Dying Breed (2008)

The desire to photograph the Tasmanian tiger, due to it's significance as having not been recorded as proof of it's existence, has sent many into the wilderness of Tasmania hoping to capture it on film or other media as a means for a substantial payday. The Tasmanian wilderness is known for holding over 250 missing persons, tourists hoping to find the tiger, no sign of them remaining. Nina(Mirrah Foulkes)hopes to finish what her deceased sister started, to be successful in discovering the Tasmanian tiger. Something terrible happened to Nina's sister, she was used by backwoods cannibals living in the wilderness of Tasmania as a breeder, later found by the local authorities dead, having drowned after leaping from a mountainous cliff once cornered by her pursuers. Along with her boyfriend Matt(Leigh Whannell), his pal Jack(Nathan Phillips)and Jack's girlfriend Rebecca(Melanie Vallejo), Nina will head for Tasmania, and into the wilderness, on a trek to find the tiger..ill prepared for what they will find instead. Idyllic Victoria, Australia is quite a feast for the eyes in this Deliverance/Wrong Turn variation with our four protagonists being trapped within the wilderness, among them descendants of a famous cannibal named Alexander Pierce who continue the tradition. Fans of this genre will rejoice as "Dying Breed" follows a bleak course to a grim conclusion. It contains sickening flesheating as meat is pulled from bodies(..such as the shoulder) by sharp teeth and body parts are found throughout the killer's lair. Bear traps do serious damage to one victim and we see the grisly remains of another body that had been fed from. I thought the highlight featured a crossbow's arrow pinning a victim's mouth to a tree! While the movie does take a while to get going(..this is to build the dread, I felt, and once the violence/action starts, the movie doesn't let up), I thought "Dying Breed", while unoriginal and overly familiar, kicks in high gear, though we obviously question why in the world these people wound up in their current situation, how characters find themselves fighting for survival far from home or civilization. Billie Brown steps into the John Jarratt(Wolf Creek)part, as Harvey, a seemingly likable Pearce villager whose role in the ongoing terror becomes well established. Characters trying to survive in the wilderness haven of menacing inbred cannibals, attempting to escape an environment alien to them, is nothing new, but it's a frightening scenario I find myself always gripped by.."Dying Breed", I think, follows the mould rather well.

Between 1788 and 1868, Australia served as a penal colony for the British Empire and Tasmania was the most feared. The prisoner Alexander "The Pieman" Pearce escaped and survived in the woods eating human flesh. In the present days, the researcher Nina (Mirrah Foulkes) organizes an expedition to Tasmania to proceed the work of her deceased sister Ruth and find evidences of the extinct Tasmanian tiger in the wilderness. She travels to a remote area with her boyfriend Matt (Leigh Whannell) and his troublemaker friend Jack (Nathan Phillips) that brings his girlfriend Rebecca (Melanie Vallejo) and they spend the night in a village of descendants of "The Pieman". Sooner the quartet discovers that things have to stay hidden to survive."Dying Breed" is another sub product of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and gives the sensation of déjà vu to the viewer with the total lack of originality. There are many flaws in the predictable story, like for example, how could an expedition travel unarmed in a remote area in the wilderness? What would they expect while observing the wildlife? How can a group travel without a Plan B for unexpected situations? The greatest different in this feature is the wonderful location in Australia. Further, the acting is good and for fans of the slash genre, it entertains. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): Not Available

Just saw Jody Dwyer's Dying Breed. What an excellent Australian Horror flick it is! It could well be one of my favourite Australian Films of the year.Four young cryptozoologists go to check out Western Tasmania in search of ye ol' Tasmanian Tiger. Little do they know they are stumbling upon the ancestors of Alexander Pearce, the famous Australian ex-convict, bush ranger and sometime cannibal known as the 'Pieman'. Suffice to say fine dining is loosed on the Pieman River as a group of Deliverance style in bred Tassie freaks hunt down our hapless Tiger hunters. Dying Breed is well cast with Leigh Whannell (Saw) giving us a great version of the metro-sexual out of his league in the wilds of Western Tasmania and Nathan Phillips (Wolf Creek) as a roustabout larrikin hunter. Whannel is an excellent leading man and should branch out from horror and do other serious work. The two girls Sally MacDonald and Melanie Vallejo are good too. Especially the later, when she is strung up and dismembered Cannibal Holocaust style out the back of the Pieman's shed. I'm sure Leigh Whannell must have been showing the director Cannibal Holocaust, as this scene certainly bears the imprint of that classic film and the Dying Breed scene is very well done in its brutality. The film has various very effective set pieces in a cave, at night in the bush, out the back of the killer's shed, on a bridge at dawn, etc. All shot effectively and scored very nicely. The ominous Tasmanian landscape evokes a darkness akin to what DH Lawrence said about the great primordial emptiness of the Australian bush. The film should travel well as the Aussie accents aren't too harsh, and one is a Irish accent. The family of inbred freaks are memorable and varied in their motivations and actions.Dying Breed is a great edgy genre piece that is one of the first to appear in the new wave of horror cannibal films, so its ahead of the game world wide, also. I would have to rate it right up there with Rogue from last year and Acolytes, Horseman and Rats and Cats.Why did they not enter it in MUFF? It would have won some awards! Check out the posters. I like the stylish one, while the second one with a gory pie will entice the teen market.Stylish new Ozploitation is on display, that gives hope to the future of the Australian Film Industry!

I say 3, Dr K says 4. This was a stinker, we live in Tasmania and our relatives are far more bloody and disgusting than this tourist promo film. It starts poorly and continues in this vein. Although some early scenes are good the rest suffered from poor colour, story and direction. The ending was obviously tacked on to either extend or bring the rating up to some sort of "horror" level.The change from 18th century Tasmania to a shots of a 2007 bridge with all it's safety features just grated. Also, us Tasmanians are rather particular, the open scene in the Pub is obviously in Melbourne Victoria, and the end scene with the police wearing Vic police caps stood out like dog balls.If you want a silly movie you'll love this. When we saw it the audience of Tasmanians were sniggering. That Tas Tiger head was off the show, in reality they had small, very sleek heads, not some sort of Pit Bull head.