Every Wrong Turn movie – ranked!
There is nothing I love more than a horror franchise. Wrong Turn has five sequels to get stuck into, none of which I had seen before writing this article. And so, once again, I have chosen over the coming weeks to spend the one go-round that I have on this earth watching a full series of films that most people have never given a moments thought to. What a world…
6. Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines (2012)
Wrong Turn 5 is the moment in which the franchise stops being a fun time and starts being just incredibly depressing. Yes, there is a scene in which a woman is force-fed her own innards to the sound of an electric guitar version of Moonlight Sonata, and yes that is as awesome as you would imagine it to be, but Bloodlines is a film that is too nasty to really enjoy. The ending is particularly grim and I actually left this film feeling quite downbeat about my life. That’s fine if you’re watching something deliberately heavy like The Zone of Interest, but I don’t really want to feel existential dread when I’m sitting down for Wrong Turn 5.
Having said all that… in terms of practical effects and the general aesthetic this is probably the most accomplished of all of Declan O’Brien’s Wrong Turn trilogy (taking in numbers 3, 4 and 5). It’s just so fucking bleak.
5. Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort (2014)
For the franchise to continue after Wrong Turn 5, the sixth entry had to be a departure. We simply couldn’t continue down the same nihilistic road that O’Brien had travelled down in the previous three movies. Bulgarian director Valeri Milev is at the helm for this one and he doubles down on the nudity whilst also making the death sequences fun again.
In the Hellraiser franchise, some of the later sequels started life as something else and then were retooled as a Hellraiser sequel usually by just popping Pinhead in a couple of scenes and changing nothing else. Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort often feels like this too. We are presented with a whole new story here that has very little to do with the other films but at this point, that is probably a good thing. The acting is shoddy but the practical effects are solid and everyone seems to know exactly what kind of film they’re making.
Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings (2011)
Well, we’re four movies into a franchise that was never that popular to begin with. That can mean only one thing. It’s prequel time, baby…
I watched all of these movies in chronological order for this article and as I write this, I keep waiting for one of the sequels to be tedious or forgettable or unenjoyable. It still hasn’t happened. While the acting here takes a noticeable step down, the premise is fun (an origin story for the three main mutants from the other movies set in a remote insane asylum), the kills are inventive and the effects are mostly on point. O’Brien mainly utilises practical effects and that results in some genuinely captivating visual moments. Sure, the cast only exists to either be naked or be murdered but that’s what horror sequels are all about. Death, sex and the infinite void. You’ve gotta love it.
Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead (2009)
Boy, this is a nasty film. The death scenes are utterly grotesque (if admittedly imaginative). There are some truly gruesome scenes involving women being tied up with barbed wire. One thing I will say though, is that O’Brien (who would go on to helm the next two entries after this one) doesn’t phone it in. This is far from a retread of the original. Whilst a group of attractive teenagers are dispatched, this happens within the first bonkers seven minutes. From there, we have Con Air vs Wrong Turn as a group of prisoners led by the murderous lunatic Chavez (Tamer Hassan) go head to head with all our favourite mutants from the previous entries – namely Three Finger (this time portrayed by Borislav Iliev). The result is a film that is undoubtedly quite poor in terms of quality but also rip-roaringly entertaining. Against all odds, I really enjoyed it.
Wrong Turn (2006)
The original. However, the last thing Wrong Turn contains is originality. What do you get when you cross The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with The Hills Have Eyes? You get this movie. From director Rob Schmidt and writer Alan B. McElroy, Wrong Turn cribs from every other movie that has ever featured strange mountain men stalking attractive teenagers (here represented by Eliza Dushku, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Jeremy Sisto and Desmond Harrington). It’s a whole lot of high-octane fun but it lacks a proper big bad instead relying on a series of anonymous mountain mutants to get the job done. There are some harrowing moments, particularly in the first and third acts, but ultimately Wrong Turn too often feels like a pale imitation of other better movies. That said, at 84 minutes it should be on the watchlist of every self-respecting horror fan.
Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007)
It’s relatively rare for a sequel to surpass the original and while Wrong Turn 2: Dead End is hardly The Godfather Part II, it’s undoubtedly a more enjoyable and singular experience than its predecessor. At a time when torture porn was all the rage, the first Wrong Turn movie felt a little chaste. Quaint even. Not so Joe Lynch’s follow-up. There is blood and guts galore here, indeed, the film concludes with a mutant baby eating someone’s finger. Heady stuff. Away from the gore, the first Wrong Turn sequel surprisingly has some interesting stuff to say about reality TV, character archetypes and even the male gaze. No, I wasn’t expecting that either. It also features Henry Rollins as a drill instructor-type army guy (who acts for all the world like he is in a Predator movie). It boasts some of the worst CGI ever to be shown inside a cinema. The thing I enjoyed most about this sequel, however, is that it genuinely feels like an ’80s slasher sequel. It has the aesthetic and the gore but it also has the cheesy dialogue and B movie acting – and apparently, a lot of that was intentional.
All in all, it’s a rollicking good time and by far the best film in this franchise. If you only watch one Wrong Turn movie (and you probably should only watch one), make it this one.
And as a final note, I would also arrogantly recommend the 2021 reboot of Wrong Turn, the review of which you can find here.