Horror over the past few years have become losing touch with their roots. Not all of them, but a lot of them were becoming so self aware that they were becoming mockeries of themselves. It all started with Scream, which was a very good film, but it could also be charged as signaling the downward spiral of the horror film. Strange way to start a review of Wrong Turn, don't you think? Well, Wrong Turn is not in that area of horror, and it's a better film for it. I'm not saying it was completely successful, or signals a turn around, but it is a lot better than I was expecting.
The story concerns a small group of twenty-something's who stumble across a trio of inbred mountain men in West Virginia. What could easily have been a hokey Texas Chainsaw Massacre ripoff, is actually a pretty scary and grueling fight for survival. Chris Flynn is late and caught in a traffic jam, while looking for another way around, he finds a road not listed on the normal map, he follows it. Before you know it, he's run into a broken down SUV and it's four passengers. They set off, on foot, to find a phone, what they find isn't very nice. Living in the woods is a trio of cannibals who start picking them off one by one. It becomes a race for survival with death nipping at their heels.
The film stars Eliza Dushku and Desmond Harrington. Dushku plays Jessie, and does a good job of it, giving us a strong character who is human, showing signs of vulnerability. Harrington is Chris, he does a decent job, but fills the more traditional tough guy role. The acting all around is good for the subject, good at playing alternately scared and tough. A performance I thought particularly good, yet somewhat overshadowed by the main stars, is that of Emmanuelle Chriqui, who plays Carly. On the surface she is basically a bubbly tag along, but as the film progresses, you can see her going into shock in stages. It was very effective, I didn't really notice it until my most recent viewing.
The direction is solid from Rob Schmidt, he dies a good job at ratcheting up the tension yet keeping focus on our heroes. Another thing that works well is that the bad guys are not given much screentime early on, you know they are there, but just flashes. Backing up Schmidt's direction is the legendary Stan Winston providing the make-up effects. Winston's work is always top notch, bringing a very believable air of reality to the gore and bad guys. There is an abundance of fake scares and other horror movie cliches, but it works so well that I didn't mind.
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