Wrong turn

Wrong Turn is the seventh installment of the film saga that began in 2003 in which five young adults are forced to change their route after a car accident and find themselves in the middle of the forest and have to face a family of degenerate cannibals. While the previous six more or less successful episodes relied on very gory effects to meet the demands of an audience fond of this horrific genre, this seventh episode is a complete reboot, taking out the cannibal family and replacing them here with a community of villagers living far from society and obeying their own rules.

By totally orienting the direction of the story towards a film mixing M. Night Shyamalan's The Village (2004) with the film of survival in a hostile environment, Wrong turn stands out as the best part of this cinematic saga and instead of betting on an outrageous outburst of blood, prefers to capitalize by setting up an ecological thriller of formidable efficiency.

From the very beginning of the film, the action is set and we follow a father, Scott (Matthew Modine), in search of his missing daughter. Six months earlier, she had gone with a group of friends for a hike on an Appalachian trail and found herself confronted by a community of people who have lived in the mountains for hundreds of years (The Foundation). For his third film after Summer School (2008), The Domestics (2018) and several shorts, director Mike P. Nelson has turned his story into a survival movie, limiting the outrageous gore effects of the previous films to what is possible.

The result is that Wrong turn is undoubtedly the best part of this film saga and proves to be quite original. While we could expect a film in the continuity of the previous parts, this is not the case and this certainly makes Wrong turn a major surprise because far from being a B-series promoted to a direct video broadcast, the direction here is careful and the suspense goes until the end of the credits and keeps the spectators totally in suspense.

Wrong turn also tackles the current American society in which violence seems to be omnipresent (the news easily shows this) and the script goes as far as to question the spectators on whether the Foundation might not be a better way of life, more egalitarian, more in touch with nature. In a global pandemic, this film comes at a particularly good time and shows that genre cinema can still pleasantly surprise. In the same way, the presence in the two main roles of Charlotte Vega and Matthew Modine certainly gives it an undeniable added value.

Wrong Turn
Directed by Mike P. Nelson
Produced by James Harris, Robert Kulzer
Written by Alan McElroy
Based on Wrong Turn by Alan B. McElroy
Starring Charlotte Vega, Adain Bradley, Bill Sage, Emma Dumont, Dylan McTee, Daisy Head, Matthew Modine
Music by Stephen Lukach
Cinematography: Nick Junkersfeld
Edited by Tom Elkins
Production company: Constantin Film, The H Collective, Tea Shop Productions
Distributed by Saban Films
Release date: January 26, 2021 (USA)
Running time: 109 minutes

Viewed February 14, 2021

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