Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on August 3, 2005, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
This review comes with a bit of a caveat. I saw Wolf Creek at an official critics’ screening, but I’ve also heard that the movie has been given audience test previews recently, raising the suspicion that edits in this Australian feature for its U.S. release, currently scheduled for November 18 [and eventually shifted to December 25] might be in the offing. It would be a shame if the movie were trimmed, and not so much because the movie’s violence would require toning down for an R rating. The gore on view is no more, and probably a bit less, explicit than in other recent R features like The Devil’s Rejects, and the movie’s power comes from its overall, nerve-shredding intensity, something that would be harder (one hopes) for the MPAA to quantify.
Rather, the edits (if any) might come in the first half, which is entirely concerned with following the film’s trio of protagonists without a hint of scary stuff. It’s the kind of establishing material where an impatient young audience might complain that “nothing happens.” Yet the long buildup is integral to Wolf Creek’s overall effectiveness. By the film’s 40-minute mark, we’ve gotten to know Aussie surfer Ben (Nathan Phillips) and two young British women, Liz (Cassandra Magrath) and Kristy (Kestie Morassi), with whom he’s hooked up for a drive into the Outback, as intimately as they’ve gotten to know each other. Their bantering and interplay feel completely natural, as do the stirrings of romance between Ben and Liz, and once they’ve arrived at their destination—Wolf Creek National Park, site of a huge, scenic crater—the time we’ve spent with them only makes it feel more tragic when things get ugly. And they get very, very ugly.
The less said about the specifics of what happens to them, the better; Wolf Creek is the type of movie where you know, by a certain point, that there will be no limits to the darkness into which the filmmaker (in this case, writer/director Greg McLean) will plunge. What can be said is that when the young friends’ car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, the only help that turns up is Mick (John Jarratt), a rugged outdoorsman who offers to give them a tow back to his place. Without much of a choice, the trio accept, even though the audience knows that this has to be a bad idea. McLean and Jarratt are skillful in building the tension around Mick; there’s just a hint of menace to his jovial demeanor, and at first he seems little more than a slightly wild-eyed relative of Crocodile Dundee. (The comparison is even brought up by the characters, and pays off later in one of the more horrifying sequences, leading to an act of violence called “head on a stick.” Trust me, it’s not what you think—it’s worse.)
It’s only a matter of time before Mick’s true colors show themselves, and McLean’s careful handling of point of view ensures that his activities have first mysterious and then visceral impact. The basic story ingredients aren’t anything new—the formula is one part Texas Chainsaw/Hills Have Eyes and one part Breakdown, complete with familiar scenes like the discovery of a garage full of previous victims’ belongings. Yet by stripping the plot down to the bare essentials of pursuit and survival, McLean makes the material feel fresh, and he is positively ruthless in the terrors he subjects his characters to. He repeatedly subverts our expectations of who will live, who will die and how badly they will suffer, and is almost cruel in the way he snatches hopes of escape away from the terrified victims.
Wolf Creek is a down-and-dirty production, yet although it was recognizably shot on hi-def video, Will Gibson’s photography makes excellent use of both the picturesque Down Under locations in the first half and the area’s total, threatening nighttime darkness in the second. Francois Tetaz contributes a genuinely eerie score, and the makeup FX by Rick and Charmaine Connelly, though not showy, are at times excruciating to watch. Wolf Creek doesn’t provide the emotional peaks and valleys of the typical horror film; there’s little respite from the tension once the terrorization begins, and it becomes a grueling, rough experience in the true hardcore horror tradition. Yet none of it feels gratuitous, because McLean takes the time to let us get to know the victims as flesh-and-blood human beings before that blood starts being shed. Here’s hoping that setup—which is just as crucial to Wolf Creek as its violence—reaches American screens unscathed.
