Rob Schmidt
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Connections, in both directions
A movie about inbred redneck hillbillies should go in one of two directions: it should either be an exercise in cult-movie camp, or it should be a modern day version of Deliverance (whose title one character is foolish enough to invoke at a certain point).
Broad nods to “Deliverance” and to the original “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” abound, but they just make the movie worse--there are no comparisons.
In his DVD commentary with Dushku and Harrington, Schmidt repeatedly insists that Wrong Turn has a seventies sensibility, and like the film itself (in which Jeremy Sisto's character rhetorically asks of his companions, "Haven't you seen Deliverance?"), the director acknowledges its sources.
It's just possible that McElroy thought that because he actually stuck in a dialogue reference to John Boorman's Deliverance that his script would both look less like a splatter-film rip-off of that movie and attain some weight by virtue of association.
The kids invoke Deliverance by name at one point, but in its stripped down narrative thrust and its level of sustained suspense, the film it most vividly recalls is Walter Hill�s masterful bayou thriller Southern Comfort.
There’s a needlessly blatant “Deliverance” reference which winks and nods to the audience too much.
…does suffer from a kind of cinematic inbreeding, taking a major inspiration from a bizarre genre of 1970’s shockers like John Boorman’s Deliverance, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Eaten Alive, as well as Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes and it’s sequel.
The kids invoke Deliverance by name at one point, but in its stripped down narrative thrust and its level of sustained suspense, the film it most vividly recalls is Walter Hill�s masterful bayou thriller Southern Comfort.
Even before those "Scream" movies, we knew the rules, even if nobody said them out loud.
The leads are very good and the film is refreshingly free of Scream-like smartarsery.
There's no tongue-in-cheek here, either, no sly "Scream" humor, just straight-out blood and gore for the sake of straight-out blood and gore.
Kevin Williamson gave the genre a lift with Scream, making horror movies self-referential and cool, and also a lot of fun, but his screenplays also tend to be cute--he’s like the John Hughes of horror films.
Wrong Turn, co-produced and featuring effects work by Oscar-winner Stan Winston (who also, let’s not forget, had a hand in the Andy Kaufman/Bernadette Peters robot love story from hell, Heartbeeps , way back in ’81) begins promisingly, but soon falls prey to achingly obvious genre tropes and rote, hack ’n’ slash bloodletting.
This was already tired stuff when cult fave Sleepaway Camp came out in 1983, and it’s downright comatose by now.
Katz also works in shades of Gareth Evans' Apostle and Mike P. Nelson's Wrong Turn remake, albeit much vaguer.
We quickly learn that couples Carly (Emmanuelle Chriqui, "On the Line") and Scott (Jeremy Sisto, "Angel Eyes") and Francine (Lindy Booth, "American Psycho 2") and Evan (Kevin Zegers, proving there is life after starring in the "Air Bud" movies) are soothing buddy Jessie's (Eliza Dushku, "City by the Sea") broken heart with a camping trip, and Chris neatly completes the coupling.
From Desmond Harrington and Eliza Dushku�s pathetic attempts to sustain horror momentum to Kevin "Air Bud" Zegers� brief appearance in the beginning of the film, Wrong Turn offers bad acting abound.
Accordingly, the likes of Jeremy Sisto ("Angel Eyes," "Clueless"), Emmanuelle Chriqui ("On the Line," "Snow Day"), Kevin Zegers (the "Air Bud" films) and Lindy Booth ("American Psycho 2," "Detroit Rock City") are barely differentiated and have no chance of emotionally connecting with the viewers.
For as a carload of bickering, two-timing co-ed outsiders find themselves stuck in ‘the middle of nowhere’ (literally one of this film’s subtitles), and a local family of hicks targets them for the chopping block or an even worse fate for any survivor, we are clearly travelling the same genre backroads as Tobe Hopper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Rob Schmidt’s Wrong Turn (2003).
In fact, the marketing for the film is keen to trumpet its similarity to the likes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Wrong Turn, with the likes of The Hills Have Eyes and Wolf Creek also running thick through its DNA.
Steven Spielberg has been quoted as saying that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the best movies ever made (and he indeed hired director Tobe Hooper to make Poltergeist for him), and what I think he was responding to was the willingness of a filmmaker to just let go.
Indeed, the first sign of something more than trees in the forest is an old junked van—one of the first signs that something is wrong in Texas Chain Saw Massacre and, still more insistently, in the more derivative backwoods horror, Wrong Turn (Rob Schmidt, 2003).
The setup will be familiar to anyone who has seen “Wrong Turn”…
Fans of this sort of thing are going to delight in all the hacking, slashing, stabbing, eviscerating and head-splitting, and while some of the better gags are lifted straight out of other, similar motion pictures (most notably Friday the 13th Part 3 and Wrong Turn ) in 3-D they pack a hideous punch entirely different than that of their predecessors.
Rachael Taylor (2008's " Shutter ") exhibits a carefree sweetness as new gal in town Sam, and Eliza Dushku (2003's " Wrong Turn ") does a lot with a little in the undernourished part of bartender Joe.
“Wrong Turn” makes Rob Zombie’s similarly disorganized but unbelievably more interesting “House Of 1000 Corpses” look like “Citizen Kane” in comparison.
Immediately upon touchdown he's confronted by unwelcoming hillbilly types, familiar from films such as "The Hills Have Eyes" or "Wrong Turn," who put cityfolk like Marquis and his family in their place.
But it’s still chilling enough to please fans of nature-set nasties like The Hills Have Eyes .
Wrong Turn, which borrows liberally from Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes, is less a sign of the times than a sign that the genre is seriously played out and badly in need of fresh visions, wherever they might come from.
Meant to be an homage to the gritty horror films of the 1970s like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “The Last House on the Left” and “The Hills Have Eyes,” “Wrong Turn” walks a very, very fine line between respect and rip-off.
The story's best antecedents lie in Wes Craven's "The Hills Have Eyes" and John Boorman's "Deliverance," the latter film, incidentally, referenced in the new one.
…does suffer from a kind of cinematic inbreeding, taking a major inspiration from a bizarre genre of 1970’s shockers like John Boorman’s Deliverance, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Eaten Alive, as well as Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes and it’s sequel.
While Turn aspires to be a throwback to genre classics like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes , it lacks the inventiveness and charm of its horror ancestors.
The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Directed by Drew Goddard
influenced by Wrong Turn (2003)
Characters Plot
Not unlike the young people in The Evil Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Wrong Turn, Cabin Fever and hundreds of other films, they are a good girl, a slut, a jock, a smart guy and a stoner — a slasher-film version of The Breakfast Club.
But though it has elements in common with every movie that ever sent a batch of comely youngsters into the wilderness (for starters: The Ruins, Wolf Creek, Wrong Turn), The Cabin in the Woods is not strictly speaking, a slasher flick.
Director Rob Schmidt ("Crime and Punishment in Suburbia") and screenwriter Alan B. McElroy ("Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever") start off on the right foot by delivering what appears to be an homage to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" set in the locale of "The Blair Witch Project," both apt material for times when terrorists with motives incomprehensible to most take innocent lives in commonplace situations with sudden finality.
Meanwhile Emily's met Ben (Jeremy Sisto, "Wrong Turn"), but when Oliver turns up on her doorstep in LA needing a shoulder to cry on, the duo take to the road, eating junk food and singing badly.