Détour Mortel

I was almost put off watching this movie from reading a lot of negative reviews. It was a good job I ignored them. It was certainly a good, watchable movie. Now, If you're looking for a gory cannibalism movie and compare it to the original too much, you probably will be disappointed.. You need to take this movie as a stand alone film. It has a twist in it and takes a totally different direction (mind the pun) compared to the other wrong turn movies. I recommend watching it with an open mind, you might even enjoy it...

I'm very much a fan of the Wrong Turn franchise and that's why this movie pains me so badly. Awful acting, stupid decision making all sprinkled in with 2021 political and social justice related undertones. I gave this a 5 simply due to my love for the franchise and concept. An absolute failure

Should have just called this movie "The Foundation" lost respect for the writer trying to pass it off as a reboot. It's really a separate movie with no significant tie in.

Scott Shaw (Matthew Modine) is searching for his missing daughter Jen who was hiking the Appalachian Trail with her friends. The small town locals don't seem to care. Six weeks earlier, Jen and her five young friends suddenly get a flat tire. They arrive at the small town to start their hike and it goes downhill from there.

The kids are unprepared and a bit annoying. The rooting interest is a little thin. These characters get less and less appealing. One of them should be over-prepared and the movie can play around with that. They already touch on it with the girl changing the tire. It can add a scene where a character lays out the props with the possibility of them being used later in the movie. The first half is basic horror-in-the-woods movie. The characters are rather iffy. They're dumber than they should be. They are presented as smart young urbanites but a couple of the guys are as dumb as movie frat guys. The second half becomes a cult torture horror movie. It's better when the characters stop being so dumb. It's more interesting with a couple of interesting ideas. It does some really interesting stuff. If only the first half is as good, this would be one to build upon.

This movie wasn't awful, to me at least. People seem upset about it because it is being marketed as a remake of the original movie. I have never seen the original so I can't compare however I do know that it is extremely different.

I actually think that would have solved a big chunk of the complaints if they had just called it a different name. Not wrong turn. It seems distinct enough for it to be its own thing.

For me, I appreciated the "twist" because it was refreshing. The way they handled it however was the issue. This movie was being pulled six ways from Sunday in every direction. It's is an absolute mess.

It tires to Villainise it's protagonists while making it's villains look good but then chickens out and just scraps it all for a boring story. It has really interesting ideas in here that it just puts out to die. I actually think that the big reveal in the middle of the fun should have been the end. It would have been a real guy punch and really shocking.

Speaking of endings, Jesus Christ this film has about 5. Mid way though the first act seems like a climax and I was like "no this can't be the end yet it's just started", then again the second act seems like a climax but where was still so much time left. Then you get to the real climax in the third act and it ends...oh no wait it doesn't it goes on again. So then it has this other ending tacked on but no wait that wasn't the real ending either so it carries on again then it finally has its ending and the title card appears....then it still goes on and had another final scene Immediately after the title card shows. That is just insane to me. It was just so structurally bizarre.

Even the beginning is strange and feels out of place and should be moved to else where in the movie.

This issue also reflects in the run time, this movie is too long for this sort of story. I think they just didn't want to cut things. There is so much that could have just been left on the floor but they wanted it all in, that's why it has 100 endings because I think they thought they were all too good to throw out.

You could maybe watch it but don't expect it to be like the others in the series.