Although this is a rather derivative horror movie -- a cinematic goulash made from bits of DELIVERANCE, TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, THE HILLS HAVE EYES, and all the FRIDAY THE 13TH movies -- it's done well, and so makes for an exciting viewing experience. The plot is genuinely suspenseful, the special effects are state of the art -- in other words, extremely nasty -- the acting is decent, and the characters, while they could have been a bit further developed, are still more real than the shooting gallery ducks that populate so many movies of this type. And there was almost none of the gratuitous sex that always seems to turn up in these movies. (In fact, one such scene was cut from the final version. It's included in the deleted scenes on the DVD.) The movie also made the wonderfully disturbing suggestion that the surrounding community, such as it was, knew exactly what this tribe of inbred monsters were doing and had decided to just let it go on. I would have liked a little more explanation of exactly how the these monsters came to be -- over and above the newspaper clippings we see at the beginning of the movie -- but I realize that really isn't the point.
My one real complaint is that WRONG TURN supports the stereotype of southerners as stupid at best and depraved at worst. I'm not s southerner myself, but I did live in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, North Carolina area for awhile, and thus have become sensitized to this issue.
My one real complaint is that WRONG TURN supports the stereotype of southerners as stupid at best and depraved at worst. I'm not s southerner myself, but I did live in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, North Carolina area for awhile, and thus have become sensitized to this issue.
