First introduced in 2003, the Wrong Turn franchise is centered on a family of deformed cannibals who hunt and kill people in West Virginia using a mixture of traps and weaponry, but Wrong Turn 7 seems to be applying Halloween 2018's retcon approach to its tried and true formula. Originally conceived by writer Alan B. McElroy and director Rob Schmidt, the series now consists of a total of six films, many of which brought on new directors and writers. Now, information provided by the new trailer shows Wrong Turn 7 will release in 2021 and will go back to the beginning, the very roots of the story and the same wilderness from the original movie.
Wrong Turn 7 is going back to basics, with no mention of Three Finger, One Eye, and Saw Tooth. It seems like the new direction for the franchise will see this movie be entirely disconnected from the previous six movies other than in its basic concept, which goes along with the standard reboot formula that's been adapted by numerous horror movie remakes throughout the years. This formula was proven to work in David Gordon Green's retelling of Halloween in 2018, which showed how the application of certain legacy elements—and distance from elements that didn't work or failed the franchise—is a smart maneuver for most reboots to take.
While there’s still the possibility that the cannibal family could be connected tangentially through mentions in Wrong Turn 7, this new direction is exciting for fans of the franchise who have been disappointed with the recent installments. Returning to the beginning in both the story and writer signals promising changes for the franchise.
From the trailer, the new killers seem to be a part of a community known as The Foundation, who are a group of people that settled into the Appalachian wilderness and created their own society. They've likely survived under the radar for generations, which is implied not only by the trailer for Wrong Turn 7, but the original movies as well. While there’s definitely room for The Foundation to be connected to the original cannibal family, moving forward with a new direction based solely on the first movie is a good choice for the franchise.
With the release of Halloween 2018, the horror world was collectively shaken as it was proven that the classic, long-running franchises could successfully go back to the beginning and reboot itself in a way that's satisfying and keeps with the spirit of the original movie. Since then, more movies have followed this same approach, or plan to, including the 2021 Candyman remake. Now, it seems that Wrong Turn is following the same formula.
The first two Wrong Turn movies are widely considered to be the best, as the later installments relied more heavily on increasing gore and sexuality rather than focusing energy into creating a cohesive story. Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort is the worst offender, having strayed from much of the established canon and earned the franchise's harshest reviews to date as a result.
After the slow decline of the franchise culminated in the sharp downturn of Wrong Turn 6, it makes sense that the studio would want to return to the fundamentals of the story with a soft reboot/sequel in Wrong Turn 7. Hopefully, the movie learns from the mistakes of its later sequels and doesn’t totally retcon everything from the series. Instead, it should wisely pick and choose the bits that worked and brush away the murkier or more ridiculous details. The new trailer seems to introduce a totally new group of killers who wear animal skulls as masks and use the word ‘skull’ as a sort of surname. Like the way Halloween 2018 kept the events of the original movie as canon, but got rid of later additions like Laurie Strode being Michael Myers’ sister, hopefully Wrong Turn 7 can follow a similar format and breathe new life into the Wrong Turn franchise for 2021 and beyond.