CS Interview: Matthew Modine Talks Wrong Turn & Love for Horror Genre
Just in time for the release of the Blu-ray version of the reboot, ComingSoon.net had the opportunity to talk to Golden Globe winner and Emmy nominee Matthew Modine (Strange things) to discuss Wrong move and his love for the horror genre!
WARNING: Some spoilers are ahead of us for 2021’s Wrong Turn
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ComingSoon.net: Wrong Turn is a franchise that has been around for a while, although I was honestly surprised it restarted so soon, but what about the project that is really interested in you being a part of it want?
Matthew Modine: Well, I got it and I loved the genre. My father was a drive-in theater manager and I grew up watching horror films like this. In many of Roger Corman’s horror films, Jack Nicholson starred in some of them, Boris Karloff. I mean, there were so many that we used to have something called Dusk Till Dawn which had about five horror films playing from sunset to sunrise. It was always a challenge to see if you could stay up and see all five, and then my dad told me not to watch Night of the Living Dead and it was in black and white. Instead of sitting on the floor at the drive-in theater and putting the speaker next to me and watching the movie because he didn’t want me to watch it, I snuck into the projection booth and looked at him with no sound to the projector and it was just utterly terrifying. I find it more frightening to see blood in black and white and watch a movie like this, because you don’t really need a sound to watch it Night of the Living Dead. It’s almost a perfect old silent movie and it really messed me up. Just as I was about to overcome my fear of horror movies, I saw The exorcist, William Friedkin’s masterpiece with Linda Blair, and just as I was about to get over it I went over it again.
CS: That’s a one-two punch of horror movies when you’re younger.
MM: Yeah, it was really easy for me to introduce myself in the circumstances of the character because I have a daughter, I have a son. And God forbid nothing should ever happen to any of them once they are gone, but as a parent, mother or father, you do everything to find them and to save them from the danger they might be in.
CS: Were you familiar with the franchise before this?
MM: Yes, I think the first. I haven’t seen the following, but the first was good.
CS: What did you think when you got the script for this one and saw how different it was from the original?
MM: Well, it was so reliable that you can imagine that if I were African American I could be referring to this film in a sense of the wrong turn Trayvon Martin took about being in a closed community, a closed one Community and a face to enter this nightmare. This is a story about these kids, these little kids that go to this old town and that was their first wrong turn and then afterward doing this hike and making a wrong turn and finding themselves in a different way, let’s call it a gated community, and what to deal with now. The wonderful thing is that the author, the original author of the Wrong move Movies really give it a twist and you have to wonder who the bad guys were? You have the great Bill Sage playing that role, bringing his logic and illogic to the circumstances my daughter and her boyfriend and the others are in. The justice they face is the justice of the foundation.
CS: While you haven’t had too many scenes with them, what was it like building a relationship with Charlotte and Bill for your scenes together?
MM: With Bill he is simply an absolute professional, he is super charming. It’s also important because she was really great, Amy Warner, who played the lady who told me about the people who live on the mountain. She was great, she ran the inn and then comes to the bar when I have something to eat and explains who the foundation is and what to expect. But Bill Sage was great and Charlotte Vega, she’s just very professional. She showed up and really focused on her job and that made her really easy to work with. Like I said, the mountaineering circumstances and the physical aspects of making the movie because we were on a real mountain that really wandered in and really did those things and has a daughter, there wasn’t much of what you are have. ‘d call action required. I just had to react to what we said, to the situations, to the environment, to the physical aspects of the film, to the devices that the foundation developed to kill people, to the situation that my film daughter found herself in .
CS: Since you mention many of the physical elements, were you a nature lover before? Or did this kind of thing make you drive into the mountains a little more often?
MM: I liked to go hiking. I walk about six miles every day. That’s what I do for sport just to get out there and walk around and look at things and try to always take a different path, a different path, different walks around the city so you can see different things. It’s just a great way to move around and think about what I’m actually not thinking about. Sometimes I listen to books on tape, but I love getting out of there. I wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail, about 10 years ago I was working in England and started running about 10 miles a day because I said I think I could do that, maybe I could do 15 miles a day on the Appalachian Trail. depending on how steep the trails were. So I started preparing for it and then got Lyme disease. Back in the east we have Lyme disease. I think she found her way west, but yeah, she almost killed me. When you are on the Appalachian Trail, you face it every day. You have to do what you call tick tests and be like a monkey with everyone you hike with and really groom yourself every day because you just don’t want to. The tick is so small it’s about the size of a poppy seed and the boy will spoil your day and get Lyme disease.
Click here to purchase your own Blu-ray copy of Wrong move!
CS: Yeah, I can’t even imagine, so I’m sure the Appalachian Trail doesn’t seem that inviting between this and working on this film. [laughs]
MM: Yeah, it’s not as attractive as before, yeah. [laughs]
CS: How was it for this film to film these sequences because they have a fair amount of wounds in them?
MM: Well I had a good time. I mean, it was really fun. Director Mike Nelson was really prepared and knew what he wanted, so he really got the genre and knew how to cut an action sequence together so that it was fun and dramatic. So I have to say it was a really nice experience doing the film.
CS: If you were able to come up with a narrative path to come back with everyone else, would you be open to that?
MM: The survivors. Yes, I would love to hear how this could become a sequel to have a sequel to this story. But I think more of these people from the Foundation would come down. That would be my only criticism of the film if they left that title card behind at the end of the film, and I think a lot of people could get out of the film at that moment without realizing that my daughter is about to, everyone in the movie kill van, in the little camper they are in. By the way, this is my daughter singing “This country is your country, this country is my country” in this order.
CS: Your real daughter or your -?
MM: My real daughter Ruby, yes, Ruby Modine sings.
CS: Oh wow, that’s great. I didn’t even understand that. Did Mike Nelson speak to her about that?
MM: Yes, he made contact with her. He heard her, I played some of her music when we made the film. She had an EP out and it was sending like four songs and he said, “Wow, it’s really good. She is really talented. “I said,“ Yeah, if you ever have the chance, if you want her to sing something, you should contact her. ”And then he wanted to include“ This country is your country, this country is my country ”in the film So he contacted her and they did this together. They worked on it, like this version, that kind of creepy version of the song – she also put out a new album called Infinity Mixtape.
CS: That’s great, I have to go see the album. How was it for you to see the film get its limited theatrical release, and now, in advance, it’s Blu-ray release?
MM: Well I mean when we were making the film there was obviously no COVID and how the whole world was turned upside down in this pandemic, it’s really unfortunate because I would have loved to see the film in a theater with an audience. That would have been so much fun, I know it’s doing very well in Australia where there are a lot of outdoor theaters in Australia in the summer. So there are lots of outdoor theaters and people who are going to see it, and it’s a huge hit down there, but yeah I mean you just have to do the circumstances – where they say it’s not the tickets you get but how you play them. Circumstances are what they are and people don’t go to theaters. So I’m looking forward to the film doing as well as possible on Blu-ray and streaming.
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The Wrong move The restart will be a cross-country hiking expedition that will transport a group of friends to the land of an inclusive society called The Foundation, described as people who have lived in the mountains since before the civil war. The friends soon find that they are subject to a different rule of law and may not be the victims they thought they were.
Buy your copy of the 2003 film here!
The film is directed by Mike P. Nelson (The domestic servants) from a script by original writer Alan B. McElroy. It is by the Spanish-British actress Charlotte Vega (The lodgers), Matthew Modine (47 meters down), Damian Maffei (The strangers: prey in the night), Bill Sage (Hap and Leonard), Emma Dumont (The gifted one), Valerie Jane Parker (Green leaf), Chaney Morrow (Follow) and David Hutchinson (American horror story).
The horror franchise began with a movie in 2003 that was a modest box office hit and received generally mixed reviews. This resulted in a direct-to-video franchise that consisted of two sequels and three prequels and ran until 2014 before it went into hibernation.
Wrong move is now available on digital platforms and Blu-ray!
