# Wrong Turn (2003 film)
**Wrong Turn** is a 2003 American horror film directed by Rob Schmidt and written by Alan B. McElroy, in which a motorist and a group of five young travelers, stranded in the [West Virginia](https://www.edgepedia.org/west-virginia) wilderness after their cars collide, are stalked by a trio of cannibalistic, disfigured mountain men.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/62953-WRONG-TURN) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wrong_turn) Produced by [Constantin Film](https://www.edgepedia.org/constantin-film) and [Summit Entertainment](https://www.edgepedia.org/summit-entertainment) and distributed by 20th Century Fox, it opened wide in the United States on May 30, 2003 and became the first entry of a franchise that eventually ran to five sequels before a 2021 reboot.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/62953-WRONG-TURN) • [3](https://comicbook.com/horror/news/wrong-turn-franchise-future-sequels-plans/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writer | Rob Schmidt; screenplay by Alan B. McElroy[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/62953-WRONG-TURN) |
| Producers | Stan Winston, Brian Gilbert, Erik Feig, Robert Kulzer[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/62953-WRONG-TURN) |
| Lead cast | Desmond Harrington (Chris), Eliza Dushku (Jessie Burlingame), Emmanuelle Chriqui (Carly), Jeremy Sisto (Scott), Kevin Zegers (Evan), Lindy Booth (Francine)[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295700/fullcredits/) |
| US release | May 30, 2003, wide, in 1,615 theaters; MPAA rating R[5](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Wrong-Turn-%282003%29) |
| Box office | $15,418,790 domestic; $28,650,575 worldwide, against a reported budget of $12,600,000[6](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0295700/) |
| Critical reception | 40% Tomatometer from 84 reviews; 54% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wrong_turn) |
| Franchise | Spawned five sequels (2007–2014) and a 2021 reboot[3](https://comicbook.com/horror/news/wrong-turn-franchise-future-sequels-plans/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and premise
The film follows Chris Flynn (Desmond Harrington), a young man on his way to a job interview who takes a shortcut on a rural West Virginia road to get around a traffic jam and crashes into a disabled vehicle carrying five friends: Jessie Burlingame ([Eliza Dushku](https://www.edgepedia.org/eliza-dushku)), Carly ([Emmanuelle Chriqui](https://www.edgepedia.org/emmanuelle-chriqui)), Scott ([Jeremy Sisto](https://www.edgepedia.org/jeremy-sisto)), Evan (Kevin Zegers), and Francine (Lindy Booth).[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295700/fullcredits/) • [7](https://outnow.ch/en/Movies/2003/WrongTurn/) Stranded deep in the forest, the group searches for help and instead discovers that they are being hunted as prey by a family of backwoods cannibals.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wrong_turn)
The antagonists are three disfigured brothers named Three Finger, Saw-Tooth, and One-Eye, played by [Julian Richings](https://www.edgepedia.org/julian-richings), Garry Robbins, and Ted Clark.[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295700/fullcredits/) The German-language synopsis distributed by production company Constantin Film describes them as a degenerate trio of brothers with a taste for big-game hunting, holed up in a lonely cabin in the wilderness.[8](https://constantin.film/kino/wrong-turn/info/)
### Franchise
The film's theatrical performance supported a series: five direct sequels followed between 2007 and 2014, beginning with *Wrong Turn 2: Dead End* (2007), and the franchise was reimagined in a 2021 reboot, also written by Alan B. McElroy and directed by [Mike P. Nelson](https://www.edgepedia.org/mike-p-nelson).[3](https://comicbook.com/horror/news/wrong-turn-franchise-future-sequels-plans/) • [12](https://comicbook.com/movies/news/wrong-turn-reboot-director-weighs-in-on-more-sequels-exclusive/) The 2021 film departs substantially from the original's premise, replacing the cannibal brothers with a self-isolated community called the Foundation, a change that reviewers noted as a deliberate subversion of the franchise's setup.[12](https://comicbook.com/movies/news/wrong-turn-reboot-director-weighs-in-on-more-sequels-exclusive/) • [13](https://www.avclub.com/for-better-and-worse-the-wrong-turn-remake-takes-some-1846338466)
## Production
The film was a Canadian-German-American co-production: the [American Film Institute](https://www.edgepedia.org/american-film-institute) catalog lists its countries as Canada, Germany, and the United States, with Constantin Film and Summit Entertainment as the production companies and Twentieth Century Fox as distributor.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/62953-WRONG-TURN) Rob Schmidt's previous feature was *Crime and Punishment in Suburbia* (2000).[9](https://www.adrianmartinfilmcritic.com/reviews/w/wrong_turn.html)
**Stan Winston's involvement.** Producer Stan Winston, the multiple Academy Award-winning makeup effects artist known for *Aliens*, *Terminator 2: Judgment Day*, and *Jurassic Park*, also oversaw the film's special makeup effects through Stan Winston Studio; the IMDb crew listing credits several prosthetic makeup artists from the studio.[10](https://cineimage.ch/film/wrongturn/) • [4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295700/fullcredits/) The score was composed by Elia Cmiral, with John S. Bartley as director of photography and Michael Ross as editor.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/62953-WRONG-TURN)
## Box office
Wrong Turn opened domestically on May 30, 2003 in 1,615 theaters, earning $5,161,498 on its opening weekend, about 33.5 percent of its final domestic total.[5](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Wrong-Turn-%282003%29) It finished with $15,418,790 in the United States and Canada (53.8 percent of the total) and $13,231,785 internationally, for a worldwide gross of $28,650,575.[6](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0295700/) [Box Office Mojo](https://www.edgepedia.org/box-office-mojo) lists the budget as $12,600,000, while The Numbers lists it as $10,000,000; on either figure the film returned roughly 2.3 to 2.9 times its production cost in theatrical revenue.[6](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0295700/) • [5](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Wrong-Turn-%282003%29)
Release rolled out internationally through 2003 and 2004. Spain received the film first, on March 19, 2003, followed by the United Kingdom on June 27 (grossing $2,407,475), Germany on August 28 ($1,269,557), and Mexico on October 3 ($1,677,298), the largest international markets.[6](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0295700/) A home video release followed on September 6, 2003 by Fox Home Entertainment in the United States.[5](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Wrong-Turn-%282003%29)
## Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 40 percent Tomatometer from 84 reviews, with the site's critics consensus calling it "an unremarkable slasher flick that fails to distinguished itself from others of its ilk"; the audience score stands at 54 percent from more than 100,000 ratings.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wrong_turn) Reviewers divided along familiar genre lines. Barbara Ellen of *The Times* found the gore overdone and the script weak, while Sara Michelle Fetters of MovieFreak.com rated it 3/4, calling the scares legitimate.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wrong_turn) The film critic Adrian Martin, writing in 2003, judged it derivative in premise but praised its craft, particularly its use of landscape, angles, and spatial disorientation in the forest sequences.[9](https://www.adrianmartinfilmcritic.com/reviews/w/wrong_turn.html)
The film is routinely placed in the "backwoods horror" or "hillbilly horror" tradition alongside *Deliverance* and *The Texas Chain Saw Massacre*, and several critics treat it as an homage to, or a derivative of, [Tobe Hooper](https://www.edgepedia.org/tobe-hooper)'s 1974 film and [Wes Craven](https://www.edgepedia.org/wes-craven)'s *The Hills Have Eyes* (1977).[11](https://www.boa.unimib.it/handle/10281/206131) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wrong_turn) Later retrospective assessments have been warmer than the initial reviews: Paul Lê of Bloody Disgusting called the first *Wrong Turn* "a wicked love letter to '70s brutality" whose approach had been long underappreciated.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wrong_turn)
## References
1. [Wrong Turn (2003), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/62953-WRONG-TURN)
2. [Wrong Turn, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wrong_turn)
3. [Original Wrong Turn Writer Hopes to Develop Two More Sequels, ComicBook.com (May 31, 2023)](https://comicbook.com/horror/news/wrong-turn-franchise-future-sequels-plans/)
4. [Wrong Turn (2003) Full cast & crew, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295700/fullcredits/)
5. [Wrong Turn (2003), The Numbers](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Wrong-Turn-%282003%29)
6. [Wrong Turn (2003), Box Office Mojo](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0295700/)
7. [Wrong Turn, OutNow](https://outnow.ch/en/Movies/2003/WrongTurn/)
8. [Wrong Turn, Constantin Film](https://constantin.film/kino/wrong-turn/info/)
9. [Adrian Martin, review of Wrong Turn (2003)](https://www.adrianmartinfilmcritic.com/reviews/w/wrong_turn.html)
10. [Wrong Turn (2003), CineImage](https://cineimage.ch/film/wrongturn/)
11. [Svolte sbagliate? Stereotipi sociali e paesaggi della paura nella tradizione cinematografica del backwoods horror, Università di Milano-Bicocca](https://www.boa.unimib.it/handle/10281/206131)
12. [Wrong Turn Reboot Director Weighs in on More Sequels, ComicBook.com (October 5, 2023)](https://comicbook.com/movies/news/wrong-turn-reboot-director-weighs-in-on-more-sequels-exclusive/)
13. [Katie Rife, For better and worse, the Wrong Turn remake takes some unusual turns, The A.V. Club (February 24, 2021)](https://www.avclub.com/for-better-and-worse-the-wrong-turn-remake-takes-some-1846338466)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Franchise and series entries as standalone works › Horror and slasher series film entries › 2000s releases*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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