Six people find themselves trapped in the woods of West Virginia, hunted down by cannibalistic mountain men.
You voted for it, you got it! This should be fun!
I remember Horror fans getting quite excited for this release with comparisons being drawn with the likes of “The Hills Have Eyes” and “Texas Chainsaw”. In a time when the Horror genre wasn’t at it’s greatest this was a treat for fans of the genre.
I remember being very excited for this but at the same time I remember thinking it wouldn’t be as good as it was being hyped up to be, luckily it turned out to be a whole load of fun. Although I must admit that if it came out today I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much as I did in my teens.
The film was extremely well done, it’s packed full of tension and managed to keep me on edge. Director Rob Schmidt gave us a highly enjoyable film that brought some true Horror back to the genre, his influences may be highly obvious but it doesn’t hamper the film at all.
I credit this film with being the one to reignite the terror of the backwood hillbilly, it had been a long time since we had a movie like this and it was welcomed with open arms. You’ll often find fans of the film talk about it with a smile on their face, that’s how fondly it’s remembered.
“Wrong Turn” is a fun film, just sit back and enjoy it for what it is.
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
Several of the cast and crew were covered in poison ivy throughout the filming of the movie, this was due to the chairs being placed in what was first thought to be a group of weeds only later to be discovered as a patch of the rash causing plants.
When the four are running from the cabin after awakening the mountain men, Desmond Harrington broke his right ankle after landing on the opposite side of a log. This made it very difficult to shoot some of the scenes after his left leg is “shot” and he has to limp on his right leg.
Eliza Dushku did a lot of her own stunts for the movie.
Emmanuelle Chriqui dislocated her shoulder performing her fall through the trees. You can hear her shoulder pop on the production track in the theatrical sound mix.
As written in the original script, the characters were in their late 20s. However, they were made younger in order for the film to appeal to younger audiences.
The shortest film in the “Wrong Turn” series.
The only film in the series that does not contain any sex or nudity.
The promotion for this film was minimal due to the MPAA deeming the majority of TV Spots and Trailers “Too Intense” for the viewers. Even the commercials that were aired were heavily trimmed.
The female lead character, Jessie Burlingame, was named after the heroine in Stephen King’s novel, “Gerald’s Game”.
Throughout the film, Eliza Dushku is wearing a White shirt with the Albanian two-headed eagle emblem.
Despite only being credited for his producing, Make-up master Stan Winston was pivotal in the key design of the Mountain Men, in particular now post-modern horror icon Three-Finger. This marks the second last major horror film he has been involved before his death in 2008 at age 62 and the third slasher horror film he had been involved in following uncredited work in Friday The 13th Part II and III, the latter of which he had been a core designer on the original hockey mask of also horror icon Jason Voorhees and the respective mongoloid appearance of Jason for those two parts.
Into pre-production when McElroy had decided to drop the idea of Chris Flynn’s victim company being late twenties adults in order to attract the Teenage Slasher Horror crowd he set Jesse Burlingame, her best friend Carly and other friends to the age of 19, setting them as college teenagers still in their freshmen year of higher education. The decision came about when referring to the scripted opening of the film in which rock climbing college teenage couple Halley and Rich are subsequently killed by the Mountain Men.
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