WRONG TURN

(2003)

written by Alan B. McElroy

directed by Rob Schmidt

reviewed by Adam Armstrong

1.16.09

New tag line: Most unoriginal horror movie ever!

Chris Flynn (Desmond Harrington) is on his way to a job interview driving through the mountains in West Virginia. A traffic jam makes him take a small dirt road to try and drive around it. He wrecks into another car that is stranded on the same road. The car has five friends that are going on a hiking trip. Chris, Jessie (Eliza Dushku), Carly (Emmanuelle Chriqui), and Scott (Jeremy Sisto) set out to find a phone and call for help (cell phones don’t tend to work in Appalachia). The two left behind are separated and picked off before the others start being hunted down by cannibalistic inbred mountain men. There is lots of running with the less important characters being picked off until the big climatic battle scene with the main characters and the antagonists.

It is almost like someone watched The Hills Have Eyes and a couple of slasher flicks and then made a half-hearted effort into making a film by combining them. Instead of changing the mask on the monster and the faces of the heroes and heroines and leaving the same plot, perhaps filmmakers should put some real effort into coming up with an original idea or at least giving us some well founded characters to care about or hate. Skip over this and rent The Toxic Avenger instead.

1 out of 5