Everything said there by Kermode and Jarratt was extremely relevant and true. Watching a horror movie is a masochistic experience. If you somehow missed Wolf Creek - DO check it out. A horror film with a brutal heart. Hopefully after the film you feel good to be alive!
Someone gave me this movie to watch and i knew nothing about it , before Mick turned up i thought it was an alien abduction movie , fuck me was i wrong , this is one of the best horrors ive ever seen.
One of my favorite bad guys ever. My list includes Khan from star trek, Hans Gruber from die hard. I'm sure there are a couple others. But the bad guy in this is so well acted, he's brilliant
My take on the movie was that it was asking the audience to identify with the killer, not the victims. When they had the girl drop the rifle and walk away from the unconscious killer so he could get to torture her for another 45 minutes of running time, that's when I walked out.
45 minutes? Sorry, I saw this film and was shocked at how long it took for the "action" to start. It came off like a pretentious version of "Joy Ride" with Paul Walker, except as bad as that film was, it was action packed.
***** Actually my favourite film is Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, and I thought Birdman was easily the best film of last year. We'll see if Kermode is correct about Boyhood being remembered in the way Raging Bull is remembered, I highly doubt it. In terms of Wolf Creek, it provided no horror elements until the final twenty minutes. The movie was a boring road trip film with ham handed character development and lackluster tension. It was just a garbage film, which is why it's not brought up in most conversations about horror films. Savages with Andy Griffith was a better film.
Honestly? I watched 'The Marine' (yes, very ironically) a few days before and had the exact same mindset watching Wolf Creek. I'm not sure whether it was the acting, the storyline, the writing, the direction or all of the above; I just couldn't suspend my disbelief at all.
When he says it keeps the audience on the knifes edge of acceptability, and that it threatens to lose the audience. Sorry, maybe this is because I wasn't in a theatre and could check how far along I was into the film. Seeing that I was an hour in and nothing of interest had yet to happen, I almost had to check to ensure I had rented (back in the days of Blockbuster) that I had gotten the film which I had heard so much about as being a great horror. I enjoyed this film as much as I enjoyed "House of 1000 Corpses" and I hated that film.
Oh, wait. I see what you were saying now. That if Wolf Creek wasn't horrible due to the fact that it was 'actors pretending' then no movie is horrible due to the same thing? I guess you're right, because in my case at least movies don't horrify (unless they're documentaries or reenactments of true events, of course). My point was that it's possible to hate Wolf Creek without hating it because it was 'too horrifying'. I, for example, hated how shit it was.
The Australian landscape is very different. It's so isolated that people disappear without trace, even today. The landscape is paramount to the story actually, and the people that criticize the film as stupid, really don't get it; there is nowhere for the girls to go but back to the compound, they don't even know where they are; they are literally in a psychological prison with no escape. There is literally nothing out there, so it's certain death or return to the compound and try and survive - which is what they do. People really don't understand how barren, empty and vast Australia's red center is - virtually nothing can survive.
So, the thought of what he is going to do to her isn't shocking to you? She is alive and conscious and fully aware of everything going on around her, but can now do nothing to defend herself against his brutality? And who the hell knows what he has install for her and for how long he'll keep her alive to keep abusing her? You don't find that shocking, and somewhat horrific to contemplate? ...and what of the family that came before them? We all know what happened to the father, but what of the children and the wife? What horror did they endure at the hands of this psychopath? That's what many critics of Wolf Creek don't understand, so much of the horror is left up to the viewer to contemplate. The only thing the viewer can be certain of, is that it will be depraved beyond imagination, and there is literally no escape. That's pure psychological terror. The film is not overly violent on the surface, it's more violent in what it implies than what it shows.
Took time to develop the characters? Sorry but I watched this film after hearing all the hype, and I wanted to enjoy it but it was just a terrible film. I remember being shocked at how long it took for the film to actually cross the line from a road trip film to a horror film, which basically occurs in the last half hour. I'm sorry, some people might enjoy this film but to me I'd rather watch Joy Ride or Jeepers Creepers if I want a somewhat recent road trip gone wrong film (mind you I'm not saying those are good films). I'm not a fan of Gore Porn, like Saw and Hostel, but when you say your film is a horror film at least have of it should attempt to thrill or scare you, hell even making someone laugh is better than this boring gore for no reason Bullsh*t. I'd rather watch "Hard Rock Zombies" over watching "Wolf Creek" again. Mark said one correct thing about this film when talking about horror movies being about the audience putting themselves through pain hence them walking out. Yes, buying a ticket to the "Australian Hills Have Eyes" and getting the Australian "Crossroads" (2002) with a gore porn ending can be painful for the ticket buyer.
