WOLF CREEK 2

It has taken nine years to happen but Greg McLean has finally delivered a sequel to his Australian horror classic, “Wolf Creek”.  The imaginatively titled “Wolf Creek 2” hit Australian cinemas this week, and although it looks destined to be a hit, unfortunately compared to the original film, this sequel is something of a dud.

“Wolf Creek 2” sees us once again heading to the Australian outback where serial killer Mick Taylor calls his home.  We are witness to Mick stalking, terrorizing, capturing and even torturing his prey, as his unlucky victims hopelessly await for the tables to turn on their captor and that they get the chance to escape and more importantly, to live.

As simple as that synopsis is above, that is basically what “Wolf Creek 2” is all about.  There is very little to the film, and unlike the first film, we are not given any characters to care about here.  McLean has fallen into the trap that many filmmakers do when making sequels to horror films particularly when the original film has an iconic villain attached to it (and make no mistake, Mick Taylor is definitely iconic);he has made the second film entirely about the serial killer. For the whole film, we are in the company of Mick, and although he is no doubt an effective villain, he is not a character you want to spend an entire 100 minutes with.  He is such a deplorable person; violent, racist and incredibly aggressive, which are not the traits of a person you want to be around, much less care about.  When it comes to monsters, the trick to keeping them scary is to keep them in the shadows as long as possible, which is exactly what McLean did with the original film as Mick is only present in that film for the final 40 minutes.  By exposing him to the light for the entire running time, the monster no longer remains scary, in fact the opposite happens, we see what makes the villain tick and he ultimately becomes more of a joke than something to be afraid of.  Freddy Krueger is the perfect example of this because in the first “A Nightmare On Elm Street” film, Wes Craven did not overexpose his monster and as a result, he remained chilling, but as each subsequent sequel arrived and the films became more about Freddy himself, he changed from being a terrifying, child killer haunting teenagers dreams and turned into an absolute goofball constantly sprouting bad one-liners and puns.  From the way “Wolf Creek 2” has arrived, I fear that Mick Taylor may be heading for the same fate, if there are indeed any more films in this series.  

While the decision to focus on Mick entirely seemed to doom this production from the get-go, in truth, every decision Greg McLean has chosen with “Wolf Creek 2” seems to be the wrong one and everything that made the first film so great, he has gone the opposite way and thus has created a very inferior product.  One of the strongest elements of “Wolf Creek” was the absolute realism McLean was able to capture and what ultimately made the film so terrifying.  That realism is totally gone in the sequel though, and right from the opening frame, there is no confusion that what we are watching is a movie and that Mick Taylor is a character in that movie; he no longer feels like a real man, rather a caricature of the villain from the original film.  Even John Jarratt’s performance as the cold blooded killer feels a little off this time too.  He is not terrible, not by a long shot, but his performance at times is far too big and over-the-top compared to his more nuanced and restrained performance in the first film.

As I mentioned earlier, in the first film we were given characters to care about and importantly, time to get to know them too.  This is not the case with “Wolf Creek 2”, as we are quickly introduced to a backpacking couple and through a very quick montage, we witness the sort of scenes of them partying and having a good time, that we actually got to experience in the original.  Then Mick shows up, and quite frankly because I do not know these backpackers at all, I could really care less whether or not Mick kills them.  This totally works against the film as no suspense can be created if we do not care about the characters.  For the next hour of the film, we then watch Mick stalking and playing with his victims.  To be honest, I reacted totally against the film during the entire first hour.  I really disliked it a lot and the fact that the basis for the majority of Mick’s hatred was so racist-based, I also found it quite uncomfortable to watch.  I also felt that a lot of the violence was far too brutal especially in relation to the film’s sillier and jokey tone.  It just did not gel with me.  In fact, it is not until the final half hour, after Mick has captured his poor victim, that the film becomes not just bearable but also entertaining.  It is also no coincidence that this is when the film slows down and becomes more worried about character and we (finally) start to learn something about our protagonist.  While I liked this section of the film more than the rest of the film, the whole lair setting feels like it has come out of a Rob Zombie film (particularly “House Of 1000 Corpses”) and stylistically feels at odds with the rest of the movie.

Speaking of the film’s style, I also thought that visually “Wolf Creek 2” did not hold a candle to the original film.  The gorgeous sun-drenched images are gone and are replaced with murky scenes shot in the night and dark, leaving behind all of the beauty the original had.  This new film has a different cinematographer than the first (sadly William Gibson took his own life soon after completing work on McLean’s “Rogue”) and unfortunately Toby Oliver is unable to replicate the genius of the original film’s look.  McLean attempts to use Mick’s silhouette again to create menace, but it just does not have the same affect in a back-lit scene set at night.  This is not the only thing McLean tries to replicate from the first film, as a lot of the memorable dialogue is reworked into this film (“The winner”), and it just fails to capture the same brilliance and even reminds the viewer that they are watching an inferior product.  It actually comes across as a desperate wink to audiences who liked “Wolf Creek” and is a little embarrassing.

One thing that I need to point out is the fact that “Wolf Creek 2” arrived in Australian cinemas in an altered format.  Sadly, the film was cut by two minutes (and a lot of the gore minimized) in an effort to garner the more audience friendly MA rating, after the film was initially hit with the restricted R rating.  While this is unfortunate, horror fans should not fret because the film is still incredibly bloody and the full R rated cut has been promised to be put out onto bluray, so we will eventually see the film in all its glory.

Overall, while I have torn apart poor old “Wolf Creek 2”, it is not a terrible film; in fact far from it.  What it is though, is an incredible disappointment and is not a worthy follow up to the original classic.  McLean’s direction is sloppy throughout, and the story is as bare bones as could be, with the main actors giving flat performances or going so over the top, it becomes unbelievable.  “Wolf Creek 2” starts promisingly with a relatively amusing scene involving Mick and a couple of highway patrolmen, but it isn’t until the film’s last thirty minutes that it then becomes bearable again.  Granted, this half an hour is entertaining enough that it saves the film from being an entire wreck, but sadly “Wolf Creek 2”ends up being nothing more than a minor time diversion, and is not a patch on the classic former film.

2.5 Stars.