Examining Wolf Creek (2005)
A collaborative journey through the outback with Hellish Views...
Intro
By Overqualified Final Girl
Wolf Creek is one of those horror movies that you’ll come across eventually if you’re a horror fanatic, especially if you’re an Australian horror fanatic like myself. Even when it comes to horror media, there’s a novelty to the familiarity of region-specific media. In Wolf Creek’s case, that novelty very quickly turns into fear. The scariest parts of this movie hit ten times harder when you know just how real it gets, just how possible this plot is.
With that being said, Wolf Creek isn’t only scary to people like myself, who have driven through the top end of Australia and witnessed its vast emptiness first-hand. It can also unsettle a viewer to whom Australia’s outback is an alien landscape, which is why I suggested this movie when Harry Evans reached out about a potential collaboration. I figured Wolf Creek would be a good horror flick to review, and that our thoughts and musings on the film wouldn’t overlap or repeat too much.
So join us on this dissection of the familiar and the strange, the separation of reality from fiction, as we examine Wolf Creek.
“Based on True Events”
TW: murder, sexual violence
I’d argue that Wolf Creek is one of the few horror movies that has earned its “based on true events” subtitle, just being a recreation of real crimes (sort of.) The film is largely based on two crimes, the ‘Backpacker Murders’ committed by Ivan Milat between 1989 and 1993, and the murder of Peter Falconio in 2001. The film takes elements of these crimes and uses them to inspire the plot, while still remaining a unique story.
Milat’s presence is all over this film, from Mick Taylor’s appearance and weapons of choice, down to the “head on a stick” scene, as severing the spinal cord was something Milat did to several of his victims, along with using them for target practice, which gets referenced in the scene where Mick is torturing Kristy. The other clear comparison is that Milat targeted backpackers, both visiting from overseas and people who already lived in Australia.
Although the comparisons to Milat are abundant, the plot draws the most inspiration from the murder of Peter Falconio, who was flagged down while road tripping through this outback with his partner, Joanne Lees. The man who flagged them down, Bradley John Murdoch, claimed there was smoke coming from the exhaust of Falconio’s van, shot him behind said van, and then attempted to assault Lees, who fled into the bush and hid for several hours before another vehicle finally drove past and took her to safety. Although Murdoch spent the rest of his life in prison after being convicted of this crime, Falconio’s remains have never been found.
Wolf Creek’s structure is almost identical to the timeline of events on the night that Falconio died, right down to the revelation that Mick Taylor had been following his victims for quite some time, as Murdoch crossed paths with Falconio and Lees and a restaurant on the afternoon of the murder. The film had so much in common with the murder that a temporary injunction was put in place, preventing the film’s release in the Northern Territory, as Murdoch’s trial was still occurring at the time, as there were concerns that the film could influence the outcome.
Horror “based on true events” is a spectrum, with films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre at one end, playing fast and loose with accuracy and inspiration, to tell a unique story with elements of a real crime, and films like Snowtown at the other, where the goal is to accurately retell a very real story. Wolf Creek sits somewhere in the middle, very clearly fictional, but close to reality to make a viewer’s skin crawl.
Revisiting Wolf Creek
I’ve seen Wolf Creek several times, but it’s been a few years since my last rewatch, so I was very excited to revisit it and see how I’d respond to it after so long between viewings. Even though I knew every twist, turn, stab and gunshot like the back of my hand, everything hit harder on this rewatch, especially Kristy’s death. Despite knowing exactly what was coming, I stared at my screen in shock after her death scene, the cruelty of it really stuck with me.
After running Mick off the road, Kristy thinks she’s escaped, but Mick simply shoots one of her car’s tires, causing it to flip and seriously injure her. Mick walks over in the time it takes Kristy to crawl out of the vehicle, and he shows no urgency when he shoots her in the back as she rises to her knees. In any other horror movie, Kristy would have either survived, or the film would linger on her death and the tragedy of her character. She suffered the most at Mick’s hands, the film only shows a few minutes of Mick tormenting her with a rifle, but it’s made clear that she has spent hours being tortured and sexually assaulted. A character experiencing this much suffering, only to die at the last minute is to be expected of a film like Wolf Creek, but the film’s refusal to wallow in its own tragedy is what makes it so shocking to me. The film doesn’t spare a moment of silence for its victims, it goes on with its day, just like Mick Taylor.
The other thing that really stuck out to me on this rewatch was the paranormal undertone. To be clear, Wolf Creek is not a supernatural story, what makes Mick Taylor so scary is just how human he is, but there is a little bit of a paranormal vibe to this film. The most overt example is the scene where Ben, Liz and Kristy realise that their watches all stopped hours ago, while they were wandering around Wolf Creek Crater, and presumably while Mick was tampering with their car offscreen. Although the car and watches aren’t connected, it’s a sinister omen of what’s to come, maybe even an indicator that time is running out for this trio.
Mick also has a slight supernatural quality about him, despite being heavily grounded in reality. His uncanny ability to constantly track his victims while staying hidden until he wants to be seen conveys that he’s a skilled outdoorsman and hunter, but it also makes him feel like a phantom of the outback. This film ends with Mick walking off into the distance before fading into nothingness. In future instalments he will survive lethal injuries and defy old age, as if he could go on haunting the outback forever.
Why is Wolf Creek scary? (Australian perspective)
At the end of the day, Wolf Creek’s familiarity is the scariest thing about it to me, and I guarantee you I’m not the only person who feels that way. Part of the reason this film hits so close to home for me is that I have driven through the outback before (granted, not through the exact same part of the country where the film was shot/set) and although it was the trip of a lifetime, the space felt endless and isolating. Driving through a landscape that always looks the same, for days on end, can be maddening, and witnessing it first-hand also makes you well aware of the risks out there. Forget the possibility of a serial killer for a minute, if anything happens out there, like an accidental injury, snakebite, car trouble, you never know when help will get there. You’re always ages away from the nearest town or service station, cell phone reception is unreliable at best and non-existent at worst, you are on your own out there.
The vastness of the setting makes Mick Taylor’s presence feel not only possible, but plausible. The fact that similar crimes have taken place only reinforces that notion, and the realism of Mick Taylor just hammers the point home. I have met dozens of people who bear some resemblance to Mick Taylor, in attire, mannerisms or profession. It’s just a common personality out here, the loud, vulgar, yet friendly, old bloke. Mick’s portrayal in the film, the switch between a friendly performance to a complete sadist, also feels like a cautionary tale at times, a reminder that you never know what someone is hiding, no matter how friendly they may seem.
Don’t even get me started on how many people I know who are named Mick…
Full Review
By Hellish Views- Harry Evans
Total Score: 10/23.
T.W for sexual violence.
The main thing I have to say about Wolf Creek (2005) is that it wasn’t nearly as nasty as I thought. Mean, certainly, and very grim, but frankly I breathed a sigh of relief as things started darkening. I came in knowing the premise, and I was very slightly nervous about how outside my usual subgenres-of-choice this film might be. I love some unpleasant shit, but only to a point.
The film begins in Broome, Australia, 1999. Perverted comments hang in the air almost immediately, but thankfully our Final Boy Ben is not the perpetrator. Ben is planning to embark on a road trip with two British women, Kristy and Liz. They will be travelling for three weeks, and it feels very likely to get awkward fast: Liz and Ben have a mutual attraction, but Ben and Kristy have had their own secret dealings following the revelries the night before departure. An easy basis for tension - but it never comes, as this scene was cut from later editions of the film.
Anyway. Early on, I was already big on the camera angles. There’s an almost found-footage feel to proceedings, and eventually we do see there is a handheld camera being used (we get a solid Captain’s Log joke from Ben) by the trio.
Ben, Liz and Kristy seem like a fun bunch. Their dialogue feels fresh and realistic, and because you mostly like them, the dread is heightened hugely at what terrible fate might befall them.
There are extensive nature shots in this film, which work super effectively to foster that isolated feeling that will dominate the latter half of the narrative. Plus, for me, 10,000 miles away, Australia is beautiful in how desolate it can be. As they put it, ‘there’s just nothing out here’.
The trio trundle along through the bush, taking turns to drive, entertain one another, or sleep. Eventually they reach the last fuel stop they’ll find for some time - Emu Creek. It is chock full of perverts, and deeply unsettling. They get the fuck outta there.
Finally, we reach the eponymous location. Wolf Creek is the site of a meteorite crater. A storm brews just as they arrive, and not just meteorologically. Ben and Liz share a few kisses, but that’s the least of the drama. Their watches stop dead, right after a good amount of chat about extraterrestrials. Creepy shit. Then they realise the car is dead too. A tad more frightening. They huddle together in the car, and soon it is pitch black outside.
A light appears in the darkness, and for a minute aliens seem likely. It’s only a bushman though - charming but nonetheless offputting Mick. He offers to take ‘em back to a place he can fix their car, and after a little back and forth, they agree. It is a long journey. Too long. They end up in a ghost town, one of those ‘places people have forgotten about’. Yikes.
As if this whole thing isn’t screaming serial killer, Mick tells a lovely story about a boar goring a pitbull. There is some deeply uncomfortable silence - in which you realise just how perfectly cast Mick is (everyone destroys their performances, bar perhaps Ben, who doesn’t have much to do).
The trio go to sleep (or rather, slip into a drugged stupor) with Mick mere metres away. Unsurprisingly, Liz awakes bound and gagged. She’s no sucker though, getting free of her bindings and the room she’s trapped in within minutes. She is all set to get away when the first screams ring out. Disturbing stuff, and bound to get worse. In a fucking queasy scene it quickly becomes evident that Mick is almost certainly a rapist, as well as a murderer. Liz lures him away from Kristy by causing a decent-size explosion, and we see that there is a mutilated corpse in one of the torture room’s darker corners.
Mick returns, but is quickly shot. It’s clear that Liz has never seen Scream (1996) as she doesn’t shoot him again to make sure he is dead, merely hitting the now prostrate killer in the back a few times. In her defence, it is an extremely stressful situation. However, as you knew he would, Mick gets up and blasts their escape vehicle (a ute) with a shotgun. It narrowly misses them, and they escape off into the Bush. The ute nearly careens off a cliff, then, intentionally, the two women push it off and hide on the cliff-face. Mick, having followed them at an unnatural pace, nearly finds them, but is forced to look further afield. They seize the chance to look back at the ghost town for another car.
Liz searches desperately for an appropriate car, and perhaps for Ben. She leaves Kristy completely alone, in a state of unmanageable distress. In a familiar and gut-churning sequence, Liz discovers the mementoes many killers seem to collect. Receipts and tickets, photographs and even videos. We learn Mick has been pursuing our trio since Emu Creek, at least. Terrifying.
When she finally clambers into a car, it’s no surprise when he appears from the backseat and stabs her. That said, my attention had drifted, and I actually was shocked. Her fingers fly off in a spurt of blood. Mick absolutely fucks her up, destroying her spinal cord and leaving her for dead in the dark. Her fate is never confirmed, and this is perhaps the most unpleasant element of it all.
By this point Kristy has fled, perhaps aware deep down that this is her last chance. She is nearly saved by a kindly old man, but in an instant his head becomes jelly from a high-calibre bullet. Mick pulls up in a new car, just waiting to chase. It is some sick behaviour to watch. He catches Kristy quick, even in her newfound vehicle, and shoots out her tire after she runs him off the road. There is a long moment in which you know he is going to kill her, and when he does, it feels brutal despite the lack of gore.
Finally, we see Ben’s fate in more detail. He is crucified, with snarling dogs chained up close at hand. Other rancid bodies surround him. He manages to escape, bizarrely, and as he limps weakly into the wilderness an eclipse covers the sun. All hope is swallowed up. Until it isn’t - and Ben is saved, discovered by ordinary people and taken back to civilization. Things are not easy after, given the circumstances of the murder, but in the end the worst is over. At least, for Ben. Back in the Bush, Mick walks toward the horizon, and, like a devilish phantom, disappears suddenly into the wind. A fucking wild ending shot that I enjoyed hugely.
Overall, it is an odd and borderline unpleasant watch, but definitely worth your time if you’re interested in horror on an academic level, or if you love a torture-porn type movie. I can certainly see myself rewatching it, despite my mixed response, and the opening half is really quite excellent. Australian horror is always uniquely disturbing, and I am keen to see more.
How does Wolf Creek compare to British-focused horror movies?
For this question, I watched Ben Wheatley’s Kill List (2011), an altogether different film to Wolf Creek. I will review this in full soon, so keep an eye out. Anyway, the movie is similar to the one we’re focusing on today in that it is about horrific violence and that inescapable reality that some people don’t blink when it comes to killing, or worse. Both films have touches of black comedy, and while it is more central to Kill List, it achieves the same effect in each. Every moment of humour exaggerates the shock of the brutality when it finally comes. Each film is bleak in its depiction of its setting - the rural Australia of Wolf Creek is a place where women are made to feel (and are) deeply unsafe, and nobody is truly on your side. The council housing and dark warehouses of Kill List show a sickening and depressing image of England. Everything is grey, where in Australia everything is brown. Colour is scarce, as are people you can trust. There is a violence in the cultural norms, whether that be drunken domestics or open misogyny.
British horror more widely does occasionally touch on the horror of rural isolation, but rarely. Films like Men (2022), Hot Fuzz (2007) and The Wicker Man (1973) are some of the strongest examples where you see that same uneasy feeling that Wolf Creek inspires. That response to being in a place where nature and the old ways are in charge, not you. In the UK there have been serial killers, of course, but it is not what you’d call a cultural fear. People backpacking into the wilderness and being savaged isn’t really a subgenre here in the way I suspect it is in the land down under.
Why it’s so scary (from the British perspective)
Even without seeing Wolf Creek, the landscape is what stands out immediately as terrifying from a British perspective. In the same fashion as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), we are thrust into an effectively alien space, sweltering and dangerous in ways we truly are unfamiliar with. There is an innate hostility to the outback, and, while watching, to Mick, who serves as a metaphorical incarnation. He is unpredictable, unknown, and deeply dangerous. The horror of the film from a UK watcher is very much in the otherness of the situation. Sure, there are rural spaces here you can go missing if you’re not careful, but it isn’t vast swathes of the country that brim with hostile life. Even the mention of roos hammers this home.
Conclusion
By Overqualified Final Girl
Wolf Creek is a horror movie that will stick with you if you let it. You can take it at face value, an Australian slasher with ‘torture porn’ elements, the opposite of a tourism advert, or you can look a little closer, peel back the layers and find something bone chilling, regardless of where you’re from. It’s a film that shows me something new on every rewatch, whether that’s a cultural reference to chuckle at or an act of violence that makes my skin crawl.
Working on this project with Harry was interesting. This was his first introduction to this series, and there was a point in time where I’d rewatch both the movies and TV series at least once a year, so we came into this with polar opposite perspectives. The result was a patchwork of dissections and comparisons, and although we covered completely different topics with differing opinions, we both arrived at the same conclusion regarding why this film is so frightening. It’s the outback, and anything or anyone could be out there…
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Gaaaah I’m doing an essay on this soon, for my Australian Gothic Review! I’m going to give this a thorough read!
Wow what a great surprise