Wrong Turn: The Real Inspiration For The Movie Explained

Summary Wrong Turn franchise, based on true story of Sawney Bean, embraced extreme gore with few characters surviving in the series.

The legend of Sawney Bean inspired not just Wrong Turn, but also other horror works like The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Horror movies often draw from real events for added terror - even supernatural films like The Exorcist and Nightmare on Elm Street.

Given how outrageous and over-the-top the horror franchise is, it is surprising that Wrong Turn is based on a true story to some extent. With seven films to date, the Wrong Turn franchise has been something of a sleeper hit with horror fans. The first movie in 2003 follows a group of travelers who end up meeting in the West Virginia backcountry after a cannibal family sabotages their cars and leaves them vulnerable to being hunted. The original movie was the only installment to get a theatrical release; the rest were launched in a direct-to-video format.

The three cannibals in Wrong Turn — Saw Tooth, One Eye, and Three Finger — got more of a backstory in future installments, with Wrong Turn 4 serving as a prequel to the series. The movie embraced the extreme gore and violence with few characters surviving in the Wrong Turn movies. Even with the outlandish ways the franchise evolved, the series did originate at least a little bit in reality with the story of the Scottish murderer Sawney Bean.

Related Wrong Turn Movies: Every Character Who Survived The Cannibals The Wrong Turn franchise is known for big body counts and intense, graphic violence perpetrated by its cannibal killers—how many people survived?

Sawney Bean Legend Explained

The Scottish Legend Remains Unconfirmed

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Sawney Bean was born Alexander Bean in 16th-century Scotland. Bean met a woman named "Black" Agnes who was already ostracized by society due to accusations of witchcraft. Together, the two were rumored to have created a large family — furthered through inbreeding — of 8 sons, 6 daughters, 18 grandsons, and 14 granddaughters.

Grave robbing, theft, murder, and cannibalism rumors followed Sawney and Agnes around, as they and their family were said to operate out of a cave and set traps to ambush travelers while they passed through the area. Finally, the Bean family was discovered, and an order was made by the King to arrest them and search their dwelling area; the search uncovered many stolen items alongside mass graves and human remains littering the cave's interior and surrounding area. The Wrong Turn villain inspirations were then captured and publicly executed.

While there have been some records of Sawney Bean, historians have found them to be largely inconsistent, and they cannot be proven factual.

Some sources state that these stories could all just be folklore and legend. While there have been some records of Sawney Bean, historians have found them to be largely inconsistent, and they cannot be proven factual. Wrong Turn, while not directly stated to be inspired by the tale of Sawney Bean and his family, takes a great deal from a very gruesome story that has aided in the franchise being a success with audiences for almost twenty years.

Wrong Turn Is One Of Many Movies Sawney Bean Inspired

Cannibal-Themed Horror Movies Have Drawn On The Legend

Throughout pop culture, there have been a significant number of works either directly or indirectly inspired by the Sawney Bean legend. Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes and Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre have a correlation to the rural incestuous family concept. Even in Attack on Titan, Hange makes a very direct reference by naming two of her Titan test subjects Sawney and Bean.

Novels, comics, and movies over time have also alluded to Bean by name, such as Hack/Slash, The Ballad of Sawney Bean, and Sawney: Flesh of Man. Even more broadly, most stories that feature a whole tribe of cannibals living in rural seclusion can be said to be Sawney Bean-inspired, since his legend is one of the best-known cannibal stories in Western folklore. This makes the Wrong Turn franchise just one more way that the story's disturbing legacy continues.

Wrong Turn Is Far From The Only Horror Movie Inspired By Real Events

Slasher, Serial Killer, And Even Supernatural Horror Movies Have Drawn From Real Life

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The Wrong Turn's true story elements add another layer of horror to the movie regardless of how little they resemble what actually happened. This is a tactic used by a lot of horror movies as the claim or suggestion that they are inspired by real events adds more grounded terror to the story. In many cases, this resembles the case of Wrong Turn with small details being used to inspire a much different and largely fictional story.

While it might have been partially inspired by Sawney Bean, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre drew from real serial killers, like Ed Gein and Elmer Wayne Henley, for the creation of the horror icon Leatherface. Though it is a much more grounded film, the Oscar-winning horror movie The Silence of the Lambs also drew from several real-life inspirations from various FBI serial killer investigations.

There are even supernatural movies that claim to be based on true stories. The Exorcist, The Amityville Horror, and even Nightmare on Elm Street have all claimed to draw some inspiration from true stories. There are even rare movies that stick very close to reality, such as David Fincher's Zodiac which is a heavily researched exploration of the investigation by police and journalists into the California serial killer The Zodiac Killer.