All The Wrong Turn Movies Ranked Worst To Best

If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise... inbred cannibal hillbillies.

Wrong Turn Eliza Dushku
20th Century Fox

Friday the 13th; A Nightmare on Elm Street; Saw; Halloween. Perhaps more so than any other genre, horror is one that lives and breathes for its franchises. The longer-running, the better. At this point, there are more Jason Voorhees movies than Batman ones; as many Freddy Krueger flicks as the Fast and the Furious.

Yet, for all the Freddy, Jason, Michael - and even Chucky - movies, there's one long-running franchise that's frequently forgotten by all but the hardiest horror fans. The simple saga of a family of inbred hillbillies in the West Virginian woods, the Wrong Turn series spanned a total of six (six!) movies, before being rebooted this year. Languishing in the straight-to-DVD bin since 2007, the franchise always had its fans, but never quite hit the mainstream. And, after that one with the prison convicts and Tamer Hassan, who can blame the people for not watching?

With Wrong Turn resurfacing as a folksy thriller starring Matthew Modine, it's the perfect time to dive back into the boxset to revisit the franchise over the years - the highs, lows and everything in-between - ranking all seven of them from worst to best. Yes, even the one with Tamer Hassan and the prison convicts.

7. Wrong Turn 3: Left For Dead

Wrong Turn Eliza Dushku
20th Century Studios

The one with Tamer Hassan and the prison convicts.

After leaning into the low-budget and the straight-to-DVD in Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, one could be forgiven for thinking that the series had found its groove. The Wrong Turn franchise may never bother movie theatres again, but at least they could have fun with it, right?

Wrong (turn). Nobody is having fun with 2009's three-quel, least of all viewers. When a van-load of prisoners crashes in rural Virginia, the prisoners make a break for freedom in the woods. This, of course, sends them straight into the jaws of danger.... and everyone's favourite woodland hillbillies. One would think that a gang of hardened convicts would have little trouble with a family of scrawny Deliverance rejects, but Chavez (Tamer Hassan) and his goons fare even worse than the average teenage dipsh*ts which tend to populate this sort of thing.

The cheapest, sloppiest of all the Wrong Turn sequels, Left for Dead comes up lacking everywhere. It's not as well-executed as the first movie, nor as fun as the second. The special effects are terrible - opening with a CGI bisection that sets the bar particularly low for what is to come.

Contributor
Contributor

A film critic and professional writer of over ten years, Joel Harley has a deep and abiding love of all things horror, Batman and Nicolas Cage. He can be found writing online and in print, all over the Internet and in especially good bookstores.