wrong turn (2021) review
When the credits roll you’ll likely get the feeling that the unseen aftermath of 2021 reboot Wrong Turn is equally interesting to the film itself. Some of the ideas presented within it are that strong. The problem with Wrong Turn is it’s masquerading as such for marketing purposes and has little interest in carrying on the spirit of the franchise. It’s an annoyingly sneaky tactic. There’s a moment halfway through where it takes a jarring left away from the premise of the original. From there you can either lambast the bait-and-switch or accept that the films connection to the 2003 slasher/cult classic is tenuous at best and nonexistent at worst. If you are willing to do the latter, there is fun to be had with the admittedly half-baked reimagining. As far as micro-budget horror films go, you could do a lot worse. Your best bet is to forget entirely what came before and think of Wrong Turn as a stand-alone film. Viewed through that lens it’s a perfectly serviceable horror/thriller peppered with a handful of genuinely horrifying moments and plot revelations that spring from a place of real creativity. It’s more slickly produced than the original with surprisingly beautiful cinematography and sweeping establishing shots across the first act that create an overall tone less grime-infested than the 2003 version. That doesn’t mean the film doesn’t have its fair share of scares and head-splatter. It doesn’t reach the b-movie simplicity of purpose and tight pacing of the original and the updates to the mountain men feel like a betrayal to franchise roots, but Wrong Turn is undoubtedly exciting and creates at least two characters (Charlotte Vega’s final girl, Jen, and Bill Sage’s Venable) that leap off the screen for all the right reasons. Fun fact for eagle eyed viewers: the Madrid-born Vega appeared in a recurring role in season one of Netflix’s Warrior Nun as one of the rich pricks. I hope we see more of her moving forward.
Wrong Turn receives a score of 6.5/10 for general audiences and a 7.5/10 if you can ignore the history of the franchise and experience the film for what it is.