What actually happens
A detour to see an old fort
Jen Shaw, her boyfriend Darius and two other couples, Adam and Milla and Gary and Luis, come to a small rural Virginia town to hike the Appalachian Trail. The locals in the bar are hostile, especially a man named Nate. Jen also meets a strange woman named Edith, who is with a young mute girl called Ruthie. The group sets off and leaves the trail despite the warnings, hoping to reach an old fort. A giant tree trunk rolls down a hill and crushes Gary. The others camp for the night, and the next day Milla is missing and so are their phones. They find a plaque dated 1859 for a group of settlers who called themselves the Foundation and believed the United States was about to end.
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A barn full of other people's backpacks
While searching for Milla, Adam sets off a trap that drags him down into a pit. Jen, Darius and Luis find a barn full of backpacks and clothes, and then see Adam tied to a pole and carried by two men in odd costumes and masks made from animal skulls. The friends confront them, and the men answer in a language nobody understands. Adam breaks loose and beats one of the men to death while the other runs off. Milla turns up, having gone for a bathroom break earlier and avoided the two men. More traps follow, and masked men surround the group. Milla drops into a pit lined with stakes and is impaled, and a Foundation member finishes her with an arrow. Jen, Adam, Darius and Luis are captured.
A trial with a thorough witness list
The captives are marched to a primitive settlement far into the forest, which serves as the Foundation's base, and they stand before a court. Edith is one of the people guarding them. Morgan testifies that Adam killed his brother Samuel, and the whole group faces a murder charge. Venable, who leads the Foundation, condemns Adam to die. The others lie to the court to save him, but other witnesses expose them as perjurers, and the court sentences them to something called darkness. Adam breaks free and takes Ruthie hostage, demanding that his friends go free. Ruthie stabs him in the leg with a hidden blade, and Venable then beats Adam to death in front of his friends using the same log Adam used on Samuel.
A hot poker, and then Jen makes an offer
Luis tries to run in the middle of the movie, and Venable puts out his eyes with a hot poker. That is the scene people dread, and it happens at the settlement after the trial. Jen then tries to bargain her way out. She sells Darius to the Foundation as a professional who could solve the social problems of a closed society, and she offers herself as a wife and mother, advertising her good genes and the fact that she has no genetic risk of cancer, which the Foundation fears. Venable accepts, and Jen and Darius are both initiated. Jen becomes Venable's wife, and he tells her his previous wife died in an accident on a mountain slope more than a year earlier.
A rescue with an arrow in it
Six weeks later Jen's father, Scott, arrives in town looking for her and pays a local tracker to guide him into the forest. The tracker and his son die in a trap, and Scott reaches the settlement, where he is seized. Jen puts an arrow into her father, and then Venable sentences Scott to darkness for trespassing. That night Jen frees him and explains she only shot him to avoid suspicion. Darius refuses to leave with them. Ruthie helps them get away, and they stumble on an underground chamber full of blinded, shuffling prisoners, including Luis. Jen kills him as a mercy, then flees with Scott and kills several cultists, Edith among them. Nate and some armed townsmen offer to help, the cultists attack, and Jen is wounded, but she and Scott get away.
The ending, explained
Several months later Jen and her father are back in their normal lives. When Jen visits her stepmother, she finds her welcoming Venable and Ruthie to the neighborhood. Venable notices that Jen is pregnant with his child and asks her to come back to the Foundation. She agrees on the condition that he never interferes with her family again, and she, Venable and Ruthie drive away in an RV. As the credits roll, Jen steers the RV into a parked car, kills Venable and the driver, and walks back toward her family home holding Ruthie's hand.
The post-credits ruling
There is a last scene that plays while the end credits roll: Jen crashes the RV, kills Venable and the driver, and walks home with Ruthie.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Wrong Turn scary?
Yes, Wrong Turn is a 6 out of 10. The dread level is medium, and the fear comes from traps, a mountain community that holds its own trials and some jump scares, with frequent graphic violence.
How does Wrong Turn end?
Jen escapes with her father, but Venable turns up in her neighborhood, and she agrees to go back with him on the condition that he leaves her family alone. During the drive she crashes the RV and kills him and the driver.
Does the dog die in Wrong Turn?
No, no dog dies in Wrong Turn. A gutted deer carcass is seen on the hood of a hunter's truck.
Is there a post-credits scene in Wrong Turn?
Yes, in a way. Wrong Turn has a last scene that plays while the end credits roll. Jen crashes the RV, kills Venable and the driver, and walks away with Ruthie.
Who is the Foundation in Wrong Turn?
The Foundation is a hidden community of mountain dwellers founded by settlers in 1859, who believed the United States was about to end. They hold their own trials and use deadly means to protect their way of life.
