The original ‘Wrong Turn’, which released back in 2003, wound its way into cinemas in an attempt to cash in on the teenage slasher film trend that kicked off with film franchises such as ‘Scream’ (1996), ‘Urban Legend’ (1998) and ‘Final Destination’ (2000).
The film starred a moderately famous Eliza Dushku, whose claim to fame had been a recurring role on the hit television series, ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’. In her big-screen breakthrough (if that’s what you would like to call it), Dushku played Jessie Burlingame, one of six friends who find themselves stalked through the wilderness of West Virginia, when a detour forces them to take a wrong turn.
One Eye, Saw Tooth and Three Finger are the grisly deformed cannibals who hunt and kill people in horrific ways by using a mixture of traps and weaponry. If you ever watched the six-film franchise series created by Alan B. McElroy, you would know that Three Finger has remained a steady fixture, much like ‘Halloween’s’ Michael Myers.
McElroy returns to pen this new reboot of the six-film franchise, which is being directed by Mike P. Nelson. The latest adventure follows a group of friends hiking the Appalachian Trail, when they find themselves hunted by the ‘Foundation’ instead of the inbreeds fans know and love, with this group described as a ‘self-sufficient community of people who have lived in the mountains for hundreds of years and have become extremely hostile to outsiders’. Charlotte Vega and Adain Bradley star.
It didn’t take a crystal ball to predict the ‘Wrong Turn’ reboot was a sure-fire shoo-in ever since ‘Scream 5’ was announced last year, with original cast members Courtney Cox and David Arquette returning for some thrills. The ‘Scream’ franchise, which began in 1996, grossed over $600 million at the global box office across its four films, with the late Wes Craven directing all of them.
The thrill of slasher films is largely what’s kept the ‘Halloween’ franchise afloat since 1978, with filmmaker David Gordon Green readying the 12th film in the series with ‘Halloween Kills’ expected to release on October 15 this year, followed by ‘Halloween End’s’, out in 2022.
The plot of this new reboot, much like the original, dangerously slips into ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ territory, with a dash of ‘Midsommar’, Florence Pugh’s breakthrough hit of 2019.
To help reimagine this horror concept for the reboot, Robert Kulzer, producer of the 2003 ‘Wrong Turn’ and executive producer of its five sequels (the last in 2014) called upon McElroy to reimagine the ‘lost in the woods’ premise.
“We talked about all kinds of ideas,” said McElroy. “But the thing that really came to mind was this idea of, ‘Where is America today?’ ‘Where are we, as Americans, today?’ That led to a discussion about, ‘Have we lost something over the last 150 years?’ We are a society wrapped up in social media who need a Peloton if we want to exercise. We think we’ve advanced, but what have we lost? Then we started comparing the men of the past versus the men of today, and what would happen if a group of people decided to sequester themselves and were doing everything we say we want to do — eating organic, working collectively — but have not achieved.
“That was the birth of the idea for pitting today’s millennials versus a group that had set themselves aside, saying, ‘Who’s better? Who’s worse? Who’s the true monster and who isn’t?’”
“It felt appropriate to tap into the ‘social horror’ genre that modern classics like ‘Get Out’ helped pioneer. The world around us can be crazy and disorienting and it didn’t feel appropriate simply to make a ‘monster in the house’ movie,” said Kulzer.
He added: “Horror audiences are super smart and want something new. With this new ‘Wrong Turn’, we wanted to leave the audience thinking and talking, and draw parallels to their own personal experiences, lives, and culture. Alan is a terrific writer and created a great, new, twisted piece of genre mythology that salutes both the ‘Wrong Turn’ franchise and other classic horrors, while also bringing a socioeconomic lens that elevates the entire thing.”
