This Land is Their Land.
The three messages from Wrong Turn (2021) are simple. One – don’t go hiking; two – don’t go hiking in Virginia; three – don’t go hiking in Virginia with a bunch of hipster friends.
For the uninitiated Wrong Turn (2021) is a “reboot” in a horror series created by Alan B McElroy that started in 2003. The six prior films focus on a family of deformed cannibals in West Virginia – enough said.
Well, you can’t say that horror films don’t have their share of tropes. You gotta love the strange township filled with weirdos who side-eye any out of towners. Tick. What about the pivotal moment when a mouthy visitor insults a local; let the hatred begin. Tick. Of course there’s one helpful soul (usually a woman). Tick. An innocent figure (child?). Tick. Finally, there’s loads of tripping and falling, always done while looking back. Will no one ever learn to go up rather than outrun? Tick. And, central to the Wrong Turn canon are brutal traps that lead to ooze-y gore and squishy sounds. If you want to be a foley artist then horror is your genre.
But does Wrong Turn have a deeper agenda? The Foundation with its simplistic political agenda ruled by a dictator (Bill Sage) has strict sexist roles, a minimalist legal system and a vengeful mandate is born of Confederate dreams. In the other corner is a middle-class urban sextet that includes a gay couple and an interracial couple, a female oncologist, a ‘hero’ who works for a non-profit (Adain Bradley) and his tyre-changing girlfriend (Charlotte Vega). As the movie poster warns “This Land is Their Land”—but whose land: the barbarians or the civilised? Not sure if this is where McElroy was going, just saying…
In all it’s a broody, dark (like I-couldn’t-see-most-of-the-second-half dark) horror movie with loads of jumps and plenty of slashing. Grab the popcorn and snuggle into the aircon.
Wrong Turn, 109 minutes
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