Wolf Creek (2005)

If there was ever an ideal setting for a horror film, it's the Australian Outback. It's remote, isolated, typically arid, blisteringly hot during the day and freezing cold at night, and there's nobody for thousands of miles, meaning that if you scream, not a soul in the world is going to hear you. In a word, it's the Australian equivalent to the vast emptiness of the deep American South seen in films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise. So, it's not surprising that, even long before Wolf Creek, we had films such as Richard Franklin's Road Games and Russell Mulcahy's Razorback that take full advantage of this setting. Speaking of Wolf Creek, I first learned of it when it was featured on Bravo's 30 Even Scarier Movie Moments, where it was placed at #12 (they put stuff like Children of the Corn and Hostel above it, which I strongly disagree with). From the clips they showed, specifically the moment when Liz gets her spine severed and is left paralyzed, and the plot summary they gave, it seemed promising, if a little "been there, done that": another story about a group of people who get stuck in the middle of nowhere and fall victim to a psychopath. Regardless, this scenario can still be great if done well, but when I finally saw it for the first time in the fall of 2009 (as you've probably guessed, it was another of the many horror films I bought on DVD while I was up at Pigeon Forge for my first horror convention), I was very... bored. In fact, I just wanted to turn it off less than halfway into it, as it was so slow that it made me tired (not to mention that the actors' accents sometimes made it hard to understand the dialogue). I stuck to it, though, but even then, I wasn't that impressed when it was over, as I didn't find it that special or even shocking. But my philosophy is to always watch a film at least twice before making a final decision and, with few exceptions, I've always stuck to it. So I watched Wolf Creek again, and I enjoyed it a little more, mainly because I was more in the mood for such a film, as well as because I turned the subtitles on (you may think me shallow but, give me a break; you don't hear accents like that in Tennessee). And when I wrote the original version of this review, I watched it a third time and my opinion of if went up a bit higher. After some more viewings over the years since then, it's joined other movies like Gareth Edwards' Monsters and Bubba Ho-Tep that were redeemed through repeated watches. I still don't think it's quite the modern horror classic that many at the time, including Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, proclaimed it to be, and there have been other horror films that have affected and disturbed me more, but if I want a horror flick to watch during the summer, Wolf Creek is one I tend to go for.

Broome, Western Australia, 1999. Ben Mitchell, a young Sydney native, buys an old Ford Falcon for a road trip to the city of Cairns in Queensland with two lovely British tourists: Liz and Kristy. After a night of partying at the girls' hotel, the trio set out on their long journey across the continent. They stop for the night at a caravan park in Halls Creek and, the next day, drive on to Wolf Creek National Park, the site of an enormous meteorite crater. Aside from a stop at a gas station in Emu Creek, where several locals make crass remarks about the trio, especially the women, and some rainy weather that comes out of nowhere, all goes well and they spend a pleasant afternoon at the crater. But, when they attempt to leave, they find their watches have simultaneously stopped and, even worse, the car won't start. Just when it seems they'll have to spend the whole night out in the middle of nowhere, a bushman by the name of Mick Taylor comes across them. Charismatic and friendly, he inspects the car's engine and tells them that the coil needs to be replaced. He offers to tow them back to his camp where he can fix it; otherwise, they'll have to wait for someone else to come by, as it's too far out of his way to tow them back to town. Finding that he's not going to charge them for it, they decide to accept his generous offer. Mick then tows them down the road for a good long while and they arrive at his camp, an old, abandoned mining site in the middle of the Outback. They sit around a campfire for a bit, as Mick supplies them with some water and tells them stories of his life living and working out in the countryside, and then gets to work on fixing their car. The three youths soon fall asleep and, by the following evening, their trip has turned into a nightmare, as Mick is a sadistic, xenophobic psychopath who's kidnapped, tortured, and killed numerous people over the years. Unless they can find a way to escape, they're liable to become three more heads on his mantle.

Wolf Creek was the feature debut of Australian filmmaker Greg McLean, who'd previously done some short films and produced television commercials through his production company, GMF. He'd originally written the film's script in 1997, but extensively rewrote and rethought the concept when he read up on the notorious "backpacker murders" that took place in New South Wales from 1989 to 1993. He also took inspiration from an incident in the summer of 2001, when a British tourist couple were abducted, with the man murdered and the woman brutally assaulted. In his presentation of the film's story, McLean did something similar to what Michael Bay and company did with the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was acknowledge the film was inspired by true events by passing off the story being told as the truth and the characters as real people. He even put in title cards at the end telling what happened to the one survivor and how the murderer was never found, as you would see at the end of a biopic or a docudrama. In the end, Wolf Creek would prove to be McLean's most enduring creation, as it's since become a small franchise that spans both film and a streaming series.

Sadly, one of the movie's weakest aspects are the three people on the road-trip: Ben Mitchell (Nathan Phillips), Liz (Cassandra Magrath), and Kristy (Kestie Morassi). I'd say they're friends but the girls, a pair of British tourists, just recently met Ben and yet, have decided to have him drive them clear across the continent. While he turns out to be a good guy, you still have to wonder how these girls could feel so comfortable about bombing around the Australian Outback with a virtual

stranger. But that's the least of their problems, as we know basically nothing about these three. In fact, it's twenty minutes in before we learn the guy's name is Ben, I honestly can't remember when we learn Kristy's name, and thirty-three minutes before we learn the girl who sort of has a crush on Ben is Liz. Moreover, referring back to the DVD subtitles I had to use because of the accents, the person doing the captioning had to refer to the characters as Male, Female #1, and #2 for the first half hour. That's not good character development.

And what backstory they're given is tenuous at best and is not at all important in the long run. Ben claims to have a girlfriend back in Sidney, which may affect his getting together with Liz, while Kristy tells him to get his crap together and be good to Liz, as she's "totally brilliant." Aside from a moment at Wolf Creek when Ben and Liz share a kiss, their possible romance is forgotten completely. And we find out nothing about the girls themselves other than they're best friends from England. To be fair, though, the acting's okay, and the characters don't fall into the slasher movie trap of being annoying. Ben proves to be a fairly likable, fun-loving guy, as well as chivalrous enough to stand up for the girls when these guys at the diner in Emu Creek make nasty comments about the girls. As for the girls themselves, Liz comes off as more uptight, while Kristy is fairly laid back, if a bit temperamental. But when things turn horrific and they realize that Mick Taylor is a monster, Liz proves to be a real survivor, one who's going to fight to save her friend. Kristy, on the other hand, is too traumatized and hysterical from Mick's torture to do much to help Liz (though, ironically, she lives longer). And Ben, who's unconscious and strung up in a mine shaft for most of the second half, awakens after the girls have been killed and barely manages to escape with his life.

Though there are only four main characters in the film, before the trio runs into Mick Taylor, there are some other noteworthy and often colorful characters they come across. At the beginning of the movie, the salesman (Guy O'Donnell) who sells Ben the car makes some crass remarks about the notion of Ben driving around with a couple of tourists, commenting, "They get, uh, real easy when they travel. Loosen up a bit, hey? Mate of mine reckons. He picks 'em up all the time." Once

Ben has signed for the car, he tells him, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do, eh?", but as he drives off, Ben remarks that the guy's a complete tool. As bad as he is, though, he's not nearly as scummy as these guys in the gas station diner in Emu Creek. One of them, Bazza (Andy McPhee), watches Liz when she's at the bar and comments to his two friends, "I reckon we could break that in half real quickly, eh? Youse two'd be watching me." They chatter some more when Kristy joins her, and when Ben walks in, Bazza tells his one friends, "Here comes yours

now, mate." He then calls Ben over, telling him, "Me and me mates are gonna see if your girlfriends would be interested in a little bit of a gang bang." After they laugh snidely, he adds, "We just wanted to make sure it's all right with you first," and they laugh again, much to the girls' chagrin. Disgusted, Ben calls Bazza a fuckhead when he turns around, but when Bazza stands up, showing he's a lot bigger than Ben, and asks him to repeat it, Ben backs down. Bazza sends him off with a, "See ya,

sweetheart," while his two mates (Aaron Sterns and Michael Moody) laugh obnoxiously, like they've been doing this whole time. The one decent guy they do meet there is Graham (Geoff Revell), the man who runs the place. While he comes off as a bit awkward when he approaches Ben outside while pumping his gas, he does tell Bazza to stop being an ass later on and looks exasperated for the trio when they leave. One last character I'd like to briefly mention is this mechanic (Phil Stevenson) who Ben has look at the car's engine shortly after he buys it. He comes off as a senile old fart who doesn't really know what he's doing, as he looks at the engine and constantly says, "Yep!", as a signal for Ben to press the gas pedal. Ben, who's running late, asks him how long he's going to take. The man simply says, "Not long," and when Ben asks, "How long's 'not long'?", he answers, "Well, I almost got it." He goes on saying, "Yep!", much to Ben's irritation, as he sits in the driver's seat and parrots his "yeps."

Originally, while I agreed that he did a really good job, I also felt that John Jarratt's performance as Mick Taylor was a bit overrated, as there were a lot of people lauding it as one of the best horror villain performances of the 2000's. But, upon further re-watches, as well as seeing him go further with the character in the sequel, where he's completely unleashed, I have come around and do agree that his performance is downright superlative. Like all successful real-life serial killers, Mick, despite appearing out of nowhere, initially doesn't seem like a threat at all. Rather, he appears to be a friendly, jovial outdoorsman who happened upon the trio when they were stranded at Wolf Creek and is glad to help. On top of that, he looks and talks like a stereotypical guy from the Australian Outback, like Crocodile Dundee with the charisma and open friendliness of Steve Irwin (McLean has said the latter was a partial inspiration). He has a really likable sense of humor about him, remarking to Ben when he says he's from Sydney, "Poofter Capital of Australia!", and is almost always laughing. And he has a believable alibi for his sudden appearance, in that he was about to head home because it was raining earlier but decided to tough it out and then found them. Ergo, it's not that shocking when they decide to take him up on his offer and let him tow their car to his camp where he can fix it. The only thing they're worried about is whether or not he'll want money for it, but when Ben surreptitiously brings it up, Mick laughs it off and says he's not going to charge them. And then, after a very, very long drive, they arrive at his camp at an old mining site and he gives them some water, remarking, "Nothing like rainwater from the top end." They then sit around a campfire and he tells them of how there are numerous abandoned and forgotten places like the mining site across the Outback, as well as wild, sometimes gruesome, stories of how he used to work on a farm and rid them of any pesky animals that would get on their property.

But, as warm, friendly, and funny as Mick seems, there are signs of the xenophobic psychopath lurking beneath the veneer. You first catch a glimpse of it when, as he starts working on the car, he asks the girls if they're British and looks at them in a strange way. Later, when he mentions he takes out kangaroos here and there, he comments, "I'm doing people a service by taking out a few roos. They're everywhere out here now. Like tourists." He also seriously dislikes the stereotype the three

of them view him as. As they're sitting around the fire, Ben talks about how much he must love his life, adding, "Hangin' out in nature and shit. You get to, like, you know, cruise around the bush, saying cool stuff like, 'That's not a knife. This is a knife." While the girls laugh, Mick is clearly not amused, given the way he stares at Ben for an uncomfortably long time. And though it's said as a joke when he answers his query of what he does for a living with, "I could tell you. But then I'd have to kill you," it's obvious Ben struck a nerve

with those comments. Later, when he has Liz cornered, he throws that Crocodile Dundee quote back at her when he pulls out the massive hunting knife he uses to cut off her fingers and sever her spine. He also seems embittered about how he can no longer get work shooting vermin, as poisons are now used. There are some definite menacing undertones to his light-hearted comment, "Oh, I get around, you know. Never know where I might pop up!", and, when Liz tells him, "Obviously it would be great to get going as soon as possible," he answers with a simple, "No worries," while looking and smiling at her, alluding to the horror about to befall the group.

Come the following evening, Mick drops all pretenses and shows just how savage, depraved, and sadistic he really is. After Liz awakens in a shed where she's gagged, with both her hands and feet tied, and escapes, she finds that he completely gutted their car and that he was saving her and Ben for later, as he's currently torturing Kristy. Given that she's already bloody and half-naked, dressed in just a shirt and, possibly, panties, you can surmise that he's already had some "fun" with her. Now,

he's just toying with her, as he has her tied to a beam inside the garage, mocks her cries and pleading for help, and acts like he's going to shoot her with his hunting rifle, only to yell, "Bang!" He comments, "Well, nothin' happens when the bolt's open, ya see?", then puts a bullet in and exclaims, "Uh-oh!" He points the rifle back at her and shoots, the bullet just barely missing her. While she screams and pleads with him, he just laughs at her and exclaims, "The look on your fuckin' face!" She

begs for him to let her go, saying she won't tell anyone, but he just shushes her and says, "Now, as I keep tellin' ya, ya know, I always use a rubber with you cunts! Well, I don't know where you been!" He then starts making a disconcerting, "Mmm... Mmm..." sound as he approaches her, scratching his crotch. He does attempt a sexual assault, grabbing her and roughly kissing her or maybe even biting on her neck, and when she spits on him and continues screaming at him, he just wipes it on his fingers and even tastes it. Liz, in an

attempt to save Kristy, distracts Mick by setting the dismantled car on fire, and when he goes outside to put it out, he chastises himself, thinking it was his fault. When he comes back in, he makes small-talk about it with Kristy, saying, "You know, a man's a real goose, eh? I mean, it took four hours to get those fuckin' parts out of your car, right? Now the bastard thing's all burnt. What do ya think of that?" He continues his sadistic playing with her, pulling out a big hunting knife, untying her hands, which drops her to the ground, grabs her by the hair,

forces her face into his crotch, and as she screams in terror and slaps at him, he points out the remains of a past victim on the wall, commenting, "We were great together, you know? Till she lost her head!" Pulling her up and slamming the back of her head against the beam, he growls, "How about I cut your tits off?", before sneering, "You're all the same, you foreign cunts. Weak as piss."

Even when Liz pulls his own rifle on him to save Kristy, Mick is more confused about how she got out than alarmed. He even tries to manipulate her into putting it down, saying he only put one bullet in, though that proves to not be true. While she shoots and grazes his neck, it only stops him momentarily. He gets back up, shoots at them with a double-barrel shotgun when they try to escape in his truck, and when they do manage to escape, he proves to be unrelenting as he gets in another truck 

and gives chase. They try to fool him into thinking they crashed by pushing his truck off the side of the cliff, and while he goes down to investigate, they head back to his camp to get another vehicle. But Mick gets the drop on Liz while she's in another of his garages and stabs her. He proceeds to slice the fingers off of her right hand, and as she screams in pain and horror, he says, "Settle down, you know. That's not gonna kill ya! Right? I got a bullet hole in me neck and I'm not whingeing, am 

I? No." He goes on to say, "I'm gonna have to do something, Lizzy, so as you don't try and run out on me again, you know? It's... It's a little trick they used to use in the Vietnam War, you know? So they could take prisoners and they still get the same information out of 'em, but the little buggers didn't escape!" After smashing her around when she struggles, screaming in her face that it's payback for wrecking his truck, he says, "Now, this little procedure is called 'makin' a head on a stick.' Because, once your spine's severed, right..." He

then stabs into her back, severing her spinal cord, and after dropping her to the floor, he comments, "Well, that's you are, hey? Head on a stick." Now that she's paralyzed and totally helpless, he interrogates her about where Kristy is. And while Kristy is able to escape the camp, due to his skill with a sniper rifle, proficiency with vehicles, knowledge of the Outback, and relentless mindset and determination, Mick proves to be completely inescapable.

The corpse inside his garage is the first sign that Mick has murdered other people before but far from the only one. When Liz returns to find another vehicle, she finds a whole wall in his garage covered with photos and newspaper clippings relating to his crimes, as he clearly relishes in the authorities not being able to find him. She also finds a mine shaft where he dumped the bodies of some of his other victims, as well as another garage full of vehicles taken from them

and a room containing their possessions, such as clothes, sleeping bags, blankets, coolers, family photos and IDs, and video cameras. Horrifically, families with children are among his victims, and when Liz replays the video in one of the cameras, she sees that the same exact thing happened to the one family: their vehicle broke down at Wolf Creek, Mick showed up, towed them back to his camp, and gave them water, which was obviously drugged. Liz then looks at the random video Ben shot on his camera at the gas station in Emu Creek

and sees Mick's car in the background. He'd been stalking them and the other victims long before they even got to Wolf Creek, and could have messed with the engines or leaked out some of the gas at any time they were away from their vehicles. In short, Mick truly is a predator.

The idea that Mick was following them and they had no idea is quite a scary one, as is how, even though he is just a normal human and not an unstoppable killing machine like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees, there's still something elemental and intangible about him. When Ben, Liz, and Kristy first drive up to Wolf Creek, they notice that the weather has suddenly changed from bright and sunny to overcast and rainy. Once they get down to the center of the crater, it starts to rain fairly hard,

and even though it does stop, there's still thunder rumbling and an atmosphere about the scene that feels ominous, like something isn't quite right. Greg McLean mentioned in his audio commentary that it was meant to evoke the feeling that, even though Mick hasn't appeared yet, his possible presence somewhere in the surrounding area is messing with the natural order. It extends further to when they're preparing to leave, only to find that their watches have stopped and there's something

wrong with the car. Later, as they sit in the dark, with thunder continuing to rumble, Ben asks, "Do you think it means anything? I mean, the watches and the car not working." He refers back to the stories he told them the night before about supposed alien encounters and how such things happened in those instances too. Not to suggest that Mick is an alien but it's the same kind of bizarre phenomena that seems to follow him around. And just after Ben suggests this, they see the headlights of Mick's truck, which, at first, are

nothing but a bright, seemingly otherworldly glow off in the distance, which freaks them out. They actually do think it's aliens initially, only realizing it's a vehicle when it gets close, but it's another suggestion that Mick is possibly more than just a man. And the movie's final shot is him walking off into the wilderness and disappearing, further alluding to his possibly being an ethereal force of nature.

I don't think anyone would disagree that the cinematography and extensive location work is top notch. For starters, I really like the look of the film itself. McLean initially intended to shoot it on MiniDV, akin to what Danny Boyle did with 28 Days Later, but cinematographer Will Gibson talked him into using the HDCAM and I'm glad he did, as it's much more appealing. Granted, it does have a bit of that music video sort of look (it kind of reminds me of the bleach bypass process visual style of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake)

that, I've said numerous times before, I got sick of after a while, but it often pulls back on it and looks more like an actual film in certain instances, especially in the wide shots of the landscapes. Plus, that desaturated kind of look works very well in the scenes that take place at dusk, giving off the feeling of a hot summer's day (although, they actually shot during the winter). Because of that, dusk or late at night on such a day is my favorite time to watch this. Principal photography was done totally handheld, so it's another one of those

movies where, except in those landscape shots, the camera is never still. But unlike other such movies, I don't find it that annoying, and even in some dimly lit attack sequences, I can tell what's going on. Speaking of which, the many nighttime scenes are actually quite well shot, coming off as murky and dark, but not so dark that you can't tell what you're looking at. There are also a number of well done images achieved through silhouette, chief among them being that final haunting shot of Mick

walking off into the wilderness as the sun sets in the background. Above anything else, McLean and Gibson really know how to photograph the Outback to make it look beautiful. Seriously, if this wasn't a horror movie, it could be used as a nice travel log of the beauty of Australia. I'll go into more detail presently but, to sum up, the mountains, the expansive deserts, the actual Wolfe Creek meteorite crater, etc., all look fantastic. But at the same time, everywhere else comes off as

isolated and forbidding, and there's no better example than near the end of the movie, when Kristy makes it to the highway. They effectively frame those shots to capture how the road seems endless and there's no one around for miles to help her. 

While McLean never gets too fancy with his direction, there are a few notable shots in the film, in addition to the many beautiful landscape shots. When the backpackers first set out, there's an interesting shot of their car done through a bullet-hole in a "Kangaroo Crossing" sign, likely indicating how they're about to become hunted. There's a noteworthy and significant moment where, when they stop at Emu Creek, Ben fools around with their camcorder and shoots some footage that we see directly from the camera's POV

looking right at him (Nathan Phillips did actually shoot that himself). Also, while the idea itself is a cliche, as I'll expound upon later, the moment where Liz realizes that Mick is sitting in the backseat of the car she tries to commandeer is very well done. What I especially like is how McLean often puts in these atmospheric establishing shots before going into an actual scene. For instance, when the atmosphere turns eerie as they get closer and closer to Wolf Creek, you see a shot of birds

suddenly scattering from a treetop, a pair of shots of the surrounding desert, and some emus walking through a field. When they finally arrive at Wolf Creek and start their hike, you see some shots of how it's sprinkling rain, including one on a cow skull. There's a close-up of some drops of water before you see that they're having to shield themselves from the rain while down in the crater, and after they fall asleep at Mick's camp and it transitions to the next day, there are some shots of

the deserted camp before you realize just what's going on. And finally, there are a number of shots done in big, wide, objective angles, often to show how small the characters and their vehicle are in the Outback, but the moment where Mick finally kills Kristy after the little car chase is also shot that way, making it feel like an execution.

Even though the real Wolfe Creek is found in Western Australia, the film was shot almost entirely in South Australia. When they get to the crater in the film, the shots of it are of the real location, which is quite breathtaking, as you'll see, and they did also shoot a bit in the actual town of Broome, but everything else was shot either on location or on stages in South Australia. Not that it matters, as it's all beautiful, including the opening scenes at the beach, which were shot in Adelaide. If you show me a lovely, tropical setting with palm

trees and a beach, especially at sunrise or sunset, you've already got my attention, as I love that kind of setting, and the first fifteen minutes provide plenty of that. You get a plethora of scenery porn during the opening credits montage, including beachfront property, small towns, work sites, and farmsteads along the road, as well as the landscape itself. When they stop at the caravan park in Halls Creek for the night, there's a mesmerizing shot of the sky as the sun sets, followed by one of the night sky itself, full of stars. You get a brief look at the

park itself when they leave the following morning, complete with a dog tied up by one of the caravans, and when they drive on, the mood starts to become more sinister, as they become progressively isolated. Their car becomes a small little bead moving through the vast landscape, as well as the only thing moving in a void of virtual nothingness. Arriving at Wolf Creek, the sudden and unexpected change in weather in this very arid area is, as I mentioned earlier, when things truly become

foreboding, with the overcast sky, the little bit of rain, and the thunder rumbling in the background (bizarrely, that location hadn't had rain for six years and yet, when the filmmakers arrived there, it rained for three days). But the vast shots of the meteorite crater, including aerial shots are, once again, beautiful, and when night falls with them stuck out there, there's an effective feeling of creepiness before Mick even shows up.

Just over 45 minutes in, we arrive at Mick's camp, which was once an old abandoned mining site in a rock quarry far into the Outback. Mick, however, has very much made it his own. At first glance, it seems like a nice, cozy little spot, with a lovely fire-pit in the center of the place, a cooler full of water, and a few sheds and garages surrounding that, but it's inside those small buildings where Mick keeps both the means with which he disposes of his victims and numerous souvenirs taken from them. When Liz awakens the following evening,

she's in what seems to be an old tool shed full of some old signs and other random objects. The big garage where Mick keeps his truck is also where he tortures his victims, as not only is Kristy tied by her hands to one of the beams but the decomposed remains of another woman are shown hanging on the tin wall. Like I said before, it also has a wall containing numerous photographs, some of which are quite perverted, and newspaper clippings about the disappearances of the people he's preyed upon. Below the wall is a table full of his various

weapons and ammo. Later, when Liz returns to the camp to find another vehicle for their escape, she investigates a small mine shaft that proves to be a dumping ground for some of Mick's victims. Another garage on the property is a spot that really gives me Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibes, particularly the 2003 version, as it's full of a number of vehicles Mick has taken from the people he's killed and chains hanging from the ceiling. There's also a backroom here where he stores all of

their personal belongings. And when Ben finally regains consciousness near the end of the movie, he awakens in another mine shaft, more or less nailed to the wall in a crucifixion-like manner. He sees the long decomposed remains of another man on the wall across from him, and a pair of ferocious dogs in a cage near him. Said corpse has nothing below the waste, likely the work of those dogs. While I'm sure the interiors were done in a studio, the exteriors were another actual location, in Glen Osmond, and unbeknownst to the filmmakers, it had been the site of an actual murder!

Following Ben's escape from the camp, we get more awesome shots of the Outback but, by this point, it's gone from awe-inspiring to frightening, as it seems like there's absolutely no hope for him, as there are some shots where he looks positively microscopic in these big, empty vistas. There are also shots of the sun bearing down on him, as well as an eclipse that occurs when he's at his lowest point, letting out a pained and desperate scream before falling to his knees. But even then, there are still beautiful images to be found here, like when

you see him climbing down the side of a ridge in silhouette, while the horizon is a deep shade of orange from the sunset, casting everything else in the background in shadow. Following that is when he's rescued and we see him back in civilization, while Mick heads off into the wilderness with his rifle.

Reading up on the film's production, I've learned that the very low budget (just over $1 million) didn't allow for stunt performers, so the actors had to do a lot of the stunts and action scenes themselves. I really have to commend them for what they willingly went through for the sake of the movie, as a lot of it was pretty hairy and uncomfortable, like hanging off the edge of a cliff by a harness, running through the Outback barefoot and ripping up their feet, and driving off the road and then rolling the car. Also, at the beginning of

the movie, when Liz takes a quick dip in the ocean, it was freezing cold when they shot it, and after Cassandra Magrath got out of the water, she initially couldn't remember her own name. And John Jarratt really got into the part of Mick, going as far as to isolate himself in the Outback for weeks and coming up with his signature laugh after a lot of practice. He's said to have also gone weeks without showering but Jarratt has said that he actually just stopped washing his arms so as not to have the tattoos on his arms repeatedly applied each day.

As I've been revamping this review, I've looked back at some of the things I said initially and thought, "Man, I was really ignorant that first time." At that point, I'd only seen Wolf Creek three times and, because I'd also seen so many other of these types of movies, it didn't come across as particularly shocking. For instance, while I did think it was kind of disturbing to see the remains of Mick's past victims in various stages of decay, as well as everything he'd taken from them, especially when it implied that he'd killed young kids, I've

also seen that in so many movies, including many of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films, that you really have to go full in, like show some kids' corpses, for that to really get to me. Also, I didn't think the film showed enough of Mick torturing people for it to really be disturbing. Both him sexually assaulting and abusing Kristy in the garage and the "head on a stick" scene did make me cringe, and there were implications of some of the nasty things he did to his previous victims, but

it wasn't enough for me to call the movie really disturbing or, "As real as horror gets," to quote Robert Rodriguez. I even said that, as much as I dislike movies like Hostel, I would've agreed with what everyone was saying if Mick did stuff like that to his victims. And finally, while I enjoyed the cinematography and beautiful vistas, I still found the characters to be really "meh" and the movie's first act to be really slow and meandering, with the payoff not worth it.

At the time, though, I was still able to applaud Greg McLean for either avoiding or playing with predictable horror movie tropes. The car that won't start is a prime example, and while the backpackers' car, sure enough, doesn't start when they decide to leave Wolf Creek, the revelation that Mick had been following them, at least, since they stopped at the gas station implied that he definitely messed with the car at some point, rather than it just not starting for no real reason. Another trope is the cellphone that won't work, and this film

dispenses with that by their simply not having any cellphones. That may not seem like a smart decision on their part, but keep in mind that the movie takes place in 1999, before cellphones were as commonplace or as affordable as they are now. And besides, even if they did have cellphones, I doubt they'd get a signal that deep in the Outback, anyway. But that said, right before the "head on a stick" scene, they did go with the trope of the killer appearing in the backseat of a car. Besides just

being cliche, there's a logic issue in that, the last time we saw Mick, he was inspecting his crashed truck to see if Liz and Kristy were dead. That was pretty far from the camp, so how did he get all the way back, sneak into that garage, and into the car without her seeing or hearing him? It especially annoys me when they do this in films that are going for realism. It's not as egregious as in Rob Zombie's first Halloween where, after portraying Michael Myers as a realistic psychopath throughout the whole film, he gets back up after getting shot three times with a .357 Magnum, but still, vague elemental aspects or not, Mick is still supposed to be a normal man. As skilled and stealthy as he is, I find it hard to accept him pulling that off.

Going back to my initial thoughts, after a number of repeated viewings over the years, I'm now more able to appreciate what McLean did with the film. While the lead-up to Mick's first appearance is rather slow, especially since I still can't get into the protagonists that much, not only does the scenery and cinematography make up for it but so does the growing sense of foreboding the closer they get to Wolf Creek. And, as two-dimensional as I find them, what Mick puts them through is still horrific, especially Kristy, in his sadistic torture and sexual

assault of her. On this most recent viewing, her constant screaming inside the garage really did get to me, as it did much of the crew, who've said it sounded like someone was really being tortured. Even though there's not a lot of onscreen gore, the implied violence can be quite palpable, especially the "head on a stick" scene. You don't see much, but just the sight of Mick ramming that knife into Liz's back, the twisting, squishing, and snapping you hear, the rattling groan she lets out, and the

sight of her lying on the floor, totally paralyzed, are more than enough. And the same goes for when Ben awakens to find himself crucified on the wall of a mine shaft, with either nails or the points of pliable wire driven through his arms, which he has to pull them off of in order to get free, a thought and sight that can make anyone wince. Speaking of which, what makeup effects you do see here are well-done, such as the various corpses, which range from rotting carcasses, the grisliest of which

are the remains of the woman hanging on the garage's wall, the worm-filled ones at the bottom of the mine shaft, and the half-eaten, crucified corpse Ben sees on the wall across from him, to full-on skeletons. The actual blood and gore effects, like when the bullet grazes Mick's neck, Liz getting her fingers sliced off, the blood splatter when Mick kills the good Samaritan who tries to help Kristy, the nails through Ben's arms, and the scratches and hints at dehydration on his face, may be few and far between but, when you see them, they are effective.

Overall, reviews of the movie, both at the time and to this day, tend to be mixed, with some appreciating its dark tone, McLean's direction, and especially John Jarratt's performance, while others, like Roger Ebert, felt it went too far, to the point where they walked out on it. Some of that I attribute to the typical scenario of wimpy mainstream critics not being able to stomach violent horror films but, at the same time, I can understand why, after a while, some wouldn't be able to take any more (I actually started to feel that

way about the sequel when I first watched it, but let's not get ahead of ourselves). Once Mick takes the backpackers to his camp and they realize what's going on, the movie becomes unremittingly bleak. When Liz escapes from the shed she was tied up in and rescues Kristy, you think she's going to be the heroine, or, at the very least, the "final girl" who's going to outwit Mick and make it to safety. But when she and Kristy have to go back to the camp to find another vehicle to escape in, it all falls apart. While Liz is ambushed, paralyzed, and likely

killed offscreen, Kristy runs off through the Outback and makes it to the highway the next morning. A passing motorist picks her up and it looks as though she's finally safe, when Mick picks him off with his sniper rifle. Kristy then tries to escape in the man's car, only for Mick to chase after her in one of his own cars, tormenting the already terrified and traumatized girl even further, before attempting to run her off the road. She actually manages to force him off and into the

ditch, but just when it looks as if she's home free, the rug gets pulled out from under you again, as Mick snipes out one of her tires, sending her careening off the road. Badly injured but still alive, she climbs out of the wreck and tries to crawl away, but Mick finishes her off, shooting her twice in a row, then burns both her and the man's bodies in the car before heading back to his camp.

The only glimmer of hope is when Ben, whom we've barely seen since the first night at the camp, awakens in the mine shaft, manages to pull himself off the wall, and escape before Mick returns. But as he wanders the Outback, futilely screaming for help, and under threat from dying of exposure from the heat during the day and the freezing cold at night, it looks as if he's a goner too. The movie seems like it's going to be horribly cruel when, the next morning, he's found by somebody who, in silhouette, looks like Mick. However, it turns out to

the husband of a Swedish couple, who put him in their van and drive him to the town of Kalbarri, where he's airlifted to a hospital (Greg McLean himself has a cameo here as the policeman helping him). But then, a series of title cards inform us that Liz and Kristy were never found due to a mismanaged investigation and Ben was initially deemed a suspect, although he was eventually cleared and released from custody. We then get that final shot of Mick walking off into the wilderness, no one knowing that he's out there, ready to prey on any other unlucky tourists who cross his path. 

The music score, composed by Francois "Franc" Tetaz, is very subtle and understated, suiting the movie's slow, methodical pace and tone, while also being used fairly sparingly. It sets a nicely nightmarish feel from the get-go, with some very frightening and discordant sounds, akin to chains clanking in the distance, playing over the first bit of credits and the title cards. The second instance of score is when Liz takes her morning dip in the ocean, which is a solemn sort of mixture of electronics and strings. We get another nightmarish bit of sound work when the title comes up once the backpackers are on their way, offset by the use of the song, Eagle Rock, during the traveling opening credits montage, and when they arrive at the caravan park in Halls Creek, there's a subtle, atmospheric bit you hear, the first of many throughout the first act. The music becomes truly eerie when, after leaving the park, they begin heading into the depths of the Outback, with a foreboding sound when Liz turns off the main road to head to Emu Creek. It continues sounding subtly atmospheric when they arrive at Wolf Creek and see the crater, alluding to the place's awe-inspiring beauty and mystery, as well as that unusual vibe that's in the air. It goes on when they sit down in the crater and Ben and Kristy discuss what could've led to the meteorite impacting at that exact spot. The music starts to get quite creepy when the sun goes down after they realize the car doesn't work, and otherworldly and eerie when they first see the headlights of Mick's truck, alluding to their thinking it's aliens, and becomes really terrifying when they get closer. During the sequence of Mick towing them to his camp, you hear a really somber, dirge-like piece, which is likely one of the parts of the score Tetaz said he based on an old funeral march. It definitely can be seen as hinting at how these backpackers are, unknowingly, being driven to their doom.

Their arrival at the camp is the first time you hear this hollow, ringing tone, made up of three notes, which you hear quite a bit throughout much of the second act, while the transition to the following day and the revelation that they're in danger when Liz wakes up in the shed is done through a sudden, freakish-sounding string bit. That hollow tone is heard repeatedly in the background of the increasingly hopeless piece as Liz frees herself and escapes the shed, and it's also heard, along with sharp instances of string, when Liz sneaks about the camp, discovers that Mick gutted their car, and then hears Kristy being tortured. It continues being understated during Kristy's torture, when Liz distracts Mick to try to save her, and even when she gets the drop on Mick with his own gun. This sad, poignant string piece is heard when Liz manages to untie Kristy and get her outside, and there are some suspenseful building strings when Liz has to search Mick for his truck's keys as he lies on the floor after she grazes him in the side of the neck. We do get some faster-paced but still subtle sounds when Mick chases the girls into the Outback, followed by more suspenseful, unsettling sounds and tones when they try to hide from him by clinging onto the side of the cliff after crashing his truck. Another poignant piece of music is heard when Liz has to leave Kristy in order to go back into the camp and find an escape vehicle for them, and as she wanders about the camp, you, again, hear that tone, accompanied by instances of string. When she finds the belongings of Mick's past victims, you hear distant screeching that could meant to be the screams of the children and women he killed, as well as more sad music to emphasize the tragedy that befell them. It becomes increasingly suspenseful when she realizes they fell into his hands the same way as the other victims, as well as a big sting when she sees he was stalking them at Emu Creek. That same subtle bit of score continues when Mick severs her spine, and while Kristy's flight to the nearest highway has bits of hope, for the most part, it alludes to how there really is no escape for her. Even the moment where Mick chases her down in the car is more tense and sadistically playful than loud and fast-paced, as you'd expect. And since there's virtually no dialogue during the last ten or so minutes, it's completely scored in that same bleak, hopeless sound, as you see Ben escape and nearly die out in the wilderness, before being rescued and briefly charged with murder. It continues over the ending credits, leaving you with the notion of the tragedy that befell these three, innocent young travelers.

When it was released in both Australia and the United States in late 2005 (it was released on Christmas Day over here), the film was around 99 minutes long, with two scenes having been cut, although only one of them had to do with anything gruesome. The first occurs near the beginning, after the party at the hotel, where Kristy wakes up in bed next to Ben, suggesting that the two of them had a nice time the night before. Greg McLean said this was removed because it made things more complicated than necessary; personally, I didn't even put it together that she woke up with Ben, and they're so underdeveloped anyway that I don't think it mattered that much. The other deleted scene was when Liz goes into the one mine shaft and finds the remains of some of Mick's past victims. McLean said that was removed because test screening audiences couldn't take it so soon after they'd seen Kristy get tortured, but I think its removal would be better for pacing, as it doesn't make sense for her to take time to look down in that shaft when she's supposed to be searching for an escape vehicle. But, that said, when she falls down there, she drops this handgun she'd found in the garage and loaded, which explains why she doesn't use it against Mick when he ambushes her shortly afterward. Both of these scenes were put back into the movie for the "unrated" version that's available on DVD over here, along with the theatrical version. On the latter version's release, those scenes can still be viewed in the special features section.

In my review's first version, I said Wolf Creek was a movie I could watch every once in a while and get something out of but still, after seeing so many horror movies, I was jaded and felt it was a middle of the road movie that wasn't as groundbreaking as many felt it was. To me, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes were among the first to tell this kind of story and they did it better. But, while I would still say those movies are better, I've grown to respect Wolf Creek much more. It's well-directed and definitely well-shot, has a great performance by John Jarratt as the villainous Mick Taylor, some truly nasty and unsettling scenes, sparingly-used but well done makeup and gore effects, and the music score is nicely understated. But, the three protagonists aren't that memorable or developed, there are some horror tropes it falls into that I wish it didn't, and some may find it either too slow or horrifically bleak and sadistic, especially in its second half. If you like horror movies and thrillers set in the Outback or Australian-set movies in general, I'd say give it a watch, but know who you are when you do.