A group of hipster hikers get lost in the wilds of Appalachia. They run afoul of some hunters in the woods wearing animal pelts and skull masks who trap them and take them back to their secret community where they’ve been hiding out for hundreds of years. Matthew Modine is the concerned father of one of the hikers who goes looking for them.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking after you just read that: What the fuck does this have to do with Wrong Turn? Who the fuck are these culturally appropriating bozos in animal skins? Where are all the inbred redneck cannibals? I mean, this was even written by Alan B. McElroy, the same screenwriter who wrote the original Wrong Turn. Did he forget what movie he was remaking?
I guess the filmmakers were more concerned with “unmaking” Wrong Turn instead of remaking it. However, if you take everything (aside from the wilderness setting) that made Wrong Turn Wrong Turn, you aren’t left with a whole lot. In fact, the hikers don’t even make a wrong turn! They just veer off the designated path (of course, everyone in town told them not to) thinking their shit don’t stink.
The thing that most likely happened was that McElroy found an old script lying around and tried to sell it. When nobody bought the thing, he slapped Wrong Turn on it, called it a remake, and Hollywood purchased the sucker sight unseen. Either way, it’s easily the worst thing with the Wrong Turn name attached to it. (There is a brief mention of “inbred cannibals” near the end, but it’s more of an “F U” to fans of the series.)
The cast is mostly weak. The only bright spot is Modine who lends a sense of gravitas to the scenes where he’s searching for his daughter. Too bad just about all the young cast members are grating.
The gore is rather skimpy as most of the kills come courtesy of people’s brains being bashed in. We also get a broken pinkie, impalement, a knife to the face, and some bloody booby traps. The only part that has any sort of memorable kick to it is the scene where the heroine offers herself up as breeding stock to the community to save her own skin. To add insult to injury, it clocks in at an unmerciful one-hundred-and-ten minutes. Even at ninety minutes, it would’ve been rough going, but at one hundred and ten, it’s absolutely brutal. (The fake-out ending is especially egregious.)
In short, there’s very little right about this Wrong Turn.
AKA: The Foundation. AKA: Wrong Turn: The Foundation.
I personally thought it was perfectly fine as a remake and thought the young cast was mostly solid and didn't mind the changes to the original, I for one thought the ending was cool and badass.
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