The BuffyVerse shines a light on horror and takes away its sting. More specifically, it empowers that girl in all the Jason and Freddy and Michael Myer films. That typical female who's running away from danger while running towards it in all those film. In Whedon's world, the girl turns around and faces the horrors down, thus diminishing the fear factor. Whedon's female ingenue doesn't nervously crawl down that corridor. She confidently and unabashedly struts down that corridor, often carrying something large and pointy.

Metaphorically, writing in the BuffyVerse like a parent convincing their child that there's no boogeyman in the closet or snakes under the bed. Well actually, to make the metaphor work you have to imagine that there actually is a boogeyman in the closet but that he's really not all that scary once you get to know him and convince him that ice cream tastes better than little children, oh and that the snakes under the bed are really gummi bears.

The only two things Wrong Turn has in common with BtVS is that Dushku is in it, and that the movie is yet another in a long line of the same tired cliche genre of film which BtVS purposefully mocks. The women in Wrong Turn play the very female ingenue stereotype that Whedon turned on its ear. They are the very characters Whedon specifically wanted to empower. Wrong Turn is no steps forward and three steps back in horror storytelling. Kinda like telling a sci fi alien story today in which all the aliens have green skin and look like Keebler elves.

However, saying Wrong Turn should never have been made is like saying they should never make Jason VS. Freddy. So long as people pay money and buy tickets, those movies will still get made. I'd go to see a Buffyverse film. I think a lot of people would. At least as many as would go to see Wrong Turn (of which I'm not one... well maybe when it goes rental).

ZachsMind | June 07, 04:47 CET