Greg McLean’s Australian outback ordeal horror Wolf Creek has spun off into a new six-part TV series that's off to a shaky start...
This Wolf Creek review contains spoilers. This article originally appeared on Den of Geek UK.
Those who've seen 2005 outback horror Wolf Creek will know that the danger really kicks in for U.S. tourists the Thorogoods after the twenty foot crocodile trying to swallow their boy has been put out of action by a bullet. Their rifle-bearing rescuer, chortling, affable Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) is the real predator.
That’s revealed soon enough in this TV spin-off from Greg McLean's celebrated debut film and its diluted sequel. McLean, who co-wrote and produced this series as well as directing the final episode, wastes little time in giving Wolf Creek fans what they want, namely heartlessly cartoonish executions. Within minutes of meeting them, Taylor stabs, slices and shoots his way through three-quarters of the American tourist family, teen survivor Eve only making it out alive when he gives her floating body up as croc-bait.
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It’s a nastily efficient reintroduction of Taylor's film character, a blokey serial killer with the chat of Crocodile Dundee and the invincibility of Michael Myers. He sets about the Thorogood murders unhurriedly and in good humor, entertaining himself with puns as he guns down a child, stabs a woman in the head and slits a man's throat. Another day, another group of tourists for his charnel house.
When Eve Thorogood is discovered alive the next day, she soon assesses the local police as being about as effective as a chocolate billycan and vows to avenge her family's murders solo. That's the short but by no means sweet premise of this six-part series. Will Eve be the one to finally bring down Taylor? Or will he live to walk off into yet another outback sunset?
After the pre-credits bloodbath, episode one fizzles out quickly. There's not a secondary character to speak of and the only violence carried out is to the art of screenwriting. One baffling hospital scene ends abruptly with a police officer rubbing the crotch of the doctor treating Eve. Apparently on permanent heat, said officer then grins lustily at her sergeant and answers his query as to what kind of a person Eve is with the head-scratching verdict: "She's pretty."
It all adds up to a decidedly odd atmosphere, though not, presumably, in the way its creators were hoping. With its stilted dialogue and puzzlingly sexually-charged encounters, it aims for eerily sinister but lands somewhere near dated porno. Less Picnic At Hanging Rock, more Picnic At Hanging… you get the idea.
The local police also take a decidedly odd approach to Eve, in that their default position is not to believe her story. "Are you sure it's not just a figment of her imagination?" asks Officer Horny, who should have paid more attention when that doctor was explaining about the bullet in Eve’s back. "What if it was your girl [responsible] and you're busy looking the other way?" asks another, displaying all the investigative powers of a tin can.
Eve's obviously right to ditch them and trust in her own abilities, which include running fast (she was on course to compete in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as a track athlete before her painkiller addiction struck) and finding the cash and wherewithal to buy a camper van from a pair of inexplicably cockney hippies running a car dealership.
It's a jumble of oddities, episode one. The malevolent potential of the outback setting, atmospherically captured by cinematographer Geoffrey Hall, drains away the second anyone opens their mouth. There are so many slo-mo shots in strange places it begins to feel as if they're being used to fill time rather than to create ambiance.
Taylor's monstrous character, seen at one point in black and white dancing a drunken jig among his murder trophies, is played for laughs rather than dread. His dialogue has jokey nods to Taxi Driver and yes, Crocodile Dundee. As for the pathos of Eve's loss or sense of her as a person, it isn't felt at all. You're left with the uncomfortable suspicion that her character description in the script comprised solely the words "she’s pretty."
Light on plot and character, with a mixed bag of atmospheres, episode one of Wolf Creek is no triumph. This TV series needs to work much harder to live up to the reputation of its namesake feature.
Wolf Creek will premiere in the United States on October 14th on the Pop network.
