"It's your job, right? You know, the guy who kills me, I hope he does it 'cause he hates my gut...
"It's your job, right? You know, the guy who kills me, I hope he does it 'cause he hates my guts. Not 'cause it's his job" - Sonny (Al Pacino) in 'Dog Day Afternoon' (1975)
Member since:26.02.2003
Reviews:84
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Well... apparently so. Wrong Turn is a very violent, very predicable varriant of your routine slaher where; (deep breath) a group of people meet due to an unforeseeable, unavoidable accident and are picked off one by one in a predictable fashion by some unknown and evil force that either dwells there or has plans for world domination.
The film begins with two collage sweathearts on a rock climbing excursion which ends in decapitation. The two teens (teens being actors in their late twenties and early thirties) suffer severe and predictable death from some kind of evil being.
After the opening credits (reminisant to the opening credits of "Se7en") the film follows the protaganist Chris Finn, (Desmond Harrington - "Ghost Ship") who is on his way to high powered job interview, through the thick, uninhabbited woods of America. After having to take a detour through his planned route due to a road accident, he finds himself at an old, deplapidated petrol station (gas station if you live across the pond) with the intentions of using a telephone. He looks at the map on display to discover that there is another route that goes in the direction of his destination. He decides to ignore the advice of a toothless, senile hillbilly attendent who rambles on about the dangers of that particular route.
On the way to his interview on the new "dangerous route", Chris has a collision with a parked off road vehicle with a flat tire. The vehichle, continaing five relatively glamerous twentysomethings got a flat tire because of barbed wire that was carelessly left in the road:- "somebody did this!"
(You
see... Motorways and ugly people don't exist in Hollywood)
The group splits up, two stay with the non road worthy vehicles in case someone else comes along and the other four (including Harrington and Eliza Dushku - TV's "Buffy The Vampire Slayer") head off down the road, searching for help. The two left behind are quickly butchered by the local inbred persuasion, the surving four find a lonely cabin in a clearing and approach it in a hope that it houses a telephone to call for help. Of all the rusty cabins of all the forests of all the world, they had to walk into that one, it just so happend to be the home of the mad inbred society that's out to get them. Quickly realising that, the four escape and a predictalbe and infrequently enjoyable sequence of events follow that consits of the four being involved in a cliche ridden jaunt through the woods - Blair Witch Project, it is not.
Performances are adequete for a film of this type, very rare are performacnes in modern Horror films spectacular. Desond Harrington (Chris) seems to keep a cool head during the ensemble of bizare and violent events. Eliza Dushku's character provides a relatively fiesty edge as Jessie, instead of taking on the big breasted bimbo cliche who falls over during a foot chase only to be masacred by the bad guy/guys/girl/girls/ravenous animals, she takes on more of a sassy independant young person's persona who doesn't feel at all frisky for the duration. The other performances were as well adequate, but never during any stage of the film did I care about the characters. I never watched it and thought to myself "oh no, so and so just died", to be honest it's easy to predict who survives in the end before even turing the television on.
The story, admittedly had potential but ends up wanting. Director Rob Schimdt (his first time in mainstream cinema, I believe) revels in a formula that has been tested and tested for decades. By all means, it's not the Director's fault, he did his best with what he could work with. The script gives no tension or payoff and you can tell what is going to happen in the next scene before it even happens. A good point for the film; the deaths are not exaggerated or silly. In this respect, the film is somewhat believable.
One thing that isn't believeable are the grotesque hillbilly inbreds who stomp around wearing red shirts and dungarees. Desptite special effects guru Stan Winston attempts, the creatures don't look scary at all. They look like they're rejected entertainers from Disneyland trying to make an honest buck. The skinny one in particualr looks like he's fresh from the Lord of the Rings set. Another thing concern the creatures is that they give no tension what so ever. The most successful and scary horror films don't show their serial killer until the lastest possible moment (ie; the end). Films like Alien, The Blair Witch Project, Jurassic Park and Jeepers Creepers have had reasonable success by implementing this formula of not being able to see the 'enemy'. In this film, you see them after about twenty minutes. Becuase of the films short length, it gets down to business straight away with no build up at all. A good horror film scares you psychologically not by sudden movement or sounds.
On that note, a violent film doesn't necessarily mean that it is a scary film. One particular cliched attempt at scaring is the old "open the cupboad door so that an item can fall out, that triggers the character to scream in panick to make the audience jump". For a start, that happens in pretty much every horror film of recents years and therefore didn't scare me. Second, the item in question was a canoe padal. That may seem plausable but bear in mind this is the cabin belonging to a group of homicidal inbreds, that carve people up for kicks. Firstly; the padal was in mint condition, unlike the rest of the belongings, second; from what you see in the film, there is no evidence of water nearby and not even a canoe for that matter and thridly; why would an inbred, mutated hillbilly want to go canoeing in the first place? Case closed.
Other moments include Chris hiding under a stationary police land rover while being chased. Even though he was seen, he is never caught and butchered. Hmmm.......... Also, one Inbred uses a rifle when the persuit of the four survivors, after firing off a couple of shots, they resort to using bows and arrows, surely they would have more bullits? A rifle may not be as cool as someone getting shot by a bow, but it is far more efficient.
Having said that, the film has a couple of good moments; my personal favourite being the execution (I won't go into detail) where Carly's throat meets the business end of a hillbilly's axe. That was one of the only scenes where I considerd it to contain the intense violence that some people have talked about.
By all means, don't don't watch it on my account, see for yourself. The problem is that you're not going to find anything fresh. With an original concept that isn't developed and a hollywood style ending which is all too convient for my liking, Wrong Turn doesn't deliver the goods that it promises.
BOTTOM LINE Wrong Turn is run of the mill and is limited in its entertainment value. The whole inbred concept is actually quite original but the film never takes the time to go into it more, for example; who are they? Why are they like that? Why do they do what they do? etc. The opening credits give you the inspiration that this film is going to be different but it isn't. A shoddy Hollywood effort that owes me 80 minutes of my life. Shocking for all the wrong reasons.
CERTIFICATE: 18 TIME APPROX: 80 minutes
CAUTION strong violence strong language
IF YOU LIKE THIS TRY: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - a film that deserves the title of "Horror"
< DarkMark
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I liked this, because it didn't have any false pretences, it is just one hell of a ride that makes no sense whatsoever, had no charecterisation or script in particular
ralfschumacher 07.06.2004 21:08
I've seen half of this film and I actually thought it was good but I'll have to see the whole thing through before I judge it. A very good op! --Chris--
Something strange is happening deep in the woods... but no one's lived to tell about it. ... more
Chris Finn (Desmond Harrington, Ghost Ship) is on his way to an interview, but when he is faced with a huge backup in traffic, he makes a U-turn, taking a shortcut...
Chris takes a turning into an unmarked dirt road to avoid a traffic jam, he ploughs into ... more
the back of another vehicle after his tyres blow. As the two drivers swap details they notice that the road had been sabotaged with barbed wire... Four of the part...
Mar 2nd, 2004
(Mar 7th, 2004)
exceptional by (7%):
very helpful by (93%):
