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60 out of 83 people found the following review useful: What's worse than a leather-faced madman chasing you through the bush with a chainsaw? How about three!!, 30 May 2003 Author: Dean Kish (dwkish@shaw.ca) from Calgary Canada
What's worse than a leather-faced madman chasing you through the bush with a chainsaw? How about three!!`Wrong Turn' stars Desmond Harrington as Chris Finn, a man who is late for a very important interview. Finn takes a back country road to avoid a traffic jam and ends up involved in a car accident with three debutantes (Eliza Dushku, Lindy Booth and Emmanuelle Chriqui) and their boyfriends (Jeremy Sisto and Kevin Zegers). The group splits up as they try to find some help. Unbeknownst to them, they are being stalked by an unspeakable horror. Living in the woods around the crash is a family of cannibalistic mountain men who are overtly grotesque from generations of incest. Before the group knows it, they are in a fight for their very lives.`Wrong Turn' was in one word an utter shock to the system. There hasn't been a film this gory, grotesque and chilling in a very long time. Not since the 1970's `Texas Chainsaw Massacre' has a horror film such as this been made. The best way to describe the experience is that if you took 2001's `Joy Ride' and `Jeepers Creepers' added 1972's `Deliverance' then threw them all in a blender. You may come up with `Wrong Turn'.The tension in this film is harrowing and relentless as it bats you back and forth. You are exhausted and maybe even queasy when you come out of the theatre. But if you love horror films then you probably have an ear to ear grin as well.I really liked some of the early editing of this film by director Rob Schmidt, who allows the scares and shocks to come with brilliant accuracy. I also liked how Schmidt barely shows the mountain men throughout the film. The parts we do see are horrific but the filmmaker relies heavily on the chase and shock than on the gore. Schmidt could have easily dived down the gore shoot to hell but he made a wise choice that works in spades.It's the film's harrowing tension and atmospheric pursuit that overshadows the young stars that make up the cast. Dushku is strong and emulates some of her `Buffy the Vampire Slayer' character, Faith in her portrayal here. Dushku loves to play debutantes with edge and her character here has a lot of it. I wasn't extremely familiar with Desmond Harrington before this film but he plays a good leading man. The rest of the cast play typical generic 20-somethings from the horror film franchises of old. I have always liked Lindy Booth but she has nothing to play with here and the same is goes for Jeremy Sisto. But come on, this isn't exactly an intelligently written and detailed drama.I liked `Wrong Turn' purely because of its shock value and its no holds barred return to classic horror. It is always in your face and it doesn't let go till the credits. This film isn't for the faint of heart. What a rush! (3.5 out of 5) So Says the Soothsayer.
36 out of 50 people found the following review useful: Eliza Dushku, Emmanuelle Chriqui & Lindy Booth I'd Have No Problem Being Stranded With., 15 March 2005 Author: BigHardcoreRed from Calimesa, California
Wrong Turn is about a group of 6 people (in two different cars) make a wrong turn (hence, the movie title) in the back woods of West Virginia. One car runs over some barbed wire which leaves them stranded in the middle of the road, when another car crashes into it due to not paying attention. They are in the middle of a forest where cell phones get no reception and not a gas station or any other convenience for miles and miles. Most of the group decide to walk back the way they came in hopes of finding help while a couple stay behind with the vehicles. This is where the mountain men begin their murder spree. They obviously began well before the movie started but for these 6 people, this is where it starts. It is also probably the most graphic and creepy part of the movie.The special effects on the mountain men were great. They remind me of someone but I can not put my finger on it. They were creepy enough in the way they walked and grunted that they were not too much of a joke. I would probably run from these people if I was alone in the woods. Much better than the Boogeyman from Boogeyman, anyways. Some characteristics remind me of the main monster in Monster Man, though.I thought the cast for this movie was great. I have always been a big fan of Eliza Dushku and the other two girls, Emmanuelle Chriqui and Lindy Booth, were no slouches themselves. In fact, if there were 3 girls to be stranded somewhere with, I would have no problem if it were these 3. You could certainly do a lot worse.The only guy in the movie that annoyed me was thankfully knocked off first. It was like they were reading my mind. Jeremy Sisto and Desmond Harrington were pretty likable and did a good job overall. The acting in this movie was pretty good, especially considering it was a horror movie.The movie borrowed a little bit from a lot of different movies, most notably Deliverance, which one of the characters even mentions by name, but in todays day and age, when we have seen it all, it was a pretty good effort. 8/10
40 out of 58 people found the following review useful: So gripping that you don't notice whats wrong with it til its over, 2 July 2003 Author: susanburke3183 from Ireland
I decided to see this movie mainly out of boredom plus an eye-friendly cast was promised, so i basically thought it'd turn out to be another standard popcorn horror flick. Thankfully, what i discovered was notably more enjoyable.Yes, it is true to say that it does follow along the same vein as many other horror movies in that many key aspects of it are quiet predictable. However, in spite of this, a distinct empathy can be felt for the majority of the protagonists, who you really don't want to fail victim to the insane, murderous, mountain psychos. Not alone this, but I feel that it is safe to proclaim, as i'm sure have and will many others, that the atmosphere is one of well created nail biting tension, which lasts throughout the duration of the film.In fact, I found the atmosphere that the movie exuded to be so compelling that I failed to notice certain flaws that would normally aggravate me in a film. I of course will refrain from elaborating on these details so as not to spoil the viewing for those who have yet to see it.What I really liked about this film was that it didn't try what so many other horror movies as of the last seven years or so haave tried- and that is to be ironic. It is just a horror movie, with the distinct and generally successful aim of scaring and entertaining. Its atmosphere undeniably achieves this, however its not alone, it is true to say that this film is not for the squeamish. Several scenes prove to be quite graphic.In this respect, I would have to admit that Wrong Turn doesn't have the makings of changing the world of movies as we know it, but it does however, have the capacity to push you to the edge of your seat. My advice is, if you're a horror fan, its well worth the watch!
30 out of 39 people found the following review useful: A wrong turn done the right way!!!!, 10 June 2005 Author: Boggman from Laguna Hills, CA
This movie WORKS on many levels. Good actors, a solid storyline that doesn't drag, great make-up and visual affects, and fast paced directing make this movie a must see for the serious horror fan. Wrong Turn is a great throwback to the classic horror movies of the 70's and 80's, with the an excellent production budget which a lot of the older classics simply could not afford to have.Wrong Turn did not disappoint this reviewer, and I really think it's too easy to compare this movie to "Deliverance", as other reviewers have. Regardless, I would rather watch these guys chase Eliza Dushku through the woods and up the trees any day than to watch Ned Beatty squeal like a pig! :-) Wrong turn is a truly scary and very creepy horror film. I get the "willies" every time I watch it! You really want these characters to make it out alive. Dushku is fantastic in her role as the strong female survivor. She plays it with everything she's got and it shows! The scene in which she is taken back to the cabin and tied to the bed.....well, it's a great piece of acting just as good as any of our beloved scream queens from years past.The rest of the cast also delivers consistently throughout the film. All in all this is a great film and a class apart from what has been released to us horror fans in the last few years. I enjoyed it tremendously, and would recommend this movie to anyone who is a horror film fan!!
36 out of 53 people found the following review useful: A terrific 70s style horror flick, 11 June 2005 Author: zythman from United States
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
After seeing Wrong Turn, I decided to look back at other Stan Winston produced movies to see what I may have missed by him. Stan is a special effects master who has created scary monsters for some great flicks: Alien, Predator, Artificial Intelligence, Edward Scissorhands, Chiller, The Hand and more. Wrong Turn begins by introducing you to some very real characters during daytime and in bright sunlight. The plot begins with an intelligent med student (Desmond Harrington), trying to reach a destination but coming across a traffic jam on a main route through a mountain pass somewhere in West Virginia. He decides to make a U-turn and soon afterward finds a shortcut through some very rural woods of W-VA. Or so he thinks! He quickly meets up with a stalled vehicle in the road belonging to four campers thru an accident he has with their car, destroying both vehicles while no one is hurt. They are all effectively stranded in the middle of nowhere. They begin looking for a way to communicate with the outside world. Cellphones are useless out here. As they begin their search we discover they are being stalked by some awful looking inbreds, this flick's "monsters". The monsters are actually disfigured people who capture any unfortunate souls who happen to travel down the road into their neck of the woods. The main characters stumble right into the empty homestead belonging to these inbreds early in the story, which serves to make for some intriguing discoveries about the nature of their stalkers. At this point the story turns to a chase of sorts, with the intelligence of the quarry sometimes helping gain a foothold on their stalkers. You find yourself deeply involved in the movie, pushing all else aside as you start rooting for the stalked as they disappear one by one, until the survivors finally rise to the challenge as you find yourself cheering them on, screaming "Yes!" as they start to get the upper hand on their madmen stalkers! There are some terrific graphics which I haven't seen in other films. I watched the original theatrical version on a whim not knowing that my money would be so well-spent. I would like to point out that there's some good talent being splashed around on the screen here, both in the main characters played by Desmond Harington and Elisha Dushku, as well as in the supporting cast of Jeremy Sisto, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Kevin Zegers and Lindy Booth. I love this cast, and would like to see them reunite for a second effort, possibly in an entirely different setting -- maybe for a great haunted mansion flick. I'd give this movie an A-.
50 out of 82 people found the following review useful: A slasher that needs more...well, everything!, 19 November 2004 Author: Li-1
Rating: ** out of ****Wrong Turn seemingly has all the ingredients necessary for an effective slasher: a good setting and decent premise, a very attractive and likable cast, memorable make-up and gore effect, and a refreshingly unironic tone that reminds us of the days when old-fashioned horror didn't rely on self-conscious humor to pass for entertainment value. In that manner, Wrong Turn is actually a little nostalgic, not unlike the rest of the recent batch of backwoods horror flicks (Cabin Fever, House of 1000 Corpses, and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake).But aside from two solid setpieces, the movie rarely fulfills its (admittedly limited) potential. The script matters little in this subgenre, but there's almost no plot after the ill-fated teens arrive at the mountain men's cabin. This is about twenty-five minutes into the film, after we've already dispensed with the obligatory character intros (basically: 3 hot chicks and 3 hunky, but also surprisingly personable guys) and whatever reasons they have for being stranded in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia.Everything after that is typical cat-and-mouse filler, the killers (three inbred, cannibalistic hillbillies) searching for their prey while our protagonists run and hide behind trees. There's very little in the way of suspense, namely because it's so obvious who's going to live and who's going to die and in what order. And because the cast is so small, you can't even enjoy a particularly large body count (half the main cast is killed off less than forty minutes into the picture).Wrong Turn is also missing much of what makes slasher movies fun to watch: explicit nudity and the occasional bit of gratuitous sex. With such an attractive cast (Emmanuelle Chriqui is cute, and Eliza Dushku and especially Lindy Booth are total hotties), the movie regrettably skimps on the goods. Such a complaint probably wouldn't matter if the characters were better developed, but despite a talented cast, the most interesting aspect character-wise is noting how different a couple Lindy Booth and Kevin Zegers played in Dawn of the Dead. As for the rest of the cast, Desmond Harrington is a solid actor, but does little more than run, grunt, and dive headfirst into every dangerous stunt (his volunteering for every dangerous move actually makes him pretty likable even when we question his logic). Eliza Dushku simply coasts on her looks (and proves that all hottie TV actresses are destined to play a big screen scream queen at least once in their lives), while Emmanuelle Chriqui just shrieks her way through her part. Standing out a little is Jeremy Sisto, who infuses a bit of humor into an otherwise very disposable role.The forest is something of a disappointment, as well. With a potentially excellent setting at his disposal, director Rob Schmidt fails to generate any creepy atmosphere in an environment where you'd think atmosphere would almost come naturally (to be fair, a lot of horror movies also seem to have this problem; the last time I saw a forest setting utilized perfectly was in 2003's terrifically frightening Dead End). Despite the fact I've done little more than harp on the film, there's no denying that the middle half-hour is occasionally entertaining. There's a semi-suspenseful scene set in a vehicular junkyard (finally, a little variety in setting, huh?) and another effective sequence set inside a watchtower that segues to an exciting chase atop the branches of some very large trees. The murders are too sparse, given the small cast, but they're gruesome and memorable, and thankfully not as relentlessly cruel as the deaths in Cabin Fever, but boast just the right touch of menace and hard-edged violence.The three hillbilly killers aren't quite as successful as the gore; in fact, seeing less of them would have been appreciated, considering their grotesque appearance almost crosses into the realm of self-parody. Even The X-Files knew better than that. Anyway, whatever momentum the middle half-hour built up comes crashing down in the final minutes, with the film actually closing out with an explosion, surely a sign of desperation on the part of the screenwriter if he can't come up with any brighter ideas in a slasher (I was, in fact, about to give the movie a ** 1/2 until the climax). Overall, this is mildly recommended to slasher fans or anyone who wants to gawk at Dushku for a little over an hour. Wrong Turn at least has its heart set in the right place, which is more than can be said for most slashers these days.
27 out of 37 people found the following review useful: See the unrated version, 16 April 2006 Author: bonnie91 from Ventura, California
I really like this movie. I've seen it 3 times, once in the theatre and then twice on DVD (the unrated version). There's a big difference between the version shown in theatres and the unrated version: as usual, the theatre version is cut a lot, leaving out some pretty gruesome scenes that are not for the squeamish or faint-at-heart.The premise for the movie may be a little cliché (mutated, possibly inbred, group of people living in the remote countryside, wreaking havoc on innocent tourists), but, oh, the way it's carried out! I liked it more than the original The Hills Have Eyes (haven't seen the new one yet).If you're into horror, I highly recommend the unrated version of Wrong Turn.
24 out of 33 people found the following review useful: a good basic horror, 21 June 2005 Author: daydreamin_pisces03 from United States
anyone who expects any movie to be perfect is just always going to find failure. no movie can be exactly right because they have a large variety of people to please. if you are expecting to find a movie nowadays that totally freaks you out, that is hard. we have seen almost everything by now. this movie isn't trying to be amazing, it is just meant to freak you out and provide you with some gore. it does do this. i watched it for the first time in the dark, it sure scared me. this movie is a little different from the predictable and sometimes a little bit annoying movies like Scream, I know what you did last summer, etc. it is a good movie for people who aren't looking for too much. just to have a different cast of people than the conventional ones, Eliza dushku, who i am a fan of, isn't your usual wilting, running screamer. she is just as strong as the men and doesn't always need help. Desmond Harrington is nice to look at and has a strong quality about him. these two working together can be enjoyable and have the ability to survive. this movie is different enough and scary enough to be enjoyable. i sure enjoyed it, and i bought it.
35 out of 57 people found the following review useful: Not a bad waste of time..., 29 May 2003 Author: terenceramsay from Calgary Canada
I went into the screener of WRONG TURN not expecting much. After the film was over, I was pleasantly surprised. The plot has been recycled a few times, but this version of the "kids stranded in the woods" scenario has some good points. We have seen this before in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and more recently in X-Files Episode "Home". A group of young adults are stranded deep in the woods of West Virginia, and are hunted by a "family of cannibalistic freaks. Wrong Turn is very predictable, and the gore is abundant, but the film is delivered in an in-your-face style, which kept me interested. The acting is on par with most slasher flicks, which is good enough to get the point across. All in all, it was a good waste of a boring thursday evening.I do want to spoil much, but the tree top chase is very well done. Any fan of the genre might be surprised by Wrong Turn...I was.
11 out of 12 people found the following review useful: Fantastic 70s Style Splatter Flick, 1 September 2007 Author: iVanV from California
Wrong Turn tells the story of Chris Flynn (Desmond Harrington), a doctor who gets stranded in the middle of nowhere after being late for an important meeting. In hopes of getting to his final destination in time, Chris takes a back road through the woods of West Virginia to avoid the traffic jam and accidentally crashes into a car which belongs to a group of friends led by the somewhat bitchy heroine, Jessie Burlingame (Eliza Dushku). Having two wrecked cars, the group decides to wander through the woods in hopes of getting help, unaware that they are about to get stalked and killed off one-by-one by a group of hideously deformed inbred family who has been living and feeding with human flesh in that area for more than 30 years.Having seen the film countless times before, I was always strangely fascinated by it, but I never truly understood why. I did always love it, but there was always something about it I just really dug. Having seen the film again now, I've finally realized what, and the reason is very simple - the film is just a very well-done homage to all those bad-ass 70s Horror films, and just combines the highlights of those flicks in one simple and highly-enjoyable Slasher film.Another reason why I probably like this movie so much is because of its fantastic and unique eerie atmosphere. Throughout the whole movie you repeatedly get that uncomfortable feeling of being watched by someone, and the scares which constantly appear through the movie just add to the atmosphere. The tension and the special effects are very well done too thanks to Stan Winston who creates a really disgusting and menacing inbred family, but he does it so good you don't even look at them in that way; sure they are scary as hell and look horribly deformed, but beneath that all you still do realize they are all just a bunch of humans, well at least sort of.The cast is really good too. The two leads, Desmond Harrington and the lovely and talented Eliza Dushku, do an amazing job here and since they both play likable, strong characters, you really root for them and want to see them live. The other cast members, Jeremy Sisto, Lindy Booth and Kevin Zegers, are all great actors, but they don't have really much to work with here since their characters are basically wasted, though Emanuelle Chriqui really stands out and plays the supporting female lead role very good and convincing. Even though you already know from the start who is going to survive, there's still plenty of tension and scares present throughout the whole movie, so if you think this is just another typical, gory Slasher flick - think again.One thing I'm very impressed with here is the directing. Schmidt does a terrific job, and you can say he's a horror geek by just watching several clips from the movie. We get some "Deliverance" references now and then, a little bit of "Last House on the Left", "The Hills Have Eyes", "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", and loads more. The kills are very effective and absolutely gory too, so if you are a fan of brutal death scenes, you will almost definitely dig the deaths. The film does have some weak points though. Some of the dialog is a bit cheesy in parts, and the ending is really predictable, clichéd, and a bit rushed if you ask me, but the film still really impressed me and is definitely one of my favorite movies now.So in short - Wrong Turn is a movie you either love or hate. I definitely belong to the first group for a couple of reasons, and even though I do realize Wrong Turn is not the best film ever, I love every second of it for one simple reason - it's a simple, highly enjoyable and scary no-brain throwback to 70s Horror movies, so if you're just looking for a fun and gory Horror film, Wrong Turn is then definitely a right turn, and an amazing film you should definitely not miss! Highly recommended.8/10
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