Rob Schmidt’s Wrong Turn was hardly a massive success at the box office back in 2003 after raking in $28 million on a budget of $12 million and reviews were far from enthusiastic, with many critics labeling it a formulaic and uninspired slasher that brought nothing new to a genre that had already been done to death a thousand times over, but it still went on to launch a multi-film franchise.
None of the following installments were even released in theaters, but Wrong Turn quickly became a fixture of the VOD realm with sequels Dead End, Left for Dead, Bloody Beginnings, Bloodlines and Last Resort arriving between 2007 and 2014. The second movie is the only one that was received enthusiastically, while the rest were standard low budget slashers that well and truly ran the concept into the ground.
However, because this is a horror franchise we’re talking about, another entry is on the way and this time it’s a reboot. Wrong Turn: The Foundation wrapped shooting a year ago but is still waiting on an official release date. This week, though, the seventh outing for the blood-crazed cannibals at the center of the story was officially rated R for “strong bloody violence, grisly images and pervasive language.”
Full Metal Jacket, The Dark Knight Rises and Stranger Things star Matthew Modine takes top billing in Wrong Turn: The Foundation, which once again sees a group of unlucky victims stumble straight into the path of the mountain-dwelling locals and suffice it to say, the results will most likely be difficult to watch. Somehow, the franchise has remained enduringly popular over the last seventeen years, and there’s every chance that the upcoming reboot will lead to even more sequels in the future – for better or worse.