Three young tourists, two girls and a boy, rent a car and set off on a road trip through the deserts of Australia. When they arrive at the Wolf Creek meteorite crater, they camp there to spend the night, but a downpour forces them to leave early. To their great surprise, they realize that all the mechanical instruments are out of order and the car no longer shows any signs of life. After a few hours, a hunter arrives at the scene in a four-wheel drive and offers to help them by letting them spend the night at his house and trying to fix the car. But in reality, the man is a ferocious killer who kidnaps the three young people to torture them.
Presented out of competition at the last Cannes Film Festival at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, "Wolf Creek" managed to impress some festival-goers, who stood up and fled the theater, disgusted by the excessive violence. This is what the Cannes chronicles report, surely exaggerated, but able to frame the film in question properly. Surely it is not only the explicit violence that is the strong point of "Wolf Creek", although it represents the renewed taste among filmmakers and audiences for rewarding stories loaded with physical and psychological sadism.
But beyond the fierce moments that lead to the most repulsive gore, "Wolf Creek" presents itself as a fascinating and anomalous survival horror, marked by two distinct parts: a first part of preparation, accompanied by a postcard Australia never seen in a horror film, a sort of terrestrial paradise splendidly photographed and capable of giving the viewer a sense of peace and tranquility; a mask that in reality hides the horror and cruelty that will arrive in the second part. All that peace will actually turn out to be desolation: in that place no one can come to your aid, no one can find you (parodying the famous slogan of "Alien" one could say "In Australia, no one can hear you scream!"). In fact, from the intertitles in the opening credits, we are told that the film is based on real events and a warning reads "30,000 people disappear every year in Australia. 90% are found within a month. Some are never found again."
Precisely taking advantage of the potential of the location and drawing from the black chronicle, a Grand Guignol show is staged, with John Jarrat in a Mr. Crocodile Dundee version (in a humorous exchange of lines, the characters will quote the comedy with Paul Hogan with the phrase "... and you call that a knife? This is a knife!"), a villain with macabre humor who will surely remain in the viewer's memory.
The actors are all perfectly cast in their roles and do not build their characters on the classic stereotypes typical of this genre of film: the handsome and confident boy will turn out to be shy and awkward; the silent girl secretly in love will appear as the most combative of the group, unlike her more emancipated friend. Thanks also to the screenplay by Greg McLean, who, in addition to directing the film convincingly (he is a debutant), creates a script rich in plot twists.
In conclusion, "Wolf Creek", although it falls within the tradition of survival horror of which "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "A Quiet Place" are pioneers, manages to present itself as a compact and fierce film, capable even of surprising. Proving that good films are not only made in Hollywood.
Highly recommended.
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