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The Hillikers
- Ax-Crazy: They use a wide variety of weapons, but do get frequently shown hacking their victims to pieces, and they're all batshit insane.
- Bald of Evil: Most of them, including the females.
- Big Badass Rig: The tow truck.
- Black Speech: While they understand and speak a bit of English, they forego even attempting to speak it in favor of a bizarre gibberish.
- Cannibal Clan: It's very big.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: While prone to bickering, they still do clearly care for each other.
- Evil Makes You Monstrous: The entire family is every bit as ugly as one would expect from inbred mass murdering cannibals, until the sixth movie reveals a pair of perfectly ordinary-looking members.
- The Family That Slays Together: Frequently work together on kills and traps, and take revenge for any fallen.
- Feel No Pain: The original trio, at least. It's unknown if the other members of the family have similar disorders that account for their durability.
- Multiple-Choice Past: They're either inbred hillbillies, toxic mutants, zombies, mental patients or any combination of these. Each movie seems to differ.
- Mutants: Mutated via a combination of incest, and chemical dumping. Of course, this is only established in the third movie, and not referenced at all in the others, which posit other origins.
- Obviously Evil: They're all hideous.
- Averted in Wrong Turn 6, where a few of the relatives look like normal humans.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Their given names (if they even have them) are unknown, and the surname "Hilliker" was given to them by the staff of the Glenville Sanatorium, who named them after the woman who discovered them.
- Tangled Family Tree: Three main brothers, a couple that may or not be their parents who have two other children of their own, a pair of cousins, a grandfather, and good luck figuring out where any of the others fit in.
- Villainous Incest. The family may have been inbred long before its genetics were further damaged by toxic waste.
Three Fingers
Played By: Julian Richings (1st film), Jeff Scrutton (2nd film), Borislav Illiev (3rd and 5th film), Sean Skene (4th film), Radoslav Parvanov (6th film)
- Big Bad: Of all the films.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: His reaction to finding Three Toes' body is heartbreaking.
- Made of Iron: Even by Hillker standards.
- Not Quite Dead: In the first three movies.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: His apparent "real" name is only in extra materials. He's even listed in the credits of all the movies as Three Fingers.
One Eye
Played By: Ted Clark (1st film), Dan Skene (4th film), Radoslav Parvankv (5th film), Aden Adonav (6th film)
- Generic Guy: Compared to the other hillkillers.
- Eye Scream: Did it to himself and ate his eye.
Saw Tooth
Maynard
Played By: Wayne Robson (1st and 2nd film), Doug Bradley (5th film)
Father of the Hillikers.
- Bald of Evil: In the 5th movie.
- Faux Affably Evil: Pretends to be sorry about the way his family has turned out when talking with Dale, but he's every bit the monster the rest of them are.
- Manipulative Bastard: He is best at this.
Victims and Survivors
Jessie Burlingame
Played By: Eliza Dushku
- Action Girl: At the end of the movie, she fights back against the cannibals, shooting one with a bow & arrow and burying an axe into another one's chest.
- Damsel in Distress: Is kidnapped in climax.
- Final Girl: Of first Wrong Turn. Though Chris also makes it.
- It's All My Fault: She doesn’t outright say it, but it’s heavily implied that this is how she feels after the deaths of her friends, because as she explains to Chris, the only reason she and her friends were even in those woods to begin with was because her boyfriend had just dumped her, and they all immediately took time off work to take her hiking to help her get her mind off it.Jessie: Last Friday I came home, and there’s a message on my machine... from my boyfriend, who... says that we shouldn’t be together anymore. Within 20 minutes of me... telling Carly... she had Scott and... Evan and Francine... all blowing off work this week to take me out here. That’s just the kind of friends they were. And now they’re dead.
- Meaningful Name: the DVD commentary confirms that she was deliberately named after the protagonist of Gerald's Game
- Nightmare Dreams: While hiding from the hillbillies, Jessie has a brief nightmare where she and Chris are found by them.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: with Chris.
Chris Flynn
Played By: Desmond Harrington
- Action Survivor: Alongside with Jessie.
- Car Fu: Rams the police car through the hillbillies' house.
- Underside Ride: Hitches a ride in the hillbillies' car to get to their house and save Jessie.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Jessie.
Carly Numan
Played By: Emmanuelle Chriqui
- Ms. Fanservice: By the standards of the 1st movie.
- Nervous Wreck: After Scott's death.
- Off with Her Head!: By Three Finger on the tree. Her eyes still move while her body falls down.
- Screaming Woman: Oh yes, throughout the entire film, up until her death.
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: downplayed, but she and Scott are pretty affectionate, which makes his death harder on her.
Scott Corbee
Played By: Jeremy Sisto
- Annoying Arrows: Averted. He dies after a few shots.
- Establishing Character Moment: After Chris crashes into their car, he and Carly hurry over to help him out and make sure he's alright.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Distracted the hillbillies so the others could get to their car.
- Nice Guy: probably the nicest in the movie.
- Sacrificial Lion: Unlike Evan and Francine, we get to know him before his death.
Evan Ross
Played By: Kevin Zegers
- Asshole Victim: From what little we see of him, he seems to be the rudest person in the group. He’s also the first to die.
- Hidden Depths: He and Francine don't make a good impression overall, but they did take time of their jobs to take Jessie on a hiking trip as soon as they heard about how she'd been cruelly dumped despite clearly not liking the outdoors.
- Killed Offscreen: Francine only finds his ear.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: He doesn't have much screen time.
Francine Childes
Played By: Lindy Booth
- Blatant Lies: Tells Evan she didn't find any food in the car right as she's eating a candy bar.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Strangled with barbed wire.
- Hidden Depths: She and Evan don't make a good impression overall, but they did take time of their jobs to take Jessie on a hiking trip as soon as they heard about how she'd been cruelly dumped despite clearly not liking the outdoors.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: She doesn't have much screen time.
Halley
Played By: Yvonne Grady
- Hope Spot: She gets down the cliff and almost makes it back to her car before being caught in a barbed wire snare and dragged away to a likely gory fate.
- Intro-Only Point of View: She and her boyfriend are attacked in the first movies first scene.
- Slashers Prefer Blondes: A blonde woman who is one of the first victims of the series.
Nina Pappas
Played By: Erica Leerhsen
- Action Girl: Nina is a very active woman. She manages to kill one of the hillbillies on her own.
- Bungled Suicide: Hinted at with the scars on her arms.
- Catchphrase: "So sue me!"
- Final Girl: Nina becomes this in Wrong Turn: Dead End. Jake survived too.
- I'm Not Here to Make Friends: She gets better.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While Nina was seen as a mean person. She tried to help comfort Mara, after M cheated on her.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: She is this with Jake. They argue a lot but it is obvious that both of them care for each other.
Jake Washington
Played By: Texas Battle
- Black Dude Dies First: Averted, he survives the whole movie.
- Ignore the Fanservice: Pays no attention to Elena getting naked.
- Lovable Jock: He's a former football player and generally a nice guy.
- Nerves of Steel: He doesn't get scared like Jonesy when he realises he was eating human meat.
Dale Murphy
Played By: Henry Rollins
- Annoying Arrows: After getting shot by two of Pa's arrows, Dale just asks: "Is that all you got, bitch?"
- Badass in Distress: Gets caught by the hillbillies at the beginning of the movie.
- Big Damn Heroes: Returns to save Nina and Jake.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The way he killed Sister and Brother.
- Nerves of Steel: He does not fear the hillbillies and returns to fight them when he has a chance to escape.
- Retired Badass: He's an ex-military man who became a TV show host.
- Self-Surgery: Stiches his own wounds after finding refuge.
- This Means Warpaint: Puts on some warpaint while getting ready to face the hillbillies.
Jonesy
Played By: Steve Braun
- Casanova Wannabe: Harassed most of the female competitors.
- Together in Death: A non-romantic example with Amber.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: After he found out he was eating Kimberly's leg.
Amber Williams
- Face Death with Dignity: probably the premier example for the series.
- Nerves of Steel: She doesn't get scared like Jonesy when she realises she was eating human meat. She’s one of the few people to breifly fight a hill killer hand to hand. She also tries to comfort Jonesy moments before their death.
- Together in Death: A non-romantic example with Jonesy.
Mara Stone
- Decoy Protagonist: Has all traits of the Final Girl, but is the first to die after the prologue.
M
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The Hilikers take their time before finishing him off.
- Off with His Head!: The way he dies.
Elena Garcia
- Animal Motifs: Compares herself to a fox.
- Asshole Victim: It's difficult to feel pity for her.
- Attention Whore: Has sex with M to get more screen time.
- Jerkass: Made most of the participants hate her with her diva behavior.
- Ms. Fanservice: She's the only female character in the 2nd movie to show her breasts and seduce a male character.
Neil
- Token Minority: The only Indian in the whole franchise.
Kimberly Caldwell
- As Himself: She is played by a real-life singer Kimberly Caldwell.
- Chekhov's Gun: Nina and Jake use her car to escape the forest at the end of the movie.
- Also, her tattoo, which later lets the others realize that the meat they found is human.
- Fish out of Water: clearly is this as she drives through the back roads, but doesn't last as long as most versions of the trope.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: The way she died.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Argues irritably with her agent about doing the show, but frantically stops and tries to save the life of the deformed kid that she hit. Unfortunately for her, he turns out to be one of the hillkillers and had deliberately gone in front of her car to lure her out of it.
Alex Hale
- Action Girl: She does have some knowledge of the woods, is an avid river rafter who seems to like taking on the rapids at the beginning, and fights back against the Hilikers, and later the convicts when they threaten to rape her. that being said she does have some Damsel in Distress moments that drag down the group.
- Damsel in Distress: She was kidnapped by escaped prisoners, and later kidnapped by Three Fingers.
- Final Girl: In Wrong Turn: Left For Dead, is the only one to survive as the other two survivors later return to the woods and get killed.
- The Generic Girl: Alex seems too focused on staying alive to show too much personality.
- Gender-Blender Name: Alex can be a boy's name or a girl's.
Brandon
- Anti-Villain: Brandon is Type I. He constantly avoids doing anything unpleasant to the protagonists, unlike the other prisoners, and even helps them in the end to get away. Averted by the ending.
- Badass Normal: The best example in the franchise with the possible exception of Dale Murphy.
- Death by Materialism: Returns to collect the money and dies.
Nate Wilson
- Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop: He doesn't help Preslow subdue the criminals, he gives Walter an empty gun, and he's useless.
- Death by Materialism: He definitely shouldn't have come back.
- Downplayed in comparison to most examples of this, as he just wanted the money to pay his college bills.
- Retirony: Nate is about to retire from prison guarding when he is sent to accompany an important prisoner transfer, which inevitably goes wrong and results in his death.
Kenia
- Final Girl: Seems to be this, until she and Sara both get killed in the very last scene.
- Genre Blind: See the entry below this.
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Her philosophy. Wrong movie to have it in.
- Nice Girl: Kenia is very friendly and sweet.
- Off with His Head!: Decapitated by a barbed wire trap.
- Too Dumb to Live: Kenia is convinced that killing the Hilikers will make her and the others monsters as well. Considering their only options are to fight or die, this comes off as incredibly naive at best.
Sara
- Action Girl: Manages to beat one of the Hilikers senseless and flee.
- Big Damn Hero: Saves Kenia just as One Eye is about to kill her.
- Final Girl: Seems to be this, until she and Kenia both get killed in the very last scene.
- Off with His Head!: Decapitated by a barbed wire trap.
Lita
- Break the Cutie: Arguably the nicest member of her movie's cast, she has a massive breakdown after her eyes are gouged out and she's captured by Maynard.
- Eye Scream: Lita gets her eyes cut.
- Fate Worse than Death: Last seen at the end of the movie being driven off into the woods by the cannibals, who've already implied they'll use her as breeding stock.
- Final Girl: Given the above, probably wishes she wasn't.
- Nice Girl: Sweet and friendly and unfortunately easily manipulated.
- Too Dumb to Live: Believed Maynard and set him free from jail in the vain hope that he'd call off the others.
- Screaming Woman: Less actual screaming, more hysterical sobbing.
Billy
Played By: Simon Ginty
- Divided We Fall: He’s released from jail to help hold down the fort against the Hilikers but instead of sticking around to do so, he insists on taking one of his friends and going to look for his girlfriend.
- Due to the Dead: He wants to respect his girlfriend's body after finding it.
- Taking the Heat: He tells the sheriff he was the only one smoking pot when all of his friends were.
Sheriff Angela Carter
Played By: Camilla Arfwedson.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: The killers leave her trapped in a burning jail with a gun to shoot herself with. She uses it.
- Fair Cop: She’s a sheriff in her mid thirties and puts some effort into her appearance.
- The Sheriff: A local sheriff who tries to fight the killers and protect people from them during their attack to free Maynard.
Toni
- Action Girl: Toni manages to injure Sally and kill Jackson.
- Final Girl: Averted. She is killed after her boyfriend does a Face–Heel Turn and joins his murderous family.
