The unmerciful outback horror Wolf Creek arrives on our shores with a great deal of entirely justified hype attached. Finally, genre aficionados can revel in the kind of good old-fashioned, rusty-bladed entertainment that would once have seen the film quaintly written off as a ‘video nasty’ by high-minded tabloids. Already lavished with terrified praise at Cannes and Sundance earlier this year, Wolf Creek has earned favourable comparison with Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chain Saw Massacre and was promptly snapped up for worldwide distribution by Miramax for a cool $7.7 million. Needless to say, debutant writer and director Greg McLean is rather thrilled with the response thus far.
“I can’t believe it,” he tells me on a recent visit to London. “It was such a thrill to make it to Sundance, but Cannes? Wow. But I’m really happy about the response everywhere so far. I like movies that stick in your head and won’t leave you alone and I’ve had so many people coming up to say they can’t get to sleep after, that they had nightmares weeks later, that they woke up wondering if there was anyone in their room. I’m starting to wonder if I did too good a job! I mean, I love it, but I keep feeling like I have to apologise to everybody.”
Not everyone is quite so ecstatic about the film’s release. Just days before McLean arrived a planned screening for the Australian Prime minister and assorted dignitaries was mysteriously cancelled.
“It hasn’t been released at home yet”, explains the 31 year-old director. “We’re opening in Europe and America first. But I’m expecting to get blamed for any drop in tourist figures. I’m just waiting for the call saying ‘we want to talk to you about this little movie mate’. But that’s been the only official word so far. There was a government screening scheduled and we thought ‘cool’. But then today we received an e-mail saying that they’re not sure watching this film would be appropriate.”
Certainly, Wolf Creek would, one suspects, deter even the most ardent backpacker. Set in the depopulated expanses of Western Australia, the film follows the misfortunes of two British girls (played by Aussie actresses Cassandra Magrath and Kestie Morassi) and their flirtatious native guide (Nathan Phillips) as they journey out towards Wolf Creek National Park. When their car breaks down, light years from civilisation, chirpy fair-dinkum trucker Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) rescues the gang and tows them back to the abandoned mine he calls home. When the tourists awaken from a groggy night by the fireside, they find they’ve been hog-tied and strung up for the sadistic amusement of their host. From there, it’s all over bar the screaming.
“I wanted to make Mick Taylor a sort of classic Australian character,” says McLean. “I think of him as Mick (Crocodile) Dundee’s evil twin. I wanted to take that kind of big Australian cartoon character, like Steve Irwin or Slim Dusty, the country and western singer, and subvert it by imagining the blackest things such a person might be capable of.”
Mick Taylor maybe a mythic Australian bogeyman, but he is, at least partly, drawn from life, taking cues from Ivan Milat’s notorious backpacker killings in the early '90s and the strange disappearance of British tourist Peter Falconio. As the film’s opening titles remind us, these grisly cases are merely the tip of the iceberg with thousands reported missing every year.
“I worked out in western Australia for a time and you really don’t take chances out there,” admits McLean. “You meet all sorts of freaky people. Even during the shoot when we were doing the aerial shots, this strange car full of men pulled up and we just took off. Also my brother-in-law had his car broken into and wound up getting chased by some mountain man with a shotgun. It’s like the Wild West out there. You’ll often here of some guy going on a killing spree. That’s actually what happened with the real guy Crocodile Dundee was based on. He went mad and ended up getting shot in the head in a stand-off with the police.”
Admittedly, long before Mick makes an appearance, Wolf Creek is already a menacing experience. The film’s outback bars are frequented by other gnarled looking gentlemen who whisper sweet nothings about rape, while the desolate landscape promises few potential rescuers.
“It is a particularly nasty film for women I know,” says McLean half apologetically. “It’s much harder for them to take. Not that it doesn’t scare the shit out of guys but they can’t really make the leap into what a nightmare of rape and torture would be like. Horrible stuff. So I horrify women. That should be great for all my future relationships.”
Well, I venture, there’s always the chance they’ll cling to you in terror.
“Well, that’s actually been my entire motivation all along. Why else would people make horror films?”