I really don’t want to keep saying how close it is to the end, because that seems to always come with getting derailed from progressing. So I won’t say it. I shall trust in you, the legions of readers who are here today. I shall trust in your knowledge of the alphabet to know what comes next. But next is for another day, now is for today. And now is W.

What starts as a bit of a cross country trip for a trio in Australia ends poorly. I have to ask though, why. Why does anyone want to go into the wilds of Australia where the elements are likely to kill you? It’s like rock climbing to me. I don’t get it.

But back to Wolf Creek. The trio are looking for the Wolf Creek crater. And they find it. But car trouble leads them to spending the night in their car with the hope that in the morning they can get it working again.

Luckily for them, Mick Taylor happens along. Being an Aussie, he has all sorts of survival instincts, including driving a truck that can tow a vehicle. Out of the humanitarian spirit of kindness and goodwill, he tows them back to his place where he has lots of parts and he claims he can get them back on the road in the morning. The four spend the late hours around a fire talking and just being strangers getting to know each other…

Unfortunately for them, Liz wakes up gagged and zip tied in a shed. She manages to free herself, realizes she is alone and somewhere on friendly Mick’s property. (Spoiler alert, Mick ain’t so friendly.) She finds her friend Kristy being held and tortured by Mick. She creates a distraction by lighting a car on fire and frees Kristy. As the two flee, they reach a rather nasty cliff keeping them from getting away clean.

Liz goes back to try and find their friend Ben. It doesn’t go well for Liz.

Kristy escapes and manages to find a road. In the vast emptiness of Australia though, that’s not a great thing. Left or Right? Which way. She picks and begins her trek. Luckily she is found by a passing vehicle. Not so lucky for that driver as Mick has a rifle and doesn’t really care who he kills.

After reclaiming her, we jump to Ben. He is in some cave, nailed to a wall. He escapes and hits the open expanses before collapsing. Luckily for him, he is found by a couple of tourists. Now I know what you’re thinking. “Watch out for the bad guy with a rifle!”

Ben is lucky though. They get him back to a city where he is cared for and returned to his life.

I really like this movie. Shades of Texas Chainsaw Massacre with a touch of Saw thrown in, all with an Australian accent.

But there’s more. A sequel movie aptly titled Wolf Creek 2. And then a tv series, not surprisingly titled Wolf Creek. A series that went two seasons. This was a surprise to me, as I have only seen one of them. Another item for my watch list. And there have been books too. I have the Wolf Creek Origins book, but read it like 12 years ago. I suppose I should add it to my list as well.

If you haven’t seen this yet, it is worth your time. Trust me. But not Mick. Don’t ever trust that bastard.

This movie starts off in a peculiar way. Because the main character is a police officer who doesn’t fit the role well at all. Everything about his demeanour is lackluster. He isn’t respected by his fellow officers, and when he is out in the public, his cowardice is at the forefront. He scrambles away from danger like a beaten dog anytime you would expect a police officer to step up and take charge.

The story has strange events transpiring. People are dying, but the ones killing them appear to be infected by something that makes them kill. And it all seems related to a Japanese man living in the woods. The infection though, seems to be contagious in some way. After a few different incidents, the cop is having nightmares about it and wakes up screaming on a regular basis. But then his daughter begins to show signs of the infection.

At this point our hapless hero begins to transform. With his daughter in danger, he starts doing everything he can to figure out what is going on. In an attempt to stop the “curse” a Shaman is brought in.

Then it gets a bit weird, as the Shaman appears to be a charlatan. Demanding a large sum of money unless our protagonist wants to see the village decimated. At this point I’m thinking “What a jerk. He doesn’t want to make it better, unless he gets paid.” He claims the Jap (as he is referred to throughout the movie) is a ghost inhabiting a human. The Shaman intends to cast a death hex on the Japanese man. The ritual for the hex is wildly over the top to this Westerner’s perspective. While the ritual is going on, we bounce between the Shaman and the Japanese man. The Shaman working his death magic and the Japanese guy apparently working some counter spell.

But as the death hex is being done, the daughter begins to be adversely affected. Our hapless cop turned devoted father overturns the death hex, saving the Japanese man.

At this point it begins to get murky with questions about who is good and who is bad. The Japanese man appears to be trying to stop some evil spirit, and perhaps the tragic incidents are happening in spite of his work. Had he not been doing what he does, the evil might be much worse.

So the Shaman is bad! But there’s also a woman in white, who appears to be evil, and she tries to kill the Shaman.

So the Shaman isn’t bad. The Shaman and the Japanese man are going at each other not realizing the actual evil is someone else!

At the tail end of the movie, the daughter is becoming lost to the infection. And the woman in white tells the dad that he can’t trust the Shaman. But the Shaman calls him and says don’t trust the woman. Another character is confronting the Japanese man at the same time…

Who is telling the truth? All three are trying to help. Or at least trying to convince the father that they are. But who is telling the truth?

A big thing about foreign horror movies though is that children are not immune to bad things. So as a Westerner, you can’t watch this going “Hyo-Jin is gonna be fine.” Because they might kill the kid.

It’s such a good movie. Bit long, at 2 1/2 hours, but worth the time investment.