“First rule of the outback, hero: You never, ever stop!”
The H-Bomb: Way back in 1997, Scream 2 laid out the basic rules for a horror movie sequel; the body count must be bigger, and the death scenes must be much more elaborate. The bigger, the bloodier, the better. Wolf Creek 2, the sequel to the 2005 Aussie slasher flick, follows those rules to the letter. It is bigger, it is bloodier. Is it better? Not quite. See, Wolf Creek 2 sadly follows another rule that applies to most horror sequels… it is an inferior film to the one that came before it. But, I’m getting ahead of myself…
The original, purportedly based on true events, was essentially Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the Outback, in which three young backpackers fell victim to psychotic bushwhacker, Mick Taylor (John Jarratt), while visiting the Wolf Creek crater. Gritty and intense, it relied less on blood and guts and more on visceral suspense, as well as an utterly unnerving performance by Jarratt as the jovial lunatic, to scare the shit out of us, the audience. There was plenty of gore on display, but writer/director Greg McLean was more interested in twisting our stomachs into knots than making us toss our cookies.
The sequel, in accordance with genre rules, goes the bigger, bloodier route, providing more victims for Mick to dispatch, decapitate, and disembowel in excessively gruesome, over-the-top ways. This time, we follow two German backpackers (Shannon Ashlyn, Philippe Klaus) as they trek across the expansive Australian countryside and eventually end up at the Wolf Creek National Park. They pitch a tent to camp out for the night, when good old Mick happens by in his truck.
Some general pleasantries about fire safety are exchanged between them, but Mick decides to show his true colors sooner, rather than later, this time, and our German couple find themselves on the run for their lives. As they’re relentlessly pursued through the brush by this slap happy, kill crazy redneck, they cross paths with an English motorist, Paul (Ryan Corr), who also winds up in the middle of Mick’s crosshairs.
Sadly, I’m going have to keep the plot description rather general, since divulging details would mean shooting out spoilers, and Mick surely would not like that. I will say that I went into Wolf Creek 2 expecting it to go all Hostel: Part II on my ass and just give me a lazy retread of the original, and to my surprise, director McLean had something else up his sleeve entirely, when he decided to return to this character and this world.
That is one thing I have to hand to this sequel, despite working in a very familiar genre, it manages to be fairly unpredictable. Others who see it may beg to differ, but for me, it went in some pretty unexpected directions. Certain characters exit the picture faster than expected, and a number of sequences, such as a peculiar dinner table scene, that I thought was going to go one way, ended up going another way completely. As someone who can usually guess, with dead shot accuracy, what’s going to happen in a horror flick, I appreciate that this one kept me on my toes.
I wish I could keep the praise up for the entire review, but as I stated earlier, Wolf Creek 2 also follows another rule of sequels, it is inferior to the original. The main misstep is that far more screen time is given to the killer, Mick. As is often the case, the less the monster is seen, the scarier it is, and in this case, Mick is shown in all his tobaccy-chomping glory from the very first scene, spouting such winning catchphrases as “Welcome to Australia, cocksucker!” Jarratt is still scary good in the role, but much like Freddy Krueger, the more we see of this killer, and the more he’s allowed to speak, the less threatening he becomes.
McLean also should have remembered that a killer is scarier when his motives are more obscure. In the first movie, Mick targeted backpackers, yes; however, this time, he espouses a very anti-foreigner philosophy. Not anti-immigrant so much as anti-tourist, bemoaning how all these foreigners are coming and ruining the natural beauty of his beloved countryside, or something. This half-assed political philosophy was supposed to add something to Mick’s character… it didn’t.
It’s not only the handling of Mick’s character that McLean mucked up, but the pacing, as well. Aside from letting it run for too long, at 107 minutes, he crams the first two thirds with chase, upon chase, upon chase, to the point where it becomes deadening (I’ll say nothing of the ridiculous kangaroo scene), only to bring things to a grinding halt in the final stretch, with Mick sitting down to play twenty questions with one of his victims. The original Wolf Creek was a slow burn that built to a thrilling climax, this one did almost the exact opposite.
Since it may seem like I’m panning the hell out of Wolf Creek 2, let me just state in plain English, I enjoyed the film. As a grimy, gruesome horror flick, it gets the job done. It’s certainly worth a Netflix stream. As a follow up to Wolf Creek, it doesn’t even come within pissing distance of the sheer intensity of that film. I had hopes that this sequel would live up to its predecessor, since it comes from the same director, but as that immortal classic, Scream 2, taught us, that rarely ever happens.
