A Bloody Family Reunion You’ll Never Forget (No Matter How Hard You Try)
Some families go camping together. Others gather around the barbecue for a nice meal. The Hillickers of Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort? They are the barbecue.
This 2014 entry in the Wrong Turn franchise dares to ask the hard questions: what if your long-lost family turned out to be rural, inbred cannibals running a murder spa? And, more importantly, what if you decided to stay because the property taxes were paid up?
Directed by Valeri Milev and written by—well, let’s assume someone under duress—this is the sixth film in a franchise that long ago stopped taking wrong turns and started circling the drain. Yet somehow, Last Resort manages to be gloriously stupid, wildly entertaining, and surprisingly proud of its own sleaze. It’s horror’s equivalent of that drunk uncle at Thanksgiving: embarrassing, inappropriate, but impossible to look away from.
Plot Summary: Come for the Hot Tub, Stay for the Murder
The movie opens, as all high art should, with two naked bikers making love in a natural hot tub. It’s tender, romantic, and immediately ruined by hillbilly cannibals. Three Finger, Saw Tooth, and One Eye (the family crest must be a dental nightmare) ambush the lovers, turning foreplay into fore-death.
Enter Danny (Anthony Ilott), a young man with cheekbones sharp enough to cut venison, who inherits a run-down West Virginia resort from relatives he’s never met. He brings along his girlfriend Toni (Aqueela Zoll), her brother Rod, and a cast of walking appetizers named Vic, Charlie, Bryan, and Jillian.
They arrive at Hobb Springs—a place that looks like The Shining’s Overlook Hotel if it were decorated by Leatherface’s interior designer. The resort is run by Jackson (Chris Jarvis) and Sally (Sadie Katz), who greet the newcomers with smiles that scream “We absolutely eat people.”
Welcome to Hobb Springs, Where the Meat’s Always Fresh
The setup is deliciously absurd. Danny’s new cousins are clearly cannibals, the walls reek of formaldehyde, and the bathtub has more blood than a Red Cross donation drive. Yet no one suspects a thing because they’re too busy being sexy and dumb—two of the franchise’s most cherished traditions.
Bryan and Jillian, our token horny couple, discover a secret basement bathhouse (as you do) and immediately decide it’s the perfect place for a quick romp. Mid-climax, they’re ambushed by the family’s hillbilly chefs. Jillian is turned into a Jackson Pollock painting, while Bryan is taken upstairs where Sally seduces him, suffocates him, and gives the phrase “pillow talk” a whole new meaning.
Meanwhile, Danny’s friends begin to suspect that maybe—just maybe—the locals aren’t hosting them out of southern hospitality. Their first clue? The sheriff ends up as roadkill, courtesy of Three Finger and his trusty axe.
Meet the Hillickers: The Family That Slays Together, Stays Together
At the heart of Wrong Turn 6 is a touching story about family. Specifically, a family that kills, cooks, and occasionally seduces its own members. Jackson and Sally introduce Danny to the rest of his long-lost kin, explaining that he’s part of the Hillicker bloodline, a proud lineage of murderous flesh-eaters who value tradition, loyalty, and a strong iron intake.
Sally, ever the nurturing type, encourages Danny to “embrace who he really is.” You know, because nothing says self-actualization like carving up your best friends for brunch.
The film’s biggest twist isn’t that Danny is a Hillicker—it’s that he decides to stay. By the end, he’s swapped his college hoodie for a meat cleaver and his girlfriend for his cousin. You can almost hear the Hallmark theme swelling in the background.
The Gore: A Buffet of Bad Taste
Say what you will about Last Resort—and most critics did—but you can’t accuse it of being boring. This film doesn’t just go for the jugular; it brings a carving knife and asks if you want seconds.
Bodies are shredded, throats are slit, and limbs are treated like confetti at a satanic wedding. The blood flows like a mountain spring, coating every wall, floor, and exposed body part in sight.
Valeri Milev directs the carnage with the enthusiasm of a man who knows exactly what audience he’s serving: people who giggle when intestines fall out. It’s gross, gratuitous, and weirdly artistic—like Midsommar if it had been sponsored by KFC.
The Acting: Fear, Lust, and Mild Confusion
Anthony Ilott’s Danny is the quintessential horror protagonist: earnest, attractive, and blissfully unaware of how doomed he is. He spends most of the movie wandering around shirtless and conflicted, as if unsure whether to escape or check into the nearest modeling agency.
Aqueela Zoll’s Toni is the token “final girl,” though she’s less of a fighter and more of a woman perpetually wondering why she came on this trip. She does, however, get to disfigure Sally in a blood-soaked brawl that doubles as the film’s best sequence and a surprisingly effective anti-tourism commercial for West Virginia.
But the real MVP here is Sadie Katz as Sally. Katz plays her like a cannibal Martha Stewart, serving death with a seductive smile and a side of psychosis. Whether she’s flirting, murdering, or awkwardly seducing a half-dead man, she commits like she’s auditioning for Hannibal: The Musical.
The Theme: Blood Is Thicker Than Soup
Deep down, Wrong Turn 6 is about belonging. It’s about the eternal struggle to find your people—even if those people occasionally eat other people. Danny’s journey from unsuspecting heir to full-fledged cannibal king is both horrifying and oddly inspirational. He learns to accept himself, to embrace his heritage, and to manage a small business. That’s character growth!
Sure, the family’s traditions involve ritual disembowelment and incestuous bonding, but at least they have traditions. In an age where families barely eat dinner together, the Hillickers have found a way to stay connected. Literally.
The Ending: A Love Story for the Ages (and the Inbred)
The finale takes “twisted” to Olympic levels. After watching his girlfriend Toni kill his cousin Jackson in self-defense, Danny decides to let his cannibal relatives chop her up like a side of ribs. One year later, he’s running the resort, now renamed Hillicker Springs—a place where the customer is always dinner.
As a final touch, Danny and Sally celebrate their victory with a little incestuous love scene while the rest of the family looks on approvingly. It’s disturbing, grotesque, and—against all odds—hilarious. It’s the kind of ending that makes you want to shower and then immediately rewatch it with popcorn.
Why It Works (Despite Everything)
What makes Wrong Turn 6 perversely entertaining is its utter lack of shame. It’s trash cinema that knows it’s trash—and instead of apologizing, it rubs its blood-stained hands together and says, “More, please.”
The dialogue is laughably bad, the pacing wobbles like a severed limb, and yet, it’s never dull. Every scene swings between absurd horror and unintentional comedy. The film operates on pure, glorious insanity—somewhere between grindhouse horror and family sitcom from hell.
There’s even a perverse charm in how it tries to reboot the franchise by making the cannibals “relatable.” They’re not just monsters—they’re entrepreneurs with a strong family brand. It’s capitalism meets cannibalism, and somehow it works.
Final Verdict
★★★★☆ — Four Buckets of Blood Out of Five
Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort is the cinematic equivalent of a deep-fried Twinkie: unhealthy, ridiculous, and yet undeniably satisfying. It’s a masterpiece of bad taste that delivers exactly what it promises—sex, gore, and Appalachian real estate nightmares.
If you’re a horror fan who enjoys your scares with a side of dark humor and a dash of incestuous cannibalism (and who isn’t these days?), this movie is your guilty pleasure buffet.
So grab a fork, pour yourself a moonshine, and dig in. Just don’t accept any dinner invitations from relatives you’ve never met—especially if the family motto is “We are what we eat.”
