By Geno McGahee
I have reviewed nearly every one of the WRONG TURN movies. I own them all and yes, I brag about it. Why not? Do you own them all? If you do, please feel free to brag. Considering the formula works, it’s not surprising that somebody would borrow some pages from the playbook and that leads me to the 2008 horror hillbilly film “BACKWOODS,” where a group of people make a wrong turn and end up facing some mutant hillbilly sort. Written by Anthony Jaswinski, who also wrote the recent film “THE SHALLOWS,” and directed by Marty Weiss, BACKWOODS is a WRONG TURN knockoff film. It’s better than some of the WRONG TURN films in some ways, but that’s not saying a lot. The WRONG TURN films are sort of like the FRIDAY THE 13TH films. They may suck, but damn, do we love them.
We begin with Tom (Jonathan Chase) and Gwen (Willow Geer) and they are romancing it up in the woods. A park ranger approaches and immediately kills Tom. Gwen makes a run for it and meets up with the biggest of the mutants, but unlike the WRONG TURN mutants, I think this one could pass for relatively normal if he cleaned himself up. Gwen is taken to the mutant hillbilly lair and meets up with Mother Ruth (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) and she learns of their wicked plans. The women are used to further their community and poor Gwen will now be raped by the hillbilly mutant. Why do hillbilly mutants always rape? Even if they’re not mutant, they rape. Remember Deliverance? I hope that whoever becomes president deals with the hillbilly mutant rape issue that is plaguing our country.
We now transition over to a group of computer programmers going on a trip to enhance teamwork. They are breaking into teams to do some camping and paintball and they get advised by a bartender to go to an alternate locale, leaving them in the grasp of this group of crazies. John (Craig Zimmerman), his girlfriend, Lee (Haylie Duff), the jerk of the group, Perry (Danny Nucci), Adam (Ryan Merriman), Maggie (Mimi Michaels) and Chris (Troy Winbush) make up the group. There are a couple others but they weren’t developed so well. They were scene dressing mostly.
The trip seems normal, but the group starts encountering weird things. They find a big net and some dead animals that were hung up for some reason. Adam sees somebody run by and then the problems begin. They get attacked by this group of hillbillies and some do not do too well. It’s hard to fight horny hillbillies with paintball guns. They do their best and it leads to a big showdown with guns pointed and the FBI closing in.
This should have been a WRONG TURN movie. I would have loved to seen Three Finger thrown into this film. The hillbilly mutants here just didn’t have the charisma. Remarkably, this film is written quite well and the cast is very good. Haylie Duff and Ryan Merriman did a very good job and Mimi Michaels deserves some praise for her performance in this. The cast played it out in a very genuine manner, but the film’s lack of originality killed it and made it difficult to get through. It felt like a WRONG TURN movie, but those mutants are a lot more fun. By comparison, which is normal if you are a fan of WRONG TURN, this movie pales and gets more difficult to watch.
I have to recommend BACKWOODS reluctantly. I did sort of like the big hillbilly despite his need of a better personality. In his defense, he did smile from ear to ear before he raped somebody. I don’t approve of him raping anyone or anything but it was nice to see him not so grumpy. I also blame his crazy mother for not raising him correctly. I bet he could have been a great guy if he had better parents.
Willow Geer also deserves a little note here. She did a great job in capturing the emotion of the character and she remained likable throughout, even when she was a hillbilly love slave. Hillbilly love slave could be a name of a song. I might write that one day.
So WRONG TURN fans…this might be one you want to check out. It isn’t great, but most WRONG TURN movies aren’t either. So, it all evens out.
Rating: 4.5/10
