How can you be found when no-one knows youre missing? A good
question.
A more accurate question is: How can you survive in the Australian
outback when you are ill-prepared, up against a truly evil
psychopath who knows the territory and has set up a trap for
you?
Two British girls, Liz Hunter (Cassandra McGrath) and Kristy Earl
(Kestie Morassi), and a guy from Sydney Ben Mitchell (Nathan
Phillips) are travelling through the Australian outback by car,
exploring places on route until they stop at Wolf Creek, an
isolated national park. Returning to their car they are unable to
start it or have a clue about what is wrong with it. The night sets
in, as does the rain. With Ben spooking up their situation and
fearing it might be extra-terrestrial interference from a UFO, they
all look up alarmed as a weird array of light grows in the darkness
heading towards them.
The lights belong to a truck (how convenient!) driven by a
seemingly helpful local, Mick (John Jarratt), who offers to give
them a tow, not to the nearest town that would mean going north and
hes going south to his place, wheres he just happens to have the
spare part that they need, and hell do it for free!
From here on, unbeknown to our touring trio, the moment the tow
begins they are like fish caught on a hook and being reeled in.
Theyre chances of survival are rapidly diminishing as theyre
towed under cover of darkness deeper into well where? They have
absolutely no idea! His premeditated trap is set and now sprung on
his unsuspecting prey.
The three friends gory fates are all but sealed when they drink the
proffered water on arrival at his lair and any odds in the favour
of our three naïve backpackers have all but gone. From here on WOLF
CREEK can be hard to stomach in places as Mick unleashes his ugly
side and you feel yourself squirming uncomfortably in your seat as
this carefully constructed abduction begins to descend into a
fiendish slaughter.
The film's script seems uncomfortable with the story and this makes
the delivery of the actor's lines difficult so you feel all the
time that you are watching acting, almost like watching a rehearsal
rather than the real thing. Also as the story is based on true
events it is difficult to forgive the obvious 'don't go into the
basement' moments that cause so much fun in movies like HOUSE OF
WAX (there is no basement - I'm just explaining a point).
What really bugs me about this movie is the filmmakers claim that
its based on true events. Whats misleading is its not actually
based on just one case but intertwined with other brutal crimes yet
the way the movie unfolds and ends it appears to relate to just one
the memorable backpacker murders that came to light in
Australia in 1992.
The only beneficial thing WOLF CREEK might do is cause some
scaremongering among the thousands of mostly students who get itchy
feet and go off in search of adventure that can all too easily
backfire with disastrously fatal consequences. Did you know that 30
000 people go missing in Australia each year? Just that fact alone
is pause for thought but this mostly fictional slasher movie only
delivers the gore not the fact as it purports to. Since two of the
three perished and their remains have never been found and the
third, who survived but had been held in isolated captivity could
not corroborate much, the way they died is largely fictional
conjecture on the part of writer/director Greg McLean.
