31 Films for Halloween, #30: Wrong Turn (2021)

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When Wrong Turn (2021) came out it was the wrong time. Specifically, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was supposed to have debuted in 3000 cinemas nationwide, but the fact that all the cinemas were CLOSED put a severe damper on its release.

It was also not helped by the fact that it was written by the person who wrote the original Wrong Turn (2003).  The remake took a different tack from the original hillbilly cannibal film (and its FIVE sequels).

A bit like the Buckner's, the Zombie Redneck Torture Family, in "Cabin in the Woods", or the characters of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", both of which you are more like to have heard of.


That's what the fans of the original film(s) were expecting of this remake.  But it wasn't what they got and so those were quite publicly vocal about their disappointment.

If you can imagine such a thing.

 Their loss! Because remake is very clever inversion of expectations.  It's focused on a self-sufficient communistic pre-Civil War enclave living in The Hills.  When the gang of plucky young protagonists wander off the Appalachian Trail into some traps set by this enclave, they leap to the conclusion that these people are, ya know, hillbilly cannibals, and they are quite embarrassed to discover their mistake.

In that aspect, it's a bit like the horror comedy Tucker and Dale versus Evil, in which the city folk's willingness to believe the worst about country folk is, in fact, the actual cause of their undoing, rather than ANY malice on the part of the ruralites.

The protagonist group contains gay men and a black man, whom viewers will be primed to expect to be targets of prejudice by the hill folk.  In fact, nothing could be further from the truth, since the group was founded in reaction to the lack of equality and unity in the U.S. (contributing causes for the Civil War).  

Egalitarian though the community may be, it's still quite harsh and reclusive, and the city folk pay heavy prices for their missteps. I'll say no more, having spoiled quite enough, other than...

the ending is especially satisfying.

P.S. I lied; one more thing...

Wrong Turn ALSO contain's cinema's longest and most PASSIONATE speech in FAROESE (made by actor Damian Maffei as "Morgan").  Who could pass that up?!



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