I am very excited to begin reviewing the Wrong Turn series! This saga of films is especially known for its copious blood and gore and the level of disgust that it creates in the audience through the setting and through these blood and gore moments. Before watching Wrong Turn (2003) like I did tonight, I had already watched the second and fourth films and loved them. With that in mind, and Wrong Turn having a budget of $12.6 million (the second one had only $4 million and the third and fourth even less than that), I thought I would be in for a real treat with the first film of the saga. Unfortunately, it is not as great as I expected it to be. Although I did enjoy Wrong Turn to some extent and the story was interesting, I was not captivated by the acting and the blood and gore scenes at all. Nonetheless, this film is still not a waste of time.
The plot follows a man named Chris Flynn (Desmond Harrington) who is trying to get to Raleigh, North Carolina for a job interview. While in the backwoods country of West Virginia, he is held up on the main road by a major traffic jam and he decides to take an alternate route, leading him on a journey through a remote dirt road. Chris becomes distracted for a moment and ends up crashing into a van sitting in the middle of the road. He meets the five friends who had taken it out there: Jessie (Eliza Dushku), Carly (Emmanuelle Chriqui), Scott (Jeremy Sisto), Evan (Kevin Zegers), and Francine (Lindy Booth). In the first scene of the movie, we see two hikers get killed and disappear by the mutants that live in the area so we do know that these beings are on the loose where the five friends and Chris are stranded. Jessie, Carly, Scott, and Chris decide to trek back up the road to try and find the gas station Chris had stopped at before to figure out his alternate route. Evan and Francine stay behind to watch all the stuff (this doesn't end too well for them!) Just for the record, Scott and Carly are a couple and Jessie and her boyfriend had just broken up so a bit of a romance does develop between her and Chris throughout the movie which does add a hint of flavor to the plot. After they leave, they come across the mutants' cabin and find body parts such as teeth and hands around it. They thus realize that they are in serious trouble and they must work together if they have any hope of getting out of the wilderness alive.
To me, this film is good because it is an excellent tone setter for the rest of the Wrong Turn series. We learn a lot about the mutants, their personalities, and their way of living through the way the film plays out. For example, we learn that they are cannibals obviously; they hunt humans that are unfortunate enough to prowl through the area and they eat them. We also learn that they are excellent hunters; they set elaborate traps and are experienced with bow and arrows and other formidable hunting weapons, such as axes and even shotguns and rifles. We also learn that they are complete slobs- their living quarters are disgusting and in complete disarray, but I guess any living area would be dirty if you preserve human body parts for eating. In the beginning of the film, newspaper headlines flashed across the screen reveal that they are the way they are due to inbreeding, that they are inordinately strong, and that they don't feel pain. The good thing is thus that there is no confusion as to what these things are, where they came from, and why they do what they do. So the first film gives us an idea of what we can expect from the rest of the films in the series.
The plot was decent. It wasn't enthralling but it definitely holds your interest throughout most of the film. The most thrilling parts of the story line are when the four who went to the gas station (Chris, Jessie, Scott, and Carly) have to work together to try and get away in different situations when they are at risk of being killed. In some cases, they were actually pretty smart. They steal the mutants' truck at one point, although it gets stuck and so they are still stranded, but hey, the plan they had did work! Other moments were also successful in creating suspense, such as when they had to sneak out of the mutants' cabin while the mutants were sleeping on the beds right by the exit. Would they be able to get out successfully without waking them up? Watch and find out! But basically, the plot is a game of cat-and-mouse between the mutants and the four unfortunate hunting targets but it proves to be enough to keep the audience interested in the story and wondering how long they will be able to avoid the mutants, and also how many of them will actually come out alive. Personally, I like the scenario where the group of friends get separated and each victim gets picked off one by one a lot better than this, but hey, I can keep an open mind.
I also like the premise of this film as it is a bit realistic. The events that lead up to Chris running into the five friends are quite plausible and the fact that they need to work together to survive require that they all trust Chris and that he trust them. Given that they do not know each other, this is probably a hard thing to do. The fact that they can do it is pretty cool. Just goes to show that if in a dangerous situation, people should work together rather than fight about it and things do get done.
The ending is actually pretty cool too. I'm not going to reveal who is still alive at this point, but the conclusion of the film is a rescue mission and it involves action-packed confrontation with the mutants so it is definitely satisfying!
Now for my complaints. I was not overly impressed with the acting in this picture. It was a little hard to believe that these people were in the situation that they were in- I can't really remember any distinct part where they show real panic or alarm. It's actually quite dull pretty much. If anybody did a good job, I would have to say it was Eliza Dushku (Jessie). She was a likable character and unlike most of the others, she showed real emotion over the deaths of her friends and she shows that she has feelings for Chris. Emmanuelle Chirqui (Carly) did an okay job, as she did express emotion over the death of her fiance, but it was very short-lived and not very believable. I didn't care very much for Harrington's (Chris) acting either in this. He also showed little to no emotion. In addition, we learn little to nothing even about the main characters. All we are told is that Chris is a doctor and Jessie recently broke up with her boyfriend. That's about it. I can understand not learning much about characters that die quickly, but generally you want to feel a little more connected to the main character(s) in any film and I didn't really feel that here.
My major complaint is the lack of really good kill scenes and blood and gore moments in the film. Let me tell ya, with a budget of $12.6 million, I was expecting a lot more in this department. In some cases, the ways in which some of the people die aren't even shown or they are displayed very briefly and are not very thrilling. For example, the use of the bow and arrow becomes boring after a while and in general this method of kill is just not at all that enthralling. Another thing, when the mutants are cutting up the body of one of the victims and removing body parts, the camera is turned the other way! What the hell?? I wanna see that shit! Come on! Perhaps I'm a little biased because I saw the second and fourth films where there was a lot more blood and gore but still, this could have been done a lot better and it could have been way more creative. I will tell you though that there is but ONE kill scene that will make your jaw drop. If all the other deaths were as disturbing as this one, then I would be singing a much different tune! After doing some research, what I realized is that Rob Schmidt, the director of this first film, did not direct any of the other Wrong Turn movies and there are different writers for the other movies as well. So that answered my question of how could it be that this first film has a bigger budget but less blood and gore than the other films? I guess directors Joe Lynch and Declan O'Brien thought these types of scenes were more important than Schmidt thought they were.
So overall, this film serves as a good tone setter for the rest of the series and effectively keeps the audience interested through its story and its educating us about the way of life of the mutants. Unfortunately the below average acting and the lack of really good kill scenes (minus the one I told you about that is astounding!) and minimal blood and gore does take away from the thrill factor and thus makes this film only average or perhaps slightly above, but no better than that. If you plan to engage wholeheartedly in viewing the other films in the Wrong Turn saga, then you should definitely watch this movie, and even if that is not your plan, you still might enjoy the game of cat-and-mouse that ensues throughout most of this film.
BaD BiRdS: FAIR
~MJ Aufiero
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