Alan B. McElroy’s Wrong Turn franchise has seen a great amount of success for movies that have mostly gone straight to DVD, and that’s partially because it subverts many of the stale slasher tropes that have bogged the sub-genre down in the past.
Starting in 2003 with Wrong Turn, the only theatrical release, the franchise adopted a style that blended slasher movies with exploitation films in a unique way, employing many of the traditional formulas that work for both. Later entries in the franchise pushed boundaries by taking the content to truly dark, disturbing places with their cannibal clan who roam the West Virginia hills, but sometimes the risk made in producing something subversive really pays off with horror fans.
As it stands, the franchise seemed like it had reached its end after six films - which is a long run for horror franchise. However, the announcement of a seventh film, which first broke in 2019, meant new hope for the future, and hopefully more of the same twists and turns fans have come to expect from a series that is known for making unexpected, refreshing choices.
Wrong Turn (2003) Has Genuinely Likable Characters
Wrong Turn not only featured cast members that were on the verge of a big break or were already known to have a fan following such as Eliza Dushku and Desmond Harrington, but McElroy managed to do something with his characters that many slasher movies either can’t or don’t. While they were all beautiful 20-somethings, lost in the woods and eventually caught in a fight for survival, they were also all well-rounded, three dimensional characters who had genuine chemistry with one another. In particular, the relationship between Carly (Emmanuelle Chriqui) and Scott (Jeremy Sisto), a newly engaged couple, turned heartbreaking in a long sequence where Scott started to run toward his three friends - including his fiancee - in a truck. He was ultimately killed by a series of arrows, which hit him one at a time in the back until he dropped and revealed to the other survivors that he wasn’t going to make it.
Wrong Turn’s Killers Are Just Trying To Survive
Though the killers in the Wrong Turn franchise are just as brutal and relentless as other slashers in their pursuit of victims, the motivation is entirely different. In Halloween, Michael Myers pursues Laurie Strode relentlessly because he’s compelled to kill his entire family or, depending on what canon is followed, tie up loose ends. Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th has less of a distinct motivation, but most of his reasoning can be chalked up to either finishing what his mother started, or attributed to him being territorial and wanting to be left alone. The various cannibals in the Wrong Turn movies have adapted killing, inbreeding, and eating their victims as a way of life: it’s how they survive. It’s what they’ve always known. And that, perhaps, is even more terrifying.
Wrong Turn Occasionally Has No Survivors
It’s commonly known that slasher movies are traditionally concluded with a final girl coming face to face with the killer and fighting him to the death. Sometimes she wins, sometimes she loses, but this is a theme that’s played with all the time and subverted in different ways. Where Wrong Turn takes this even further is that, even in the first film, the final girl, Jessie (Eliza Dushku) didn’t make it out alone. She and Chris (Desmond Harrington) were both survivors. In other films, the last survivor is a male or, in one instance, a female survives only to be taken hostage for various unpleasant things. In Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings, which served as a prequel to Wrong Turn, nobody survives at all.
Next: All The Wrong Turn Movies Ranked, Worst To Best
