Wrong Turn apart from other similar films at the same time? Perhaps the director can answer that.

“I was not a horror director when I was hired. Stan (Winston) wanted a director who was emotional and could get realistic performances that felt intimate. He looked at my first film, Speed of Life, which is a drama about a son killing his sick father, and decided he wanted me for Wrong Turn, so I got the movie because of a tiny urban drama, and I think, all these years later that Stan was right, between his effects and getting to see the characters up close struggling, the movie worked/s.”

(Rob Schmidt speaking to Janine Pipe in August 2023)

The 2003 instalment was the only film of the franchise to receive a theatrical release, with a decent budget allowing a known lead actor and decent production value. But its longevity has more to do with Schmidt’s down-and-dirty atmosphere and Alan B. McElroy’s snappy, occasionally witty dialogue, which manages to be realistic without being trite, allowing the characters to be cared about, if only for a short time.