Today's Review: Wrong Turn (DVD)
Starring: Eliza Dushku, Desmond Harrington
Directed by: Rob Schmidt
Rating: Minus Infinity (out of 5)
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The Naked Critic
YEEEEEEE-HAAAAWWWWWWWW!
Well smack my ass and call me Spanky! We gots ourselves a good ol' fashioned
case of societal stereotypin'!!!! SHEEEE-IT!!!!
Okay, so what you're all probably wondering about is the rating.
Minus Infinity, you ask? Has he lost his mind?
No, my friends, I have not. The only things I have lost are 79 minutes of my
life that I could have spent doing something important...like cleaning my
apartment. Yes, it's true...I wish I'd spent the time CLEANING rather than
watching this abomination.
Oh, I also lost about 20 IQ points.
But back to the rating: I am well aware that I recently said that
"Gigli" was the worst movie ever made. And I really, desperately
wanted that to be true. Sadly, it isn't.
"Wrong Turn" is worse than "Gigli" and "From Justin To
Kelly" COMBINED. I'm not making that up. It is, officially, the worst
movie I have ever seen. I would rather sit through the original, silent, 8-hour
version of the German film "Greed", without translation,
interruption, or water, and with an all Oom-pah band soundtrack, than watch
this again.
The movie opens with sweet, good-looking couple on a rock-climbing vacation in
West Virginia. Now, I've never been to West Virginia, but I can't believe
anyone in that state is happy about having their home besmirched like this.
They really are facing a class-action lawsuit. Christ, they should have just
INVENTED the state of "East Virginia" to prevent this.
Anyway, our hard-bodied vacationers are traversing a cliff about as difficult
to climb as your average stepladder. But, naturally, the GIRL can't do it. She
slips an inch or so and screams. At this point, her lunkheaded boyfriend pokes
his head over the side and says, and I swear I'm not making this
up..."We're 50 miles from anyone...who are you screaming for?"
I had 2 quick reactions to this:
Response 1) She's screaming for you, you moronic, steroid-popping, retarded
imbecile. You said it YOURSELF, numb-nuts! There's nobody else around!!!! Who
the f**k ELSE would she be screaming for? I know you're about to die violently,
and yet while I personally abhor violence, that statement ALONE makes me want
to PRAY for your demise! DIE, f****r!
Response 2) That is, without a doubt, the most PATHETIC piece of dialogue ever
written. "We're 50 miles from anyone..." for the love of f**k. Did
somebody actually WRITE that and think that anybody with an IQ higher than
lettuce would be surprised by what happens next? This was obviously written by
one of those monkeys they have trying to re-create the works of Shakespeare in
a lab somewhere.
An aside: The actual writer, Alan McElroy, is also responsible for writing
"Halloween 4", "Rapid Fire" (starring a then-alive Brandon
Lee), "Spawn", "Left Behind" - which is that pathetic movie
about the apocalypse starring Kirk Cameron - and "Ballistic: Ecks vs.
Sever". This ass-clown - as you can see - is responsible for some of the
worst movies ever made. Can someone - ANYONE - please cut off his hands so he
cannot write anymore? Thanks...I owe you one.
Well, the guy gets it, and gets dumped over the side of the cliff. At which
point, chicky-poo screams and falls off the side...dropping, and I shit you not
- about 6 feet. The very same 6 feet that she was just SCREAMING about. Then
she gets it too.
At this point, we're treated to the opening credits. This features a bunch of
newspaper clippings about missing people and about how people in the
"wilds" of West Virginia are deformed, psychotic, inbred maniacs. And
when I say deformed, I MEAN deformed. These guys - the villains, in case you
didn't catch on - are more f****d up than a "Children Of Thalidomide"
convention. They make the banjo-playing kid from "Deliverance" look
like the chess prodigy from "Searching For Bobby Fischer". They have
more tumors and growths on them than the families who bought real estate next
door to the Chernobyl reactor. Their teeth are so bad that they can eat a
sandwich through a screen door.
Stop me before I make another insensitive comparison.
NOW we're treated to images of Chris (Desmond Harrington), a doctor driving
through the state to get to a job interview. The highway is closed due to a
chemical spill, so he takes a short cut.
Uh oh.
Damn, Jeb! We gots ourselves a city-slicker here!
Trying to take this shortcut, he runs into a van of young people on their way
to go camping. And yes, he RUNS INTO them. It turns out that someone has laid a
strip of barbed wire across the road. And, for whatever reason, this doesn't
seem all that odd to anyone other than Jessie (Eliza Dushku). But she's the
hottest one there, and the only one without a fella, so nobody takes her
seriously.
So, if you were 20 miles outside the middle of nowhere, with no mobile phone
signal, and somebody had laid down a strip of barbed wire to shred your tires,
what would YOU do?
Wait! Stop. Don't answer that, because I can tell already that you're thinking
about it, which is a lot more than this loose collection of carbon blobs does.
THEY think, "Hey! Let's take a stroll and look around!"
Idiots. They deserve what's coming to them.
There's absolutely NOTHING to like about this movie. Nothing. From the pathetic
writing and direction, to the bad gore, to the truly horrible acting (Jeremy
Sisto spends all of his scenes just looking embarrassed), there's not a SINGLE
redeeming factor. Characters watch other characters get hacked to pieces and
barely react. Other characters can't detect the presence of people less than a
foot away from them. Hideously deformed, retarded, illiterate hillbillies -
who, by the way, speak in a made up language that only "Nell" would
understand - have ARSENALS of weapons, and better aim with a bow and arrow than
f****g Robin Hood. Bad matte paintings take the place of scenery at times (and
if those AREN'T matte paintings, shoot your director of photography).
I'm just getting started, too. Let's IGNORE the fact that these hillbillies
have apparently been doing this for DECADES, yet nobody has even the slightest
inkling that they exist. Yeah, that's right, they've killed God-knows-how-many
people, and a nearby cop is stunned by the news. Okay, so I get that they're
secluded, but geez, even the Bermuda Triangle has stories told about it. People
LOOK for Bigfoot. But these misshapen atrocities of DNA can buy groceries,
hardware, weaponry, and TRUCKS, and yet nobody knows they exist? That's not
suspension of disbelief...that's just lazy writing.
Again, I implore you to cut off Alan McElroy's hands. "Alan Smithee"
is a better f****g writer.
At one point, Chris is in the cab of a pickup truck. One of the hillbillies
pulls back on his bow and arrow and lets one fly. Lets ONE fly. Now, not only
does it inexplicably pierce the front window of the truck, but next to Chris we
see the tails of TWO arrows sticking out of the upholstery. How does something
like that get past a director? Or an editor? Or ANY of the bazillion people who
saw this movie before it was released? Or is it some secret Hillbilly power
that allows arrows to multiply in mid-air?
It wants to be "Deliverance" so badly it's sickening. They even make
reference to that far, FAR better movie in this one.
An aside: I also do live comedy from time to time. One of my all-time favourite
bits - which began in my former troupe - starts with me dressed as a hillbilly,
with a bound and gagged guy is in front of me. I then perform a verse from
Andrew Lloyd Webber's hit new show "Deliverance: The Musical". It -
if I may be permitted to brag a little - has NEVER failed to kill. Even that
bit is a better tribute to "Deliverance" than this pathetic excuse
for a movie.
The only "Wrong Turn" made here is the "Wrong Turn" you'll
make in Blockbuster that will bring you face-to-face with it. Do yourself a
favour...keep walking.
Unless someone has thrown barbed wire across the floor. In which case, you're
doomed. Just hope that they get a chance to kill you BEFORE you have to watch
the movie.
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