Wolf Creek (2005)
Written by James on October 6, 2008 – 10:20 am -
Grim scary tale
In this age of carbon-copy horror, of excreble sequels and ‘three-quels’ (and ‘four-quels’, and ‘five-quels’?), such as with the Saw franchise, it is refreshing to see that there are still directors out there who are capable of putting the audience through it - the most recent genre example, before Greg McLean’s Wolf Creek (2005), was Fabrice Du Welz’s Calvaire (2004) but, such is the intensity of McLean’s vision, Calvaire seems like a picnic in the woods by comparison…
Proudly sporting the familiar ‘Based on actual events’ tagline, McLean’s film follows what befalls Ben, Kristy and Liz (Nathan Phillips, Kestie Morassi, Cassandra Magrath) on their cross-Australia car holiday - following a nervy confrontation with some bushmen in a roadside café, their first port of call is Wolfe Creek (as it is correctly spelled), a mysterious and beautiful ancient meteorite crater. After their hike, the trio are perplexed to find that all their watches have stopped, and that their car won’t start. Miles from anywhere in the middle of nowhere, the friends grumpily settle down for an uncomfortable night, until kindly stranger Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) pulls up and offers to tow them back to his homestead and fix their engine for free. A long journey ensues - then, a long horror…
As with its obvious predecessor, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), the film’s claims of being a true story are an exaggeration - previous Australian case histories are its inspiration, but that’s as far as it goes.
No matter - this is a terror-fest of the first order. Without wishing to give too much away, sharper Picturenose readers will probably have realized that Mick Taylor as played by John Jarratt (a sublime piece of casting, given that the actor was previously associated with Oz family sitcoms) is in fact not a very nice man - but the extent of his madness is something that has rarely, if ever, been put on screen.
As usual, a number of critics (including no less than Roger Ebert, who gave it a zero-stars rating, saying, ‘It is a film with one clear purpose: To establish the commercial credentials of its director by showing his skill at depicting the brutal tracking, torture and mutilation of screaming young women … I wanted to walk out of the theatre and keep on walking’) have missed the point - Wolf Creek is not an example of ‘torture-porn’, like Hostel (2005) or The Devil’s Rejects (2005), but rather a nightmare of complete artistic integrity, in that McLean’s narrative makes no apologies for the truly cruel games it plays with his audience, or for his obvious intention of making his film an exercise in endurance.
It’s about terror, mutilation and death, FFS - why should it be easy? I, for one, will not be watching it again - but that is not to say it isn’t worth the ride. Just be prepared, OK? Picturenose health warning over…
99 mins.
Tags: Calvaire, Calvaire (2004), Cassandra Magrath, Fabrice du Welz, Greg McLean, John Jarratt, Kestie Morassi, Nathan Philips, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Wolf Creek (2005)
Posted in US, horror |
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October 6th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
More so even than faux intellectual fodder like Haneke’s Funny Games (1997, 2008) I think that Wolf Creek forces the viewer to confront the question of why one watches films in which people are killed.
Ebert trots out the traditional complaint that such films are an exercise in mysogyny and sadism. Certainly, the central character is a sadistic mysogynist but Ebert makes the classic error of supposing that the attitude of the central character is being advocated and that audiences identify with the killer. From the moment Ben and Liz finally kiss our allegiances are firmly rooted with the innocents. That isn’t the case in all horror movies. More often than not the script and performances are so dire that we cheer on the killer just so there will be fewer inane depictions of adolescance on display. Actually sympathizing with the victims is a rare commodity in horror cinema and one that should be applauded.
Strangely enough, Ebert gives The Devils Rejects a glowing review, despite it being a film in which what he claims to find so disturbing about Wolf Creek is genuinely revelled in. Ah, but Zombie’s movie is ’subversive’, doncha know - meaning, of course, that the repugnant family of psychopaths are the heroes of the piece whose attitudes are being wittily advocated…ho, ho, ho. So much for his moral tirade. Reading between the lines, McLean’s error is to present violence as plain unpleasant rather than as a twisted metaphor for anarchic free spirit. As a negative rather than a positive. “If there must be violence in films,” Ebert appears to be arguing, “I want to enjoy it rather than feel uncomfortable about it.”
In a way, I sympathize. McLean plays with all sorts of genre conventions, but perhaps the biggest convention is the idea that horror movies should be fun.
Mind you, it being such a nihilistic film, Wolf Creek isn’t one that you can come out of without asking questions about cinematic violence. Mark Kermode ventures the suggestion that it is a masochistic urge that is being satisfied. I believe that there is a deeply rooted psychological desire to know what dangerous situations are like. A little bit like bungee jumping - you survive - albeit somewhat traumatized - knowing what it is like to fall, and reap whatever survival advantage that may afford.
October 6th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
A most trenchant analysis, Chris - cheers. And thanks, I suppose, for showing me the film in the first place.
I think that Kermode’s point is well made, as is your bungee-jump anology - a logical extension of the ‘Do you like rollercoasters?’ argument frequently used when asked why people ‘like’ horror.
I also think that Wolf Creek draws a great deal of its power, however, from the fact that it is very ‘un-rollercoaster’ like, both in scripting and execution. No hyper-real horror, here - just terrifying cinema verité, in as much as this kind of thing has happened and will happen again, combined with the sheer implacable banality of the madman at the story’s core. He’s just a good ol’ boy, right?
October 7th, 2008 at 9:32 am
‘I think that Kermode’s point is well made’ - James, you go and wash your mouth out with soap!
I can’t offer anything in a critical sense, as I’ve never seen this or Calvaire (a lot of which has to do with my good lady being a bit squeamish), but I am certainly intrigued. What I can offer is that audiences like to feel something - joy, sadness, terror, whatever. A good film will draw on the emotions and you are in no way obliged to enjoy it. How someone like Ebert can denounce one film for its violence and laud another is entirely a question of subjectivity. Why is Man Bites Dog (1992) ‘bad’ and Reservoir Dogs (1992) ‘good? I’ve no idea, and I don’t care. I’d sooner be put through the mill than watch even half an hour of High School Musical (2006).
And I like rollercoasters, by the way.
October 7th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Yes, Colin, I did feel like taking a shower after praising Kermode, and I can see your point about subjectivity, but I still agree with Chris, having now seen both Wolf Creek and The Devil’s Rejects, that Ebert is missing the point.