film reel image

film reel image

Sunday, February 28, 2021

Wrong Turn 2021 * * 1/2 Stars

IT'S JUST WRONG

"This can't be happening". Oh but it is. I just viewed 2021's Wrong Turn. As a horror flick, you'll initially think it's a living, breathing nightmare. Guess what, it's much worse. 

Wrong Turn is the seventh issue in the Wrong Turn film series. On its own, "Turn" is a combination of The Village and The Blair Witch Project coupled with the stylings of early 2000s Rob Zombie. As something about a group of hikers who get lost on the Appalachian Trail and run into a bunch of settler savages, "Turn" is tasteless, sadistic, and well, unabashedly nasty. I mean, can you even rate this thing without feeling contrite? I don't know but I'll give it a try. 

Manifested by a little Stockholm syndrome and the general ability to creep you out, Wrong Turn features a doozy of a long shot ending and an early twist involving the Appalachian mountain men (and women). The pic is edited capably with a few brief flashbacks and the acting is on par with most millennial characters who are in distress. 

"Turn" is obviously a visionary work from an unseasoned yet unfettered director in Mike P. Nelson. Nelson not showing restraint or any kind of cinematic tact, pushes the envelope on how callous human behavior can be. His "Turn" is not a movie but an experience (I'm not sure if that's a good thing). Let me put it this way, if Mikey's goal was to upset the audience in a "tusk-y", "dueling banjo" sort of manner, he done did it.

All in all, Wrong Turn would be best appreciated if it wasn't part of an 18-year film franchise or came out in the late 90s (before every other slasher redux). To recommend "Turn" would not be heedful. It'd be saying that it's just a movie and hey, "the bloodier the better". I just can't do that. 

Written by Jesse Burleson

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