Fearless Writer ... Reviews

Director: Greg McLean
Starring: John Jarratt, Nathan Phillips, Cassandra Magrath, Kestie Morassi

Hollywood’s quest for ever-greater profits had, by the 1990s, essentially squeezed truly impressive horror films out of existence. Shockers that typified the genre in the 1970s such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead and even the cheesy I Drink Your Blood had no place in an industry that wanted everything to achieve the all important American rating of PG-13.

In the early Noughties, a small backlash began against glossy, self-conscious pap like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Director Eli Roth pulled no punches with the delightfully gory and paranoic Cabin Fever (2002) and the remake of Dawn of the Dead, while it had its flaws, at least made true horror a marketable concern in the eyes of film studio execs.

Low-budget Australian movie Wolf Creek is perhaps the final shift in a genre that has come full circle since the heady days of the ’70s. Made on a budget that wouldn’t have paid for everyone’s coffee on the set of Scream 2, it set the box office on fire and made amazing profits with next to no marketing aside from word of mouth.

Contrary to what its opening titles claim, Wolf Creek is at best loosely based on true events, knitting together the facts of two Australian serial killer cases and throwing in a very large handful of fiction. Aussie traveller Ben Mitchell (Nathan Phillips) is exploring Western Australia with a couple of attractive British backpackers, Liz and Kristy (Magrath and Morassi). The first half an hour of Wolf Creek is devoted to little else but showing us the relationship between this trio – and it paints a pretty realistic picture. We know them, we can relate to them.

Then their journey turns down the inevitable dark road. Upon their return from checking out an enormous crater at the titular town, Ben’s car breaks down quite literally in the middle of nowhere. Their fun-loving holiday appears to have turned into a disaster, until the jovial, laconic Mick Taylor (Jarratt) finds them and offers to tow them to the nearest town (although it’s not really a town, just a couple of buildings with electricity and water). There, they sit around a campfire to eat, drink and have a bit of a yarn. It’s now that our ears, finely attuned to the conventions of horror, begin to ring, as Ben’s attempts at humour are met with … let’s say unusual stares from Mick. But then Mick cracks another joke and they all bed down in their sleeping bags to see out the night.

See out the night they do. But when they wake up, Ben, Liz and Kristy find themselves in a nasty little predicament. It seems Mick has a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock, and our travellers are the latest flies to blunder into his intricate web of insane terror…

Much was made of the cinema walkouts during screenings of Wolf Creek, and indeed two couples made a hasty exit when I saw this in the theatre. But given that this film has little gore compared to something such as Dawn of the Dead or Saw, and only the vaguest hints at sexual violence, what is it that so disturbed these people?

My guess is that unlike all the sparkly Hollywood ‘horror’ that so defined the glib ’90s and early 2000s, it is almost impossible to tell yourself that Wolf Creek is only a movie. Its lengthy character introductions make it difficult for the viewer to just laugh or shrug his or her shoulders when unpleasant things begin to happen to them. Similarly, it is nearly impossible to dislike Mick, even when he is torturing these human beings that we have come to care about. No one is a cardboard cut-out, and you get the feeling that if such outback serial killings went on in real life, this is exactly how they would go down.

Fledgling Aussie director Greg McLean also shows a keen eye for visuals. I won’t spoil the car chase scene for those who haven’t seen it. Suffice to say that its wide-angle climax is one of the most effective scenes of suspense and horror ever committed to film.

While Wolf Creek may have a few technical faults, they really do fade away against the intricate tapestry of disturbing horror that McLean has woven. Forget the ‘true story’ nonsense and just enjoy this film for what it is – R18+ rated horror that is the equal of any film made in the halcyon days of the 1970s. ****

RATINGS
5/5 The Empire Strikes Back
4/5 Star Wars
3/5 Revenge of the Sith
2/5 Attack of the Clones
1/5 The Phantom Menace