The Wrong Turn movies have carved out a unique and terrifying corner of the horror market ever since the first entry in 2003. The franchise is about families of deformed cannibals living deep in the wilderness of West Virginia who prey on those taking the titular ‘wrong turn’ into their territory. After the first film made a bunch of money, we got five straight-to-DVD sequels in the form of Dead End, Left for Dead, Bloody Beginnings, Bloodlines and Last Resort. Though not without some charms, none of them lived up to the scares of the original.
Now, a new reboot – simply titled Wrong Turn – from The Domestics director Mike P. Nelson seems to have turned things around. It saw a limited theatrical release in late January and critics were surprisingly positive. RogerEbert.com’s Nick Allen said that it was a “bizarre, winding odyssey,” Lee McCoy of Drumdrums praised it as “ambitious and daring” and Sara Michelle Fetters of MovieFreak.com hyped it as “a brutally uncompromising descent into unflinching terror.”
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, most won’t have seen Wrong Turn yet, but fortunately, we don’t have long to wait until it comes home, as the movie is confirmed to land on Blu-ray and VOD on February 23rd. And to stoke the hype fires a bit, a series of stills have just been released and – fair warning – they’re pretty gory. If you have a strong stomach, though, check them out below:
Advance notices indicate that Wrong Turn is focusing on the political, social and cultural divide between metropolitan and rural Americans, which feels particularly politically appropriate given the news stories that have dominated 2021 so far. If this movie can say something interesting about things while also serving up a juicily awesome array of extreme gore, it could be really special.
Wrong Turn will hit DVD, Blu-ray and Digital on February 23rd, 2021.