Let’s get things straight right off the bat. There is only one reason I went to the cinema to see Wrong Turn. Two words, Eliza Dushku, this girl is hot, damn hot. I would go and see Battlefield Earth 2 if she had a two minute cameo. Well, maybe not, but I would be severely tempted. Of course it also helps that aside from being stunning to look at, she is a formidable young actress to boot.

So, I wasn’t really expecting much from Wrong Turn, it got mauled by the critic’s stateside and if Dushku hadn’t been in it I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near it. It’s with some surprise then that I can say that Wrong Turn turned out to be a decent movie and an entertaining way to spend 90 minutes.

Wrong Turn is an old school horror film. That is to say there are none of the post-modern hi-jinks that seems to have infected the genre ever since Scream came out way back in 1996 (is it really that long ago?). Sure, there is a pre-credits death sequence, but that’s as far as the similarities go. The post-modern rule book is thrown out of the window when we meet the group of campers and two of them indulge in some pot smoking and pre-marital sex. They would have been as well wearing kill me stickers on their back, or at least slipping on some red shirts and walking onto a Star Trek set.

It’s almost like Scream never happened, like Jamie Kennedy didn’t lay out the basic horror film rules for everyone. I could go off into a tirade about Wrong Turn not being original, but it was actually refreshing to watch a horror film that didn’t turn to the audience and wink every five minutes. The film is unabashedly a classic style horror film and I accepted it as just that, consequently I enjoyed it a great deal.

But, I haven’t talked about Eliza Dushku enough so let’s get back to her. The cast aside from her is made up of relative unknowns. There are a couple of familiar faces; I saw Desmond Harrington recently in The Hole, another horror film and Jeremy Sisto will be familiar to anyone who watches TV show Six Feet Under. The rest of the cast I had never seen before and they are basically machete fodder.

Dushku, along with Harrington has the lead role and she copes admirably, although the part isn’t much of a stretch as far as acting is concerned. She does have one nice monologue behind a waterfall; it’s a nice scene that shows the kind of work she can do when given the chance. Harrington is also good showing that he may have a future as a lead, cutting a heroic and commanding figure at times.

The other stars of the film are undoubtedly the three family members who are stalking our intrepid campers. They are a family of in-bred hicks and they have a nice dynamic. The two (I assume) brothers are huge hulking beasts, with great strength. The other member is a smaller creature who can move about at great speed, he also has an amazing, haunting laugh. The make up on the family is very impressive, created by Stan (Predator, Terminator) Winston’s Creature Shop; they are all knobbly bits, missing fingers, wonky eyes and protruding teeth. Winston also has a producing credit on the movie.

Director Rob Schmidt does some decent work here. The way the family is lit is very cool, using shadow impressively to give us only glimpses initially and gradually showing us more as the film progresses. Schmidt also shows an eye for suspense with some nice taught scenes. In particular a scene near the beginning with the campers trapped in the families hut. Then, an excellent chase scene in the tree tops of the forest. This scene is filmed brilliantly and has some very impressive effects.

Wrong Turn isn’t a particularly subtle film either, gore is splashed about with wanton abandon. Limbs are hacked off, heads lopped off and various other gruesome sights. There is a particularly cool kill scene in the tree tops that I won’t spoil. Suffice to say it had me giggling away to myself, nice. That’s the sign of a good kill in a horror film for me, if it gets me laughing then it’s done its job.