Wrong Turn (2021)

Film: In general I find it strange when they ‘reboot’ a movie series. I’m a firm believer that if a series reaches the end of its live span with the movie-going public, it should be allowed to rest. When I first heard about this film, it was called ‘Wrong Turn: The Foundation’ and I must have glossed over the idea of a ‘reboot’ and was more than happy that I’d see more of Three Finger’s cackling and his family’s murderous ways.

What I found though upon purchasing this Bluray… yep, physical media lives… is the abandonment of ‘The Foundation’ part of the name and a film that completely abandons the entire concept of the ‘first’ bunch of films, and basically just kept the concept of a weird-arse family living in the woods, and more traps than you could shake a noose at.

This film adds much more to the mix, and at the risk of burying the lead, does it quite well. The reason for that might be because the writer of the original film, Alan McElroy, is back at the writing desk for this one.

The film starts with Scott (Matthew Modine), in backwater Virginia searching for his missing daughter, Jen (Charlotte Vega). He files a missing person report with the town sheriff, who comments on her ‘black fella’ boyfriend (a foreboding of the townships attitudes, indeed) and shows her picture to several locals, none of whom claim to have seen her, but all of whom are as weird as hell.

Before we enter too far into his story, we flash back to over a month previously where we see Jen, her boyfriend Darius ( Adain Bradley) and their friends Adam (Dylan McTee), Luis (Adrian Favela), Milla (Emma Dumont) and Gary (Vardaan Arora) in the same small town ready to hike along the Appalachian trail… when unfortunately, they make a… you guessed it… WRONG TURN!!!

Very quickly, one of the party of friends is killed by a falling log which panics the others and causes them to run off the trail, making them lost even deeper in the woods. They camp overnight and in the morning, Adam finds that his girlfriend Milla has disappeared, and is caught by some weird forest dwellers in a trap. The rest of the friends confront the strangers, who don’t seem to understand them, and after Adam is untied, he kills one of them with a makeshift club, furnished from a dropped branch.

The death of one of their own upsets the other member of the forest family, and very quickly, they are pursued by their associates, whom the friends find out are part of something called The Foundation, a group who live hidden in the mountains, patiently waiting for the fall of America.

I think the biggest problem with this film is the use of the title Wrong Turn! It seems to have suffered a bit on many of the online reviews but I imagine that was due to the fact that this is in NO WAY a sequel. A better way to have sold this film would have been to have promoted it as ‘from the mind of the writer of Wrong Turn’ with the simple title of ‘The Foundation’. Franchise fans would have been extraordinarily pissed of, I imagine, when they found this to be not even slightly associated.

I, however, found this film to be a breath of fresh air, and for some reason was reminded of Jordan Peele’s films. Thematically they are different, and I can’t explain why it reminded me of them… maybe in the way it was filmed, I’m not sure, but I also was reminded of 2014’s Welp aka Cub from Jonas Govaerts, due to its environment and its constant feeling of moisture and claustrophobia.

The direction is great and the ‘hero’ group feel far more like real people than franchise victims. The bad guys are suitably scary, and their actions justified rather than just moustache twirling evil-for-evil-sakes types. The main villain, Venable, played by Bill Sage, has an oppressive presence, though for me I’m afraid that someone who is a wood dwelling priest-like character, his hair was far too well-groomed, and that’s possible my only criticism.

This film is less a horror movie, and more the cinema version of a Far Cry movie… and I don’t mean the god awful Uwe Boll one staring Til Schweiger and Udo Kier! It travels along a quite the clip, and is full of surprises. I can’t recommend it enough.

Score: *****

Extras: Not a brass razoo!

Score: 0

WISIA: I’ve watched it twice already, so yes!