Wrong Turn is a 2003 slasher film directed by Rob Schmidt, written by Alan B. McElroy, and starring Desmond Harrington, Eliza Dushku, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Jeremy Sisto, and Kevin Zegers. The first installment in the Wrong Turn film series, it follows a group of six individuals being stalked by a cannibal family in the woods of West Virginia.
Development for the film began in 2001 when it was announced Summit Entertainment and Newmarket Group teamed to produce Wrong Turn, a 1970s-style horror pic to be directed by Schmidt, while McElroy wrote the script. The film was a co-production between Summit and Constantin Film, with Stan Winston designing the creature effects and serving as a producer.
One year later after the massacre at Fairlake, two college students, Rich Stoker and Halley Smith, are rock climbing in a remote forest of West Virginia. Rich reaches the top of a cliff and before he can help Halley up, he is attacked and killed. Someone begins to yank Halley up the cliff, forcing her to cut the rope and fall to the ground. She flees but is caught in a line of barbed wire and pulled back into the woods, screaming.
Sometime later, medical student Chris Flynn drives through the mountains of West Virginia on his way to a business meeting. He stops at a gas station to ask directions, and the elderly owner named Maynard is of no help. Chris finds a map and decides to go down Bear Mountain Road. He collides with a stopped car whose tires have been punctured. The car belongs to a group of college students on a camping trip: Jessie, Carly, Scott, Evan, and Francine. They discover that their tire actually hit barbed wires, which was intentionally laid by someone.
While Evan and Francine watch the cars, the others go to find help. Evan disappears after he hears something from the woods, and Francine finds his ear on the ground. A mysterious figure garrots Francine with a length of barb wire. The remaining group enters an isolated cabin and are horrified to find human body parts inside. The occupants return home, forcing them to hide. Three cannibalistic inbred mountain men, Three Finger, Saw Tooth, and One Eye, enter the cabin with Francine's corpse. The hiding group watches as they dismember and eat her.
After the cannibals fall asleep, the group attempts to escape, but their captors awaken and chase them into the forest. The group finds previous victims' cars and tries to make up an escape plan. Chris gets shot in the leg while trying to distract the cannibals, and the girls take him to a truck, where they find Evan's body. Scott attempts another diversion for the other three to escape but gets killed with arrows. Jessie, Carly, and Chris stumble upon an old watchtower and call for help using an old radio. The cannibals arrive and are alerted when the radio responds to the group's call. Unable to get inside, the attackers set the tower on fire, forcing the three to jump out into the trees. In the ensuing chase, Carly is half-decapitated by Three Finger, while Jessie and Chris take refuge in a cave.
In the morning, the cannibals find them, pushing Chris down the hill, then taking Jessie back to their cabin. Chris survives the fall and meets a police officer, who is promptly shot by Saw Tooth. Chris hides under Saw Tooth's truck as he drives back to the cabin. Jessie, who is tied down to a bed, watches as the cannibals chop off the dead police officer's head.
Chris sets the cabin on fire and drives the cannibal's truck into the cabin. He frees Jessie, and as they flee Chris destroys the cabin by shooting at a fuel tank. The pair drive away in the cannibals' pickup truck. At Maynard's gas station, Chris stops and rips off the map, before leaving.
In a mid-credits scene, a deputy sheriff who had received the radio call earlier investigates the remains of the destroyed cabin. Three Finger, who survived the explosion, rises and kills the deputy while laughing maniacally.
Development for the film began in 2001 when it was announced Summ