Wolf Creek (2005)

Don't let my headline lead you to believe that I'm squeamish. I love horror movies, even the ones that really push the envelope. The kind of horror I can't stand is when the narrative is leaning towards the perspective of the killer. This movie is exactly that. You know right from the start that this guy (the killer) is a piece of garbage, and yet the movie is trying to imply that he's a pretty cool dude when he's not murdering people.. and the fact that he gets so much screen time is a complete insult. This is the dude that every waitress that's worked at TGI Friday's vehemently avoids because he's always saying something gross/pervy and he never leaves a gratuity, in fact he'll most likely throw 2 dollars on the table and scram.. how is an audience supposed to be scared of some bozo that's introduced to us like an Aussie Uncle Buck? Sorry, but Crocodile Dundee with Diabetes killing for fun is just not scary, nor enticing, unless of course you're into just watching people get killed for the hell of it.

Three friends are touring around the outback of Western Australia when their car breaks down. A local, Mick Taylor, offers to help them and invites them back to his place. Little do they know that he is a psychopathic killer.Very intriguing and engaging. Certainly not your average slasher-horror-thriller, though the bar is set very low there. The tension is built gradually, with the bad guy taking a while to reveal himself. Doesn't borrow too heavily from horror clichés and the conclusion is never obvious.Great work by John Jarratt as Mick Taylor - very convincing and suitably menacing and superficially charming as the killer. Solid performances by Cassandra Magrath, Kestie Morassi and Nathan Phillips as the three tourists.

31 Days Of Horror: Day 11Wolf Creek arrived with the intentions of being a throwback to the boogeyman centred slasher flicks of the 80's, a dutiful homage to movies that the director, Greg McLean, probably grew up with. His film, however, ended up being so good that as far as I'm concerned, it's right up there with the iconic movies it looks up to. The setting, the vast Australian outback, rivals eerie summer camps, desolated suburbia, dank, nightmarish boiler rooms, and other realms of suffering in this cinematic corner. The boogeyman himself, who I'll get to in a moment, is equally terrifying and notable as Michael, Jason or Freddy. And the atmosphere, which is the key component in any movie like this, works wonders for installing a primal dread in the viewer and putting you emphatically close to the protagonists as they are lost, scared and ultimately hunted. Liz, Kristy and Ben are three backpackers navigating the outback, who find themselves a bit stranded. When night falls, the probing headlamps of a 4x4 rig find their campsite, and the truck rolls up to them. Out steps Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) an amiable enough Aussie dirt packer who offers them a ride to his ranch where they can use a phone. He seems charming enough, cracking jokes and reassuring them. They decide to go with him, as they really have no other option. Big, big mistake. No sooner than they arrive and settle in his abode, he begins to act menacingly, subtly at first, and eventually he becomes an outright monster, terrorizing, brutalizing and psychologically torturing them at every turn. Because they are so deep in the outback, escape really means nothing, as they would be lost off his property, and he, knowing the region like the back of his blood encrusted hand, would seek them out before they made it several miles. So they find themselves in a tooth and nail struggle for survival, or death at the hands of this cackling outback madman. Jarratt cuts loose and creates a nerve frying horror movie killer for the ages. Mick is almost like a force of nature in the outback itself, a silent, relentless silhouette on the sunset horizon, until he finds you, them it's all grinning, darkly comic fun and games until he plunges his 9 inch hunting knife into your spine. The victims are convincing, especially Kestie Morassi as Kristy, giving a heaving portrayal of terror and desperation. These days I can't really watch films this severe anymore because of anxiety issues (ironic, I know when you consider I'm doing a whole month of reviews on the genre), but I remember this being one of the grittiest, bloodiest, most shocking mainstream entries into the slasher genre I'd seen since the beloved ones of the 80's.

Signed up to write a review because this movie was so awful. We were excited to watch this with all the great feedback left about this film. We can't think of a time where reviews didn't give a good outlook on the movie. This one was a complete failure. Besides taking an hour to get to them being terrorized. There also were no scenes of them being tortured. Sick to our stomachs that we kept watching thinking something was going to happen in this movie. Want the short description. 3 friends go on road trip. Car breaks down. Stranger picks them up. Screaming ensues with little screen play of actual torture. Movie ends.