The Film

Two English girls (Cassandra Magrath and Kestie Morassi) hook up with an Australian hunk (Nathan Phillips) during their gap year and, after a night of rowdy partying, head off on a road trip across the Outback. When their car breaks down, however, they cross paths with a jolly local (John Jarratt), and soon find themselves wishing dearly that they hadn't accepted his offer to repair their vehicle...

Wolf Creek is a film of two distinct and very uneven halves. With an overlong first act that lies somewhere between a tourist advertisement for the Australian Outback and a mockumentary charting the travels of three loudmouthed youths, you might be forgiven for assuming it to be little more than a vacuous experiment with a high definition video camera by first-time writer and director Greg McLean. Of course, anyone who has encountered the film's marketing will know that it is, in fact, nothing of the sort: waiting beyond the plodding introductory scenes is an intense exploitation horror flick that evokes the same atmosphere of dread and hopelessness as Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. That's high praise indeed.


Of course, Hooper's film had a similarly slow setup, and it didn't come off any the worse for it. The difference is in the execution rather than the basic premise - both could be effectively summarised as "obnoxious kids head off into the middle of nowhere and run afoul of maniac(s)" - but whereas Hooper from the outset injected a much-needed dose of dread that steadily built up before coming to an explosive head, McLean seems to feel that an opening title card claiming that the film is based "on real events" is sufficient. That's not to say that he fails to include any tension at all in the first half, but the emphasis is definitely on the trio of backpackers, and let's just say that I personally would be loath to spend any time with such a troupe of superficial jackasses. Their drinking, partying, silly songs and bland love triangle are supposed to endear them to us, I'm sure, but part of me was just willing them to vanish into some deep crater, never to be seen again.

Then, just when I'm beginning to give up hope, the film does an abrupt U-turn and turns into a decent little no holds barred horror movie. Its saving grace can be summed up in two words: John Jarratt. Well, that's not entirely fair, but the veteran Australian soap opera actor certainly deserves the lion's share of the credit for making it watchable. His performance as serial killer Mick Taylor is so energetic, so nuanced, so twisted, and so god-damned funny that it almost makes up for the 30 minutes of tedium that have preceded his entrance. In fact, once Jarratt gets to work and McLean begins tightening the screws, the three doofuses who have fallen into Taylor's little trap begin to improve too. In particular, Cassandra Magrath, in the role of Liz Hunter, establishes herself as an effective horror heroine in what initially seems deceptively like the Marilyn Burns role in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. She proves to be feisty and resourceful, even if she does commit a couple of the head-slapping horror faux pas that are always infuriating, even if they are probably an accurate representation of how someone under such intense pressure would act.


With Jarratt chewing the scenery like nobody's business, McLean does a commendable job of not allowing him to overwhelm the film. He does so by way of his low-key photography, with the flat, oversaturated and decidedly video-like aesthetic of the first half giving way to a highly contrasted, desaturated look that constitutes an impressive and largely successful attempt to make digital video look like 16mm film. Clearly owing a great debt to documentary filmmakers, he adopts an unrelenting approach to the violence and sadism perpetrated by Taylor, giving the events a level of honesty that would no doubt have been lost in a glossier, higher budget production.

How much you get out of Wolf Creek will depend on whether or not you are able to stomach the bloated first half, as well as your ability to empathise with the protagonists. With some judicious editing, this could have been a taut and effective exploitation flick. As it is, though, as good as the remaining 50 minutes are, the fact remains that in order to enjoy them, you must be content to slog through 30 minutes of tedium. McLean clearly knows how to deliver a horror movie; it's just a shame Wolf Creek spends so much time pussyfooting before it decides to actually be one.

Note: The American release of the film re-inserts two scenes that were removed from the theatrical cut of the film and are, on this UK release, presented as deleted scenes. (This first features Kristy waking up in bed with Ben; the second is an extended sequence with Liz trapped down a well.) These scenes were removed from the final edit by director Greg McLean because he felt that they detracted from the film's overall flow. As such, it would be more appropriate to refer to this shorter version as the director's cut than the longer edition.

HD DVD Presentation

Note: the image quality section of this review was written by DVD Times hardware reviewer David Mackenzie.

This is the second time I've evaluated (and reviewed) the video transfer/encode for Wolf Creek on HD DVD. The first version was the American release from The Weinstein Company, which was encoded in AVC video. The transfer was by no means shoddy and indeed contained a good amount of detail in many scenes - particularly the harsh, grainy night-time ones - although it suffered from some visible compression artefacts (meaning it fell short of the outstanding AVC encodes that Paramount frequently serve up).

More relevantly, this UK version is presented with MPEG-2 video, which is a somewhat odd choice. The result is that the same scenes which were mildly blocky on the US release are somewhat more objectionable here - including the four opening shots which feature rippling waves and blowing trees. The fast-moving party scene at the start of Chapter 2 is also particularly affected. And although it's very minor, I would speculate that the compressionists have employed some mild horizontal filtering (most notable on the "True Crime" logo at the beginning, which is pin-sharp on the US release) to ease the strain on the aged MPEG-2 codec. On the up-side, there's still plenty of detail visible despite this, and personally I find detail with some compression artefacts preferable to a lack of both. Additionally, there's no annoying edge enhancement or noise/film grain reduction, which is good. Finally, as a minor note, the film is presented here in its theatrical 1.85:1 aspect ratio, unlike the US release, which had the mattes opened up slightly to 1.78:1.

Although this means that Optimum's UK video presentation of Wolf Creek is certainly not a disaster, I'd have a hard time recommending it given the complete superiority of the American release, which can be imported from DVD Times' affiliate, DVD Pacific. It features fewer compression artefacts and a very small amount of extra detail.

The only audio track offered is a Dolby Digital 5.1 affair, which sounds similar, if not identical, to the track on the US release. Most impressive is the use of directional sound for the ambient effects - check out the opening scene to hear seagulls cackling all around you, while the wind blows from some indeterminate position. Dialogue is generally very good, although, especially in the first half, it is at times a little difficult to make out; this, however, is due to the intentionally high level of background noise in many scenes rather than the HD DVD.

There are no subtitles - another point in the US release's favour.

Finally - and this is a major problem - the disc, or rather its menus, didn't work properly on my Xbox 360 add-on drive. Selecting anything other than "Play" would cause the text overlay to disappear and the menu to become stuck showing the background footage in an endless loop, requiring the disc to be ejected and restarted. As a result, I couldn't access any of the bonus materials, and had to hook my Xbox 360 add-on up to my computer in order to view them. Therefore, if you use this hardware to view your HD DVD movies, caveat emptor, as the saying goes.

Extras

Wolf Creek was released in the UK on DVD as a 2-disc special edition set, including several bonus features, all of which have been replicated here for the HD DVD release.

First up is an audio commentary featuring Greg McLean, who is joined by co-producer/executive producer Matt Hearn and actors Cassandra Magrath and Kestie Morassi. It's not a bad track, but it's not exactly a brilliant one either. Although McLean does take some time to discuss various plot issues and changes that had to be made as a result of the low budget and weather conditions, the track is largely anecdotal, with the two actors doing little more than mentioning how much/little fun they had shooting particular scenes. Also - and this is just a personal niggle - one of the actors clears her throat so many times it eventually becomes annoying.

Beyond the commentary, the most substantial is The Making of Wolf Creek, a fairly comprehensive 50-minute look behind the scenes. All the usual bases are covered, from the casting, to the shooting of the film itself, to the ways in which computer techniques such as digital grading were used to improve the final product. A judicious amount of behind the scenes footage is included, along with interviews with many of the key participants.

Three deleted scenes follow, ranging from brief (just over half a minute) to fairly lengthy (a three and a half minute scene involving Liz making an unpleasant discovery down a well). All three scenes have been digitally colour corrected and include music, although it's unclear whether this implies that they were cut from the film at the last moment or simply given extra special treatment for the DVD release.

A 21-minute interview with actor John Jarratt, who plays Mick Taylor, follows. Jarratt goes into some amount of detail about how he was chosen for the role, how he prepared for it, and his philosophy on the character, although the format of the interview - it's essentially a single uninterrupted recording of Jarratt rambling on about whatever comes into his mind - is both a blessing and a curse.

The one-minute teaser trailer is also included on this disc, along with an "exclusive clip" for Cry_Wolf, a by-the-numbers American PG-13 rated horror movie - and a film that, due to the similarity in titles, is often confused with Wolf Creek. Needless to say, the two are obviously completely different beasts.

Overall

Over a year later and Optimum have delivered a version of Wolf Creek that fails to improve on the older US release from the Weinstein Company and, in many ways, constitutes a step back. For what it is, it's not a bad disc, but, unless you absolutely feel the need to own the original shorter cut, my advice would be to avoid this one and pick up the US version.

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