Wolf Creek -- what's the point?

Cafe Society
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My daughter e-mailed me this link today. The Seattle Times reviewer walked out of the movie.

When did watching people being terrorized, tortured, and murdered become entertainment?

It’s one thing to show graphic carnage (Saving Private Ryan), terror and helplessness (Marathon Man), sexual assault (The Accused) – those intense scenes help us identify with the victims and they add realism, but they’re not the point of the movie.

I just don’t get it. What’s the attraction for these movies? Who likes them? Why?

I know I don’t have to watch them, but I don’t even want the trailers on my TV.

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I think the 1970’s, roughly.

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But it’s BASED ON TRUE EVENTS! So everything must have really happened and it could be happening in your very neighborhood! Don’t you want to be informed? After all forewarned is forearmed.
And fourarmed is twenty-fingered.

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Ebert gave his explanation for the existence of the film: “It is a film with one clear purpose: To establish the commercial credentials of its director by showing his skill at depicting the brutal tracking, torture and mutilation of screaming young women.”

I don’t mind horror films either, like Ebert, and rather enjoyed even some disturbing films like Seven. But I fear I have yet to see any redeeming qualities in this film.

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I agree with the OP. I like horror flicks, but there has to be some suspense, some drama, in there. Perhaps I’m being unfair, since I haven’t seen this movie and never will, but it doesn’t seem like there’s any real point to this movie. That and I think this flick’s most diehard fans are the ones watching it over and over, vigorously masturbating.

Another new pointless suckfest is Hostel, which appears to be an exercise in crudely aping Takashii Miike, without any of Miike’s surrealistic vision, just the gore.

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Shouldn’t it be “Dingo Creek” or “Thylacene Creek”? Wombat Wallow?

I’m supposed to go see this today. I’ll report back later…

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From Ebert’s review:

“If anyone you know says this is the one they want to see, my advice is: Don’t know that person no more.”

Pretty much say’s it all.

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I believe “Wolf Creek”, much like another pointless, spiteful, meanspirited, unfun recent horror movie “House of 1,000 Corpses”, are fanboy hommages to that kind of 70s horror movie style, epitomized by movies like “Last House on the Left”, “I Spit On Your Grave”, and “The Hills Have Eyes”.

Except that those 70s movies have protagonists getting revenge on the antagonists. “House of 1,000 Corpses” is just a piece of fanboy onanism, that isn’t fun for anyone, and is just horribly depressing and pointless. I don’t think, from what I’ve read, that “Wolf Creek” has any revenge plot in it. It sounds pretty unredeemable. I don’t overall personally understand the purpose of making meanspirited, pointless, unfun horror movies. I’ve seen some weirdspirited, seemingly pointless Japanese horror movies, but no matter how weird, there’s still an element of artistry, or craft, or breaking new ground, or just something.

I personally will probably pass on “Wolf Creek” and wait for “Hostel”, because Eli Roth, while paying hommage to other horror filmmakers and periods, is hardly meanspirited, and is often quite ridiculous.

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There’s also this little gem from his review

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Wolfe Creek. Misspelled for the movie, naturally.

Wolfe Creek would be a good locale for a spooky supernatural thriller, possible involving aliens. Sadly this flick is what we get.

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IIRC, there’s some shots of it in Until the End of the World, or at least similar looking landscape.

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And Ebert had good things to say about The Devil’s Rejects.

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The evil killer carved off the “e” with a rusty hatchet!

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and nice touch by them not only to make an offensive pointless flick, but to attempt to be really extra offensive and release it on Christmas day :rolleyes:.

Oh, please, stop, you guys are just too cutting edge taboo for me :rolleyes:.

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It’s a nasty movie now question about it. But in truth the only thing that makes it any different from popular horrors like Jeepers Creepers is that’s is more gritty and realistic.

It’s like an Aussie remake of Chainsaw Massacre.

I wasn’t that shocked by it because I’ve basically seen it all before. A few years ago a French movie called Irreversible shocked me to my core but that was a very different type of movie.

Oh and to actually answer the OP. The point was to get the director noticed and to make a few quid, like all movies :slight_smile:

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I think it was around 2000 years ago.

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And here I actually get to defend it, being one of the only people in the thread to actually have seen it.

It’s not actually any more brutal than any one of a million horror movies where a serial killer goes after teenagers. Is there anything redeeming about Friday the 13th parts 1 - 1000 or Nightmare on Elm Street? Or House of Wax or Jeepers Creepers, or blah blah blah.

The only big differences in Wolf Creek is that

a) There’s about an hour of getting to know the protagonists, so when bad stuff happens you really identify with them rather than them being bimbos who have sex and die.

b) The protagonists don’t really do anything stupid (except a couple of times) so there’s no wishing the idiots would get killed for splitting up and walking through the haunted house backward or anything like that.

c) The setting of the middle of nowhere in Australia is used to great effect, as in, even if they get away from the killer, what are they meant to do?

d) There have been a number of backpacker murders in outback Australia over the years lending the movie an aura of plausibility that a zombie in a hocky mask lacks.

I think the strong negative reactions of a lot of reviewers really shows how well the movie works at what it’s trying to do, which is scare you, and shows up how vapid many other movies that try to pull of the same trick really are.

While I would describe the movie as really REALLY brutal and intense at times it’s not actually any gorier than most R rated movies. There’s a lot of implied stuff, but onscreen there’s not really that much.

Anyway, it’s a horror movie, and one of the scariest I’ve ever seen. Decrying it for being effective at what it sets out to accomplish is disingenuous.

As for opening it on Xmas day, I really don’t get the idea behind that. It’s been out here for months.

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I didn’t like those either. :slight_smile:

I guess my main gripe is that the explicitly gory chase-and-kill movies are crowding out the subtle, more effective horror. I like to be scared but I don’t want to barf, and I don’t want the special effects to overshadow everything else.

People on another board who are praising the movie are complaining about the first hour – too much exposition, let’s get to the action. :rolleyes:

From what you said, it sounds like the movie would have been just as effective without the explicit violence. Would it?

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The thing is, there isn’t all that much expicit violence. That’s kind of my point. By keeping things implied or off camera it’s far FAR more effective than all the onscreen guttings in the world. I recommended it to a friend of mine who’se into horror movies and she didn’t like it because it wasn’t as gory as Saw or Saw 2.

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I have not seen it yet, but I’m a pretty big fan of the nihilistic American horror movies of the 70s that it seems to be a descendant of. Which. What?

So I’ll probly see it eventually. Also I’m intrigued that Roger (“I’m an idiot”) Ebert hates it so much. Bumps it up my list a notch.