If the spider and snake-infested Outback wasn’t scary enough, just imagine being stalked by a middle-aged man whose laugh is disarming enough to induce immediate Stockholm Syndrome on its audience. It wasn’t until Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) started toying with his prey that I realised he is, in fact, the villain of Wolf Creek, an Outback-heavy film directed by Greg McLean. Perusing the wild wastelands of the remote bushland of Down Under, Wolf Creek is a tremendous slow burner, one that presents characters who teeter on the line between likeable morons and ineffectual idiots, but that balance is crucial to the actions and consequences that soon befall them.
Maybe it doesn’t really matter whether or not you like the trio of plucky tourists traversing the barren lands of the outback, but it certainly helps if you do. For the first half-hour, the tension grinds its way, cautiously picking out little flashes of scenery or awkward interactions with locals in less populated lands, but McLean does this with good intentions at heart. The slower pacing, getting to know these characters more intimately than I had expected, is a real help for later on in the film. We’re not coupled with flat characters, these three have personalities, and whilst I may not like them, I grew attached to them. Liz (Cassandra Magrath), Kristy (Kesite Morassi) and Ben (Nathan Phillips), all feel relatively genuine, they never sway to the extremes of what their characters could easily become.
It makes the road trip section of the movie feel worthwhile, and it takes quite some time for Taylor to show up. His appearance is a remarkable one, the appearance of a friendly Australian, doing good for the “Limeys”, as he slaps them heartily on the back, telling them he’ll tow them to his home nearby and fix up their busted-up car. A lovely sentiment, but McLean is extremely persistent in plugging away at the pitfalls of trusting strangers. He does so in a manner that elevates his villain to levels higher than expected, with Taylor becoming a crazed lunatic that I’d argue is far more memorable and engaging than the likes of classic horror villains. He has the similar pangs of humour that Freddy Krueger had in the later Nightmare on Elm Street films, but Jarratt’s performance doesn’t stray into campy whimsy, nor does it dig deep in its sadistic terror. The balance is necessary, and Jarratt brings an unruly, wild, and frankly perfect performance to the film.
Although it comes across as generally well-made and engaging, Wolf Creek toys with a few tropes that I’m just not a fan of. The call-backs to previous scenes, the dialogue crumbling in these moments as characters pause to throw out quips. I’ve never been a fan of it, but I’ve made my peace with these more revolting moments, they’re just part of the genre and there’s no way of changing that. At least Wolf Creek has some fun with it, and it’s a credit to the talent of McLean as a director that I had so much fun with what I had expected to be a rather dreary, uneventful piece. I didn’t expect to find a villain so encapsulating, nor did I expect the cat and mouse game to be so eventful, lengthy, and well fleshed out as it was. It puts the more articulate pieces of the genre to shame, with Wolf Creek reaping what it sows with surprising conviction.
