Movie Review: Wolf Creek 2 (2013, Unrated Version)

Reviewed By: Jimmy D.

I remember 9 years ago seeing the first Wolf Creek film in an empty theater on opening weekend. That film had me grabbing the arm bar and looking behind me constantly. Well our favorite serial killer Mick Taylor from the Australian outback is back after a long absence. For people who assume this is going to be the same formula and kills as the first film, you may be half right but Mick Taylor this time takes a more Freddy Kruger approach. John Jarratt you can just tell is having a good time with this character, and this time out it seems he is on a kick with the one liners and bad campy humor that Nightmare on Elm Street gave us.

The film starts off with these two police officer that decide to try and fuck with our outback terror in the form of pulling him over going 97 in a 100 lane. They pull him over when he clearly knew he did not break the speed limit and lets our two cops get their little rocks off harassing him and giving him a ticket. When they pull away and think it is all over is when he gets his revenge. Where the first film could be seen as more patient, this film is an adrenaline rush. You get some pretty intense kills with the police and then the film goes to a young couple who is backpacking and decides to camp out in the park. Things at first are ok; till they meet Mick Taylor who the female just knows the start something seems odd about him. The film from there is a cat and mouse game, which involves a guy who drives by in a jeep later in the film to help the girl escape.

Movie Review: Patrick (1978)

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Movie Review: "Savages Crossing" (2011, Winnah Films/MVD Visual)

...often, it has been said that, movie-wise, the best ideas have long since been used up, and the ideas that are out there, are invariably being recycled, re-written and tweaked, here and there, with the initial concepts themselves alone being stale, but made 'fresh', or at least interesting, with the balanced and engaging interaction of characters involved in the concepts' scenarios. Hmmm!! Makes sense, in supposing that although the scenarios change very little, the countlessly imagined and written variety of characters...like combined chemicals...elicit different reactions and interactions...the ol' game of 'what if this type of person is thrown together with that type of person, and this type of person, and that type of person'. Looking back at the spectrum of films, spanning as far back as...well, as far back as the very beginning, the age-old scenario of a group of people...all from different walks of life, in some way, shape or form...some strangers, some not strangers, and some clearly pretending to be something, they are not...trapped together, as the result of some threat...be it monsters, gang members, frontier Indians, zombies, giant saber-toothed killer mutant gerbils...or even something as crashingly elemental as inclemently deliberating weather...with clashing egos, personality conflicts, tit-for-tat confrontations, underlinging vengeful intent, or simply the desperate act of survival, itself. In the end, if the characters aren't engagingly written well, or are ill-conceived and cliched to the point where the interaction is hardly relatable or interesting, then the well-worn scenario itself hardly matters, and the whole ball of wax falls apart. As visually striking and grim as the film proves to be, regrettably, such is the case with the lackluster, shoulder-shrugging, though somewhat redeemingly atmospheric and harrowing Aussie thriller from 2011, "Savages Crossing"......

Movie Review: Dead End Drive-In (1986)

Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith

Review by Greg Goodsell

In the far-flung future Australia of 1995, things have taken a turn for the worse. A series of global catastrophes has rendered the world effectively bankrupt, and law and order is strictly on a limited basis. Taking his girlfriend Carmen (Natalie McCurry) to the Star Drive-In for a quick one, unemployed lay-about “Crabs” (Ned Manning) has his lovemaking rudely interrupted when armed policemen steal two wheels from his ’56 Chevy. The next morning, the true purpose of the Star Drive-In is revealed to him; it is a concentration camp for undesirables, chiefly the young and jobless. In exchange, the inmates are allowed all the junk food they can eat and a steady stream of no-budget action pictures screened nightly. Making friends with their fellow inmates, Crabs and his girlfriend discover that everyone there has more or less accepted their fate. Things get sketchier still when the drive-in is given a sudden influx of Asian inmates. In response, the white Australians band together -- NOT to confront their captors, but to discriminate and harass the minorities. Confronting the kindly, if insidious drive-in manager (Peter Whitford), Crabs vows to escape from the dismal drive-in – or die trying.  

Director Brian Trenchard-Smith one-upped the likes of Quentin Tarrantino with this ironic, self-reflexive film, which has yet to be equaled – low-budget action car crash movies are part of a greater social malaise, this message being tucked neatly into a low-budget action car crash movie! Dead End Drive-In looks great, with artfully composed shots of a dirty, dystopian backdrop comprised of spray-painted junked cars and wild colored lighting. The drive-in’s denizens are a smash-up of the then current punk rock hairstyles and fashions, coupled with Mad Max-inspired remnant attire. 

Movie Review: The Caretaker (2012, DVD)

Review By: Rob Sibley

I've always appreciated Aussie cinema. Back in the seventies and the eighties they were cranking killer flicks. Everything from crazy biker flicks like 1974's “Stone” to more art house classics like “Wake In Fright”. Not to mention the dozens of great exploitation flicks from Brian Trenchard Smith. They even tackled the killer beast genre with the stellar “Razorback”. Of coarse Mad Max is the film that put Aussie cinema on the map. Sadly by the 90's it seemed like all hope was gone, the big Aussie cinema boom was over with.

That all changed when Greg Mclean burst onto the scene with his modern day stalk/slash classic “Wolf Creek”. It gave Aussie cinema that much needed shot of adrenalin and since then they've been turning out some fine films. Mclean would return to the Aussie horror scene in 2007 with the superior killer croc flick “Rogue”. That same year we were treated to the Aussie backwoods delight “Storm Warning” directed by Jamie Blanks. In 2009 we got a gory taste at romance gone wrong with “The Loved Ones” and 2010 we were given a nice double dose of Aussie flicks with the some man turned beast splatter in Josh Reed's “Primal”. Not to mention the fantastic western/thriller “Red Hill”. Now we have the Australian vampire flick “The Caretaker”.