Wrong Turn was a very controversial horror release when it came out in 2003, but it was a title that made waves for its extreme violence.
Rob Schmidt’s Wrong Turn taps into that sub-genre of horror where cannibalistic inbreds are preying upon the innocent. These weird, hidden sections of the world have proven to be great material for horror and even films like Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes or Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre have tapped into this frightening atmosphere. Wrong Turn applies a more modern take on the subject matter, but still harkens back to the same basic ideas of something frightening that’s been able to live out unnoticed in the woods. Wrong Turn has an excellent cast that features the likes of Eliza Dushku, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and Jeremy Sisto, who all give strong performances in this backwoods horror picture.
Much like the sinister family that’s been able to exist in the woods for so long, Wrong Turn has found a devoted audience and spawned an impressive amount of sequels. These films have still been in production since the movie’s 2003 release and now there’s talk of a reboot to the universe. The Wrong Turn films have been able to gain such a following because in a lot of ways they call back to the horror films of the ‘70s and ‘80s which helped inspire them. This meant heavily embracing the violence of the inbred cannibal genre and going all out with their R-rating. This pleased many fans, but it made the film quite difficult to advertise on television.
Wrong Turn Was Too Graphic For TV Promos
It’s one thing for an R-rated horror film to have both a green-band and red-band trailer that both sanitizes and capitalizes the movie’s violence. In most situations, even some of the more graphic horror films are still able to create viable 30-second spots to air as advertisements on television. Wrong Turn was already having a number of fights with the MPAA, but this even extended into their television ads. The MPAA determined that most of Wrong Turn’s trailers and television spots were “too intense” for audiences, so they either weren’t aired at all or were heavily trimmed to be used as commercials. It resulted in there being very minimal marketing for the title, especially on television, which added an unexpected mystery to the film’s release.
The original Wrong Turn was the only film in the series to air in theaters, with the rest being direct-to-video releases. It was difficult enough for the studio to market their glossy theatrical version of the franchise for audiences, so when it came to the many sequels, they basically didn’t even bother. Promotional materials for the film’s many sequels were even scarcer and there was close to no marketing campaign for these movies. That’s not atypical with direct-to-video efforts, but Wrong Turn is such a long running franchise that it seems like it would garner an exception. When the reboot of the film hits, there will be likely be trailers and ads, so it will be interesting to see how many of them make the cut.