Wrong Turn

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Ian Stanley reviews

Wrong Turn
Distributed by
Twentieth Century Fox Home Video

    Cover

  • Cert: R
  • Cat.no: 2009649
  • Running time: 84 minutes
  • Year: 2003
  • Pressing: 2003
  • Region(s): 1, NTSC
  • Chapters: 28 plus extras
  • Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 (English), Dolby Surround (Spanish & French)
  • Languages: English, French, Spanish
  • Subtitles: English, Spanish
  • Widescreen: 1.85:1
  • 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
  • Macrovision: Yes
  • Disc Format: DVD 10
  • Price: $19.98
  • Extras: Theatrical Trailer, Poster Gallery, Audio Commentary & 4 Featurettes

    Director:

      Rob Schmidt

    (Crime and Punishment in Suburbia, Milestone, Saturn, Wrong Turn)

Cast:

    Chris Flynn: Desmond Harrington
    Jessie Burlingame: Eliza Dushku
    Carly: Emmanuelle Chriqui
    Scott: Jeremy Sisto
    Evan: Kevin Zegers
    Francine: Lindy Booth
    Three Finger: Julian Richings
    Saw-Tooth: Garry Robbins
    One-Eye: Ted Clark

This disc contains two different programs. Produced as a throwback to the irony-lite Seventies style of pared down, low budget horror, Wrong Turn was an early runner in 2003’s new wave of teen horror movies. Made on a low budget, the film was probably most noted for the presence of Eliza Dushku (Faith in TV’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer) amongst the cast and for its surprisingly full-strength gore quotient.

Chris Flynn (Desmond Harrington) is driving cross-country to get to an important interview, an accident on a main road means he is forced to take a back-woods shortcut. On his way through he runs into (literally) a group of friends on a camping trip, putting all of their vehicles out of action. The group set off to find a working phone but soon find that they aren’t alone in the woods, stalking them is a group of inbred cannibals intent on having them for dinner.


Jeez… all I did was shoot a window
out and the whole place went up…

Taking it’s cue from such Seventies classics as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes, the set up for Wrong Turn does seem rather derivative. Since, however, the whole point of this movie is to evoke the spirit of those genre classics, I’m not sure you can really level such a criticism against it. This movie is a (pretty successful) stripped down fright machine, it quickly dispenses with character development to get to the action and, thankfully, chooses not to lumber the movie with any ill-fitting romance or sub-plots (or a real main plot for that matter). For a movie such as this, what would normally be a criticism does not really apply, this movie is not a work of art nor was it meant to be, it’s a disposable way of giving an audience some cheap thrills. As such, the jumps in the movie are pretty effective and some of the ‘set-pieces’ are quite tense, and with the film only running a taut 84 minutes it certainly doesn’t outstay it’s welcome.

Thankfully, for a modern horror movie, there are no attempts at irony, no post-modern winks at the audience and no droll one-liners. Unfortunately, what we don’t escape is a lame tacked on ending partway through the credits, I don’t know if this was studio enforced in order to leave things open for a sequel (that I hope to never see), but it’s just lame.

Naturally, the short running time and the definite emphasis on action, doesn’t leave much space for character development, so it’s a case of a talented cast having to make the best of what the script gives them. Eliza Dushku comes off best as the spunky heroine Jessie, simultaneously strong and emotional, it’s good that they resisted any impulses they might have had to make her some kind of kick-ass ‘Faith-like’ character. Desmond Harrington also comes across well as the somewhat stoic hero (?) of the piece, in the commentary he and the director speak of trying to make Chris reminiscent of Steve McQueen, and I can see where they’re coming from in some regards. The other two main characters of note, Carly and Scott, played by Emmanuelle Chriqui and Jeremy Sisto respectively, are a little more stereotyped but they are well played and come across as likeable rather than annoying. The antagonists of the piece thankfully aren’t villains of the humorous type. The ‘Mountain Men’ can’t properly speak, they can only communicate with basic mangled words and grunts, the fact that they’re not really personalised makes them a lot scarier than most movie bad guys of late. Out of them all, the standout is the character ‘Three Finger’ played by Julian Richings, one of the most annoying, nasty and rodent-like bad guys of recent memory.

Director Rob Schmidt keeps things pretty dark, low tech, and simple, shooting mainly with hand-held cameras for a rawer, edgier feel. He does make subtle use of CGI for a couple of the movies ‘money shots’ including one of films’ more memorable decapitations.


Screengrab… or catalogue pic…

There are certainly no complaints on the picture and sound front. This disc contains both Widescreen and Full-screen transfers on alternate sides of the disc. For the purposes of this review I only checked out the Widescreen transfer, as all Pan & Scan transfers are inherently evil… The picture here is very good, I noticed no print damage of any kind, no compression problems and no edge enhancement either. There was just a very natural, filmic looking transfer. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is also very good here with impressive use being made of all the surrounds, creating a very immersive experience. There is a good moment very early on in the film when a character is killed off-screen, this is marked by a single ‘thud’ coming from the right rear speaker, simple but nicely effective!

What seems on paper like a pretty good collection of extra goodies turns out to be much less in reality, they are also, annoyingly, split over the two sides of the disc. I’d strongly advise not to watch them until after you’ve seen the movie as, by and large, they are loaded with spoilers… On the Widescreen side we have –

A Commentary Track featuring Director Rob Schmidt with stars Eliza Dushku and Desmond Harrington. The track starts off pretty hesitantly with lots of pauses, it soon warms up though but there are still some patches of dead space. It’s good humoured, chatty and frequently funny, with Desmond Harrington cracking up the other participants with his wryly-humorous comments about his character’s effectiveness (or lack of it) in the film. It’s pretty apparent that the three participants got on and had a good time on set. By and large it thankfully avoids the trap of just describing what’s happening on-screen, as commentaries go it’s well worth a listen, it’s fun but just not overly informative.

Next up are two Deleted Scenes and some Dailies. The Deleted Scenes are more just extended versions of existing scenes, the first scene, ‘Waterfall’ (3:02) was wisely deleted and I couldn’t really tell the difference between the second scene (of a character’s death – 0:31) and how it appeared in the final movie. The third ‘scene’ is actually the Dailies from the Character Death Scene (3:20). I’m not entirely sure why they’ve been included on this disc except, I guess, to show that the particular actor must have had quite a bad day on the set. All three are presented in rough looking non-anamorphic widescreen and have a burnt-on time-code.

The first of the discs four Featurettes is on this side, ‘Fresh Meat: The Wounds Of Wrong Turn’ (9:25). It is the longest of the featurettes and covers the makeup effects in the film, the character deaths and the character development of the inbred villains.

This side is rounded off with a Poster Gallery containing four Posters, and also the Theatrical Trailer, (2:12) presented in Non-Anamorphic Widescreen.

On the full-screen side we also have the above Commentary and also the following three Featurettes.

‘Making Of Wrong Turn’ (4:02) which is your usual EPK, back slapping making of fluff, where the cast and crew explain the story and enlighten us as to how much they love working with each other. What is worth noting is the beginning has this hilariously booming voiced narrator, ominously intoning “Did you make a wrong turn?” Oooo… Scary!

Next up there is ‘Eliza Dushku: Babe In The Woods’ (3:41). As you can probably guess from the title it’s a bit of a love fest with more ‘back slapping’ and also contains Eliza explaining her character and how she played her. What is amusing here is a shot at the very beginning where Desmond Harrington seems to sneakily ‘cop a feel.’ Good man!

Last up we have ‘Stan Winston: Monster Mogul’ (4:39) a featurette devoted to the FX maestro and Producer of ‘Wrong Turn.’ He briefly details his career to date, his working practices and how he got involved in the project, he comes across as pretty decent guy.

Overall, this is a fun little horror movie that, at 84 minutes, is as lean as it’s attractive main cast. It’s well worth renting, or picking up, if you are looking for a simple ‘no frills’ shocker. The picture and sound are excellent and the commentary is pretty good, the rest of the extras are strictly ‘one-watch’ affairs.

FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS


OVERALL
Review copyright © Ian Stanley, 2004.

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