by Conan Simmons – June 12, 2021 – 9:31 pm
Mathew Modine plays a father in search of his missing daughter Jen, played by Charlotte Vega, who along with a group of her college friends disappeared while hiking in the Appalachians. Driving through small town Virginia he finds that local law enforcement have little to no interest in helping him nor do the yokels hanging out in a bar that displays a Confederate flag in the window.
Maximizing its time focusing on the biggest name star in the cast the movie shifts focus into the events that happened a few weeks earlier when Jen and her friends arrived in the same small town before their planned hike in the mountains.
The collegiate group is comprised of what immediately seems stereotypical of the modern generation: the boldly self declared socialist, an app developer, a gay couple and an interracial couple. There is obvious tension in the bar as they proceed to get drunk among the equally stereotypical all white conservative community. This being a horror film the audience expects the slightly cartoonish emphasis on perceived stereotypes, what makes it work here is it’s clearly stating that the film is aimed toward a socially conscious audience and not just playing the stereotypes for comedic effect or exploitation. That’s not to say ‘Wrong Turn’ is some kind of brainy horror film, it isn’t, what it is is a film with a firm grasp on the zeitgeist of the United States.
The screenplay by Alan McElroy does very well in knowing the characters and, while never getting into gritty character development, every choice the characters make are believable and consistent with how the script and the actors portray the characters. McElroy wrote the original 2003 film of the same name starring Eliza Dushku. This reboot of the franchise that features 5 straight to video sequels deviates from the previous movies by focusing less on backwoods inbred cannibals and more on secret cult lunatics.
As the film follows Jen and her friends (played by Emma Dumont, Adain Bradley, Dylan McTee, Adrian Favela and Vardaan Arora) the audience gets the expected thrills of danger as they encounter various traps set by the secret society hidden in the woods. The scenes of deadly encounters are very well done with nice variations on worn out tropes. When the secret society finally reveals itself the movie starts to rest on horror clichés more firmly than it did in the first half.
That’s when the film jumps back to where we last saw Mathew Modine and, with a little help from a local, manages to quickly track down the secret society leading to the expected capture and confrontation with the cult’s deadly serious leader, played by Bill Sage, and his seemingly sympathetic daughter, played by Daisy Head.
There’s some humor, though not a lot, most notably a metajoke referencing the previously mentioned ‘Wrong Turn’ movies and the funniest bit being the incident that plays out during the closing credits. There’s also plenty of gore for the gorehounds in the audience. It may have limited appeal for those that don’t love the horror genre or gore films in general. For those that do it is along the obvious lines of ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ and ‘Bone Tomahawk’.
‘Wrong Turn’ is a solid horror film that doesn’t try to be anything more than what it is, an entertaining jaunt through the backwoods of terror.