Wolf Creek [2005]

SYNOPSIS

[Based on Actual Events]. Liz Hunter [Cassandra Magrath] and Kristy Earl [Kestie Morassi] are twenty-something British backpackers in Broome, Western Australia. Preparing for a car trip with an Australian, Ben Mitchell [Nathan Phillips], they enjoy a final night’s revelry. The first day is tedious: road kill, car overheating, singing, “getting to know you” conversations and map monitoring. They settle in for the night at a small town and Ben treats the girls to some urban legendary about UFO sightings in the area. Kristy and Liz are sceptical but spooked. Out of petrol the next day, the travellers stop at a roadhouse for fuel. Kristy tells Ben that Liz likes him and Ben almost starts a fight when the presence of the women rouses lewd remarks from some truckies. Driving on through a landscape of burned out car shells and bullet-riddled road signs; they arrive at ‘Wolf Creek’ National Park. Ben talks about how a meteor formed the crater as they climb its walls. They lose the afternoon to food and dozing and Liz and Ben act upon their attraction.

Ready to leave at dusk, they find their watches stopped, a precursor to discovering the car isn’t working either. There is a rush of panic, then Liz spots some lights travelling toward them and the grunt of a truck signals a rescuer: Mick Taylor [John Jarratt]. An affable brute of a man, Mick inspects their vehicle and manoeuvres them into letting him tow it, promising to replace the faulty part at his camp. It takes hours to reach his place: an abandoned mining site complete with defunct tunnels and huts. The travellers cook food in exchange for repairs and fresh water. Mick recalls his life as a professional vermin shooter, and then works on the car as his guests fall asleep.

Liz wakes from a drugged sleep late the next day. She’s tied up, mouth gagged, inside one of the miner’s huts. She frees herself using smashed glass. Outside, she creeps towards the station wagon and its stripped parts, then discovers Ben’s bloodied sleeping bag. Loud music and screams emanate from a central hut and a terrified Liz peers inside to see Kristy, almost naked and strung up, swaying in front of Mick’s loaded gun. Liz uses mentholated spirits to cause an explosion with a gas lantern, and while Mick deals with the ensuing small fire, sneaks in to free Kristy. She hides beneath a bench and when Mick resumes torturing Kristy, Liz manages to shoot him. By the time Mick comes to the women are escaping in the truck. Headlights in the rear vision mirror panic Liz who finds they’re caught between fast approaching Mick and a cliff. They push the truck over the cliff, faking a fatal crash. Fooled, Mick leaves. Stranded in the enormity of the Australian outback, Liz decides their only hope is to return to Mick’s mining site home to steal a car and search for Ben.

At the mining site, Liz leaves an exhausted Kristy while she goes in search of a vehicle. Inside a vast, gloomy shed she discovers a chilling car graveyard. Looking further she discovers a box of video cameras and watches footage of other people falling victim to Mick’s “rescue” tactics. From Ben’s video camera footage she sees Mick’s truck was present at the roadhouse. Terrified, she races to one of the cars and manages to start the vehicle -- when suddenly Mick appears. They struggle and she is killed.

Kristy, now following road tracks on the flat desert plains, is petrified by a vehicle looming on the horizon. An elderly man pulls up and offers her assistance. As Kristy collapses into the car, a bullet from Mick’s rifle fells the would-be rescuer. Kristy wrests the keys from his corpse and a car chase ensues. When she succeeds in running Mick’s Valiant off the road, Mick shoots out her tyres, and then coldly executes her. He puts her exhausted body in the car boot and sets it alight. Meanwhile, Ben finally regains consciousness to find himself crucified and trapped down a mining tunnel. Other crucified corpses with their lower extremities eaten away hang close by and the sight of two starving dogs in a nearby cage hint at his future. Steeling himself he pulls his wrists from the wire constraints and painfully frees himself. He leaves the mining site and wanders for several days through the desert, finally collapsing just outside a small township. We cut to Ben: months later, being led away by Police. He has been blamed for the missing girls murders. We fade to black.

Titles inform us that Ben remains the only suspect in the disappearance and presumed murder of the two British backpackers, since no evidence of the existence of Mick Taylor can be verified. No one believes Ben’s far-fetched story of a lone killer, wandering the vastness of the Outback.

[From the Optimum Releasing UK press release]