Wolf Creek (2005) - User Reviews

Last night i went to an advanced screening of Wolf Creek, one of those popcorn movie things at Fox Studios, sorry Entertainment Quater (bleh), where you get to hear from the director and cast afterwards etc...
Given the pre-release hype that i had heard about this film, mainly relating to the graphic violence, i was pretty keen to see it. Also this movie was shot entirely on High-Definition digital video, before being transferred to film, which is pretty much a world first.
This film is extremely loosely based upon the variety of backpacker murders that have taken place in Australia over the past 20 or so years, however despite the fact that this is presented as being based on true events, and there is a rundown on what happened to each character before the credits, the film is mostly fiction.
It follows three backpackers who fall foul of a phsychotic version of Mick Dundee; there is still a knife, but in this film he uses it to sever your spinal chord. The start of the film is slow and disjointed, with way too many cut shots; i kind of got the feeling that they were trying to cram just too much information about the three amigos in, so that when they were hacked up, the audience would feel emotionally attached to them. This doesn't really work, and i was left feeling fairly appathetic toward all of them, and just really keen for them to meet their maker.
However, once this initial 25 mins, of getting to know you confusion is out of the way, the film really starts to earn its money. The killer is played by John Jarratt, whom Aussies will know from Better Homes and Gardens- the guy that used to be married to Noni Hazelhurst. At first its a bit 'woah' to see him in this role, but after about 5 mins you totally forget this, and this is due to the quality of his performace. John really is the shining light in this film, and he tears you from one horrifying scene to the next. The rest of the cast do a reasonable job, although the two English backpackers betray their Aussie heritage more than once.
I have to say that this film did not blow me away. After the film, director/writer Gary Mclean said that he wanted to steer away from making another cliche'd horror movie, and show the events as they really would occur. This would make sense if the film was based on a true story, but it isn't. The end result ended up somewhere in the middle, half realist, half horror, and the violence was very strong.
Shooting the film on High-Def Digital really worked out well, the film does look great, and i didn't notice any difference in the quality of the final result. Apart from the initial confusion, the editing of the shots was great.
I guess in the end i was left feeling just a little disappointed by this movie, and it's mainly because it didn't quite make it as a realistic depiction of horrific events. There were a few to many jokes, cliche's, and unexplained conincidences for this. The violence in the film was a little too confronting for the horror genre', and as a result the film is stranded in the middle, as something that is quite difficult to watch, without being fun, and yet offers no real insight into the events of the backpacker murders. John Jarrett saves this film from slipping into the dreadful category, but really the main reason to see it, is because it is an Australian horror.

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