Wolf Creek

"Wolf Creek" claims to be based on a true story. It's not. The "true story" upon which this film is supposed to be based is that a guy named Ivan Milat once killed 7 backpackers in the Australian Outback. So, "Wolf Creek" is based upon Ivan to the extent that, once, there was a guy who killed people in the Outback. Other than that, ignore the "true story" tagline.

Wolf Creek follows the story of three 20-somethings, English tourists Liz and Kristy, and their Australian guide Ben. How these two ladies hooked up with Ben isn't really explained, but I suppose its not necessary. You get the sense that they just kinda met him in a bar one night, and he started tagging along.

The movie is billed as a horror movie, and it is, but not until over half the movie has passed. The first hour plus is all about the three travelers. While there absolutely is a sense of foreboding throughout the first hour of the film, nothing "horrorish" really happens until their car dies at Wolf Creek, in the middle of nowhere, and friendly Mick Taylor happens to stop by to give them a hand.

Then these bozo tourists begin to make every possible mistake to get themselves into a very difficult situation. Mick, of course, is one bad-ass nutjob, who has a nice little hobby of picking up stranded people in the Outback, taking them back to his compound, and torturing them and killing them. No other motivation is explained. I would have liked to have known what was going on with him. As the movie played out, it really only appeared that Mick did such sadistic things because, well, he liked to.

I can recommend this movie, with a caveat. There are several moments during this movie where I wanted to jump into the scene and bitchslap the characters. For example, if a guy has your friend tied up, and the beheaded remains of some nameless woman hanging on a meathook, and the killer's back is to you, and you have a loaded rifle pointed at the back of his head, you do NOT yell at him to stop and turn around. You shoot the bastard immediately. And when you finally do shoot him, grazing his neck so he falls unconscious, you do not hit him gently on the back with the butt of the empty rifle, and then drop the rifle. You take the shotgun from the table, or the revolver from the table, or the knife from his sheath, and you KILL HIM! Sigh. It kinda pissed me off. Crappy, lazy writing there.

The performances were all good, and there were some surprises that I didn't see coming. So, if you've read this review and still want to see "Wolf Creek", you'll probably like it.