Mick Taylor (John Jarratt, Django Unchained) is back, his shotgun slung over his shoulder, his knife never far from reach, and his blue ute menacing the roads in Australia’s remote regions. His penchant for ushering luckless tourists towards a brutal and bloody end has also returned, his thirst for carnage magnified in his second screen outing. Wolf Creek 2 brings back everything audiences know about the infamous outback killer, his larrikin demeanour and fondness for comedic colloquialisms included, preying on the familiar just as its lead character plays with his victims.
Of course, a new feature doesn’t equate to a vastly different scenario; in writer/director Greg Mclean’s sequel to his 2005 hit horror film, the successful template bears repeating. Without needing to tease the darker proclivities of its antihero this time around, Mick’s mischievous intent is thrust to the fore from the outset, albeit as filtered through multiple sets of sufferers. The remainder – the chases over tricky terrain, the road races on deserted expanses, and the toying with his tied-up targets – follows the formula with obvious merriment.
Mick first reappears at the receiving end of a speeding ticket from two revenue-raising police officers (Killing Time’s Shane Connor and Outland’s Ben Gerrard), his contempt for law enforcement evident. Next, stranded German backpackers Katarina Schmidt (Shannon Ashlyn, TV’s Love Child) and Rutger Enqvist (Phillipe Klaus, Devil’s Dust) stumble into his path at the titular locale – and like their on-screen predecessors nine years ago, find his offer of assistance comes with torturous ulterior motives. When Englishman Paul Hammersmith (Ryan Corr, Packed to the Rafters) interrupts Mick’s dalliance with the duo by virtue of simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he becomes the latest quarry in a long line of similarly unfortunate ‘foreign vermin’.
The ‘based on true events’ tag may be again emblazoned over the film’s opening moments; however, Wolf Creek 2’s valuing of the realistic is much more tenuous than the first instalment – befitting its standing as a gory, gleeful assemblage of genre staples. With his co-scribe Aaron Sterns – the script editor on the filmmaker’s intervening effort, Rogue – Mclean relishes every aspect of the heighted and the horrific in his attempt to amplify the thrills and terror of their slasher set-up. When he isn’t revelling in his charismatic slaughterer’s penchant for slicing and dicing, his ample action scenes put forward a convincing case for next delving into another formidable horror archetype of the wide open road: the killer car film.
Though painted and performed with greater sympathy given his promotion to the story’s primary focus, Mick’s characterisation also springs from the broader, more blatant mode of operation that colours the entire film. Comic aspects are indulged, often at the expense of his formidable legacy, with balance in this portrait of a psychopath often off-kilter. Augmenting Mick’s innate array of outlandish Australian stereotypes in everything from his behaviour to his language to amusing effect, and reiterating his rampant xenophobia at every turn to the point of discomfort, the film becomes as much as satire as a source of scares. Without subtlety, McLean and Stern’s screenplay skewers current political attitudes by adding a right-wing agenda to its discriminating murderer. Jarratt’s skill at selling the heavy-handed commentary as he again creates an almost-affable, always-unnerving executioner cannot be underestimated.
With its gruesome developments, gregarious protagonist and galvanising undercurrent of meaning, Wolf Creek 2 is calculated to disturb and disrupt, an outcome it achieves – although not always in the manner expected. The second serving is awash with confident components, including the handsome essaying of the outback and Corr’s spark as a sparring partner, but the tonal shifts are always jolting. Also absent is the simmering intensity that drove the first film, with tension not-so-convincingly evoked, and suspense and surprise sorely lacking. Removing the edge-of-the-seat feeling may slightly dampen the end result, but the film still succeeds as a showcase of the elements that motivated its existence: Jarratt’s ocker ominousness and Mclean’s mirthful mayhem.
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Wolf Creek 2
Director: Greg Mclean
Australia, 2013, 104 mins
Release date: February 20
Distributor: Roadshow
Rated: MA
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