Ironically, it seems Alan B. McElroy made the wrong turn after all. Wrong Turn is available to rent on Prime Video now.
Horror reboots are one of the industry’s hallmarks; here, you can bank on the pre-existing audience to market your film, regardless of their feelings. Occasionally, something of merit is created, such as Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead, but this is rare. In Wrong Turn, the original creator of the franchise, Alan B. McElroy, returns to pen the script and attempt to revive it. It provokes curiosity about the creator’s interest in returning to his own material. But perhaps he has something to say, and Wrong Turn is his vehicle to say it. Unfortunately for me, while McElroy talks a whole lot, he’s not saying anything new.
Wrong Turn’s plot is similar to the original: a group of hikers stumbles off the beaten track and uncovers a horrifying community lurking in the wilderness. However, here the reboot evolves from the mutant cannibals of the original to a feudal mountain community known as ‘The Foundation’. McElroy packs the script with familiar tropes – the unseen watcher, the disappearing teens and the unwelcoming town. Of course, familiarity can be good if there’s a self-reflexive response to it, which McElroy lacks entirely. The modern cultural references that update this film beyond its 2000s tropes are remarkably cringy, with buzzwords tossed in between sentences to signal “hey, this is set today!”
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Each teen’s characterisation oscillates between hysteria and aggression, and their preferred mode of communication is a screech. Every character fights to get their turn, their loud and obnoxious outbursts somehow more horrific than the violence itself. Meanwhile, the score finds a way to distract you from the narrative flow of scenes, which initially feels like a curse, but the longer you spend with this group, the more it feels like a blessing. Admittedly, when ‘The Foundation’ does appear, it’s terrifying. The production design is intricate and creative while allowing the group’s members to be literally anywhere at any time – springing from the ground, the bark of a tree, or the shadows of a rock.
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For most of the first hour, McElroy’s return to the franchise seems utterly pointless – all he’s done is regurgitate long-dated tropes of the heyday of early-00s horror. His subversion of the original transgressor in Wrong Turn is undoubtedly intriguing. Still, it feels out of place in how we reach it. However, worse still, McElroy seems interested only in telling his story for the first hour, making the following hour entirely unnecessary. The pacing slows to a crawl, with three ‘fake’ endings, making its continued watch time the most agonising transgression of the film.
It doesn’t feel as though McElroy has honed his craft since penning the original Wrong Turn, and this reboot is proof of that – while there are some interesting ideas, he needs to let go of the past to embrace what could be a promising future. Ironically, it seems Alan B. McElroy made the wrong turn after all.
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