You could be forgiven for passing on Wolf
Creek. Reading the synopsis,
you could even be forgiven for thinking you have already seen
it. You know how it goes; attractive, carefree youngsters go for an
adventure, there is laughter, drinking, partying… screaming,
blood, dead people; all ‘based on true events’… However,
what makes Wolf Creek so spectacularly chilling is the fact that it
sits contentedly within its genre it takes you completely by surprise
just how powerful it manages to be.
Knowingly treading the water of genre tedium, writer/director/producer/newcomer Greg McLean carefully executes each scene precisely how all those other horror films should have done. Shot with an unnerving hand-held style, and staying clear from contrived and cumbersome slasher-scripts, McLean instead allows his actors the screen time to develop naturally, with their subtle, often unspoken communications speaking volumes. This unwittingly creates huge audience empathy, and stretches the tension brilliantly throughout this disturbing picture.
Kudos, again, to Greg McLean, for not allowing his film to slip into a gimmicky, predictable farce once blood has been spilt. The strength of the film, and of the characters, holds though to the end, and subtly twists your expectations to allow for some of the most truly harrowing scenes in memory. (Horror Directors take note: If you want your audience to be disturbed; develop realistic characters / scenarios, rather than elaborate and unfeasible methods of execution.)
The actors themselves (unknowns: Cassandra Magrath, Kestie Morassi, Nathan Phillips) perform all too convincingly; putty in the sadistic hands of the good-doer-doing-wrong Mick Taylor. Despite looking like the love-child of Neil Young and Slade’s Dave Hill, Mick (John Jarratt) is truly one of the horror’s most malevolent creations, an outback everyman who toys with the trusting backpackers before getting all too ‘serious’.
Some audiences may prefer a film with fewer subtleties and more buckets of haemoglobin, but shame on them; for those willing to put themselves into the characters mindset, you easily feel the tension, the unease, every scratch, bullet hole and twist of the knife. Wolf Creek is exactly what all horror movies strive to be: engaging, realistic, caustic, and truly disturbing.