I Didn't Expect This Backwoods Folk Horror Movie To Creatively Twist This Lazy Genre Trope So Well

Horror films love the idea of a dangerous and demented hick. Hicksploitation had its foundational boom around 1972’sDeliverance. Ever since, films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Devil’s Rejects have continued the trope of dangerous southerners lurking on the edges of society. Peppered throughout this subgenre are innumerable takes on Appalachian culture, specifically, like Wrong Turn. While the aforementioned Deliverance is a film of substance, you can’t overstate how many horror films rely on backwards caricatures of Appalachian people. Placing outsiders in a place that, according to horror, is nothing but a junkyard of incestuous moonshiners ready to maim, kill, and sometimes cannibalize visitors is a cheap and easy scare.