So much average

Purely Joyful Movie!

It is a performances centric movie

A different way of telling a story

Stranded in the outback after their car breaks down, three young friends begin to question whether the local man who has given them a lift is really as friendly as he seems in this acclaimed Australian horror thriller. John Jarratt is excellent as the mysterious man in question with a lot of tension as the friends joke about him being like Crocodile Dundee, something that he does not find amusing at all. The second half of the movie is especially enthralling as a darker side of the Dundee stereotype persona begins to emerge. The film is, however, let down by a humdrum first half-hour of routine ups and downs as the friends set out on their journey. It is only as Jarratt enters the picture around a third of the way in that the film truly takes off, but certainly once it starts, the movie rarely lets up. This is not a film for the squeamish, though with a very low body count, the juice of the film comes from there being a sense of threat (sometimes real, sometimes perceived) in the air. Indeed, the film is more a testament to mysteriousness and uncertainties of Australia's vast outback with a sense that familiar urban rules are no longer in force a la 'Wake in Fright', to which 'Wolf Creek' has been compared.

(Originally seen many years ago) This is a sick, twisted piece of snuff that should have been thrown in the bin after the initial screening. Wolf Creek is a film where young hikers are slashed and tortured for the audiences entertainment, and that is nasty. This thing is made by ignorant people who only know how to make viciously ugly, nasty films about suffering, this is not a horror film, it's an exercise in sadism. 0/10

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.