Watching Greg McLean's Wolf Creek 2. It's fun -- it's quite a bit different from the first film, which is pretty nasty and mostly without humour (unless you're fairly twisted, you'll probably find the first Wolf Creek an unpleasant watch, overall, though very effective as a straight-up outback survival-horror meets deranged-murderer movie). By contrast, one of the funnier "bits" of the second film has Mick, the pig-hunting killer, played by John Jarratt, who is the common element in these films, driving through a panicked mob of kangaroos in a massive truck, running into several, running over several, and apologizing as he goes (the kangaroos are not his object; they're just in the way). You might think -- if Wake in Fright flashes through your mind, here -- that killing kangaroos is not funny, but rest assured, these are CGI kangaroos, reminding one of the running packs of tiny dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park movies, so you don't feel too bad getting a chuckle out of the carnage, which is pretty bloody indeed. Also, the soundtrack is chosen for low comedy: the Tokens doing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," as punctuated by marsupial splats.
I mean, it's shamelessly lowbrow, and more than a little over-the-top, but what can I say, I laughed!
The film also boasts probably the, uh, most enjoyable cop killing scene in cinema history. Understand, I'm not anti-cop; and I have, generally, rooted far more often for cops killing bad guys than the reverse, when it comes to genre films. In Wolf Creek 2, you get to cheer the bad guy killing two cops. This all happens in the first ten minutes of the film, so there are no deep spoilers here: the setup for the violent payoff is perfectly executed and makes what happens quite entertaining, again in a shamelessly lowbrow (but quite satisfying) way. Two highway patrolmen pull Mick over, even though he wasn't actually speeding, using the pretext for the stop to humiliate and frighten him. They're not as quite as viciously unprofessional as the cops in Jennifer Lynch's Surveillance, but they're in the same ballpark, and definitely not "the good guys." You'll be waiting with great anticipation for Mick to take them out -- which is quite an accomplishment, since anyone who has seen the first film knows that Mick is a horrifying, cannibalistic killer, possibly a sex killer to boot, with a basement that brings Tobe Hooper to mind, so it's kind of remarkable that you can be so easily twisted into identifying with him; anyone who has ever been humiliated or abused by authority figures will have no problem cheering him on, and the payoff does not disappoint and includes a bit of gore equal to anything in early Peter Jackson.
And yes, there is a joke about killing "pigs," heh-heh.
I have had the DVD -- which I bought back in the days when Videomatica was in the back of Zulu Records -- sitting around unwatched for some time, maybe as long as ten years, because even though I have enjoyed everything I've seen by the director, Greg McLean -- with my favourite being his killer croc movie, Rogue, which you can find on Tubi -- I was concerned that there would be a lack of fresh ideas in this film. And indeed there is some repetition -- as when tourists arrive at the titular crater -- but the tone is quite different, as it would have to be, since this time, we know what kind of person Mick is. The repeated elements are done long before the film's midpoint, however, and are surrounded by varying bits of action (Mick stalking his prey on horseback, for example) that do things with no precedent in the first film. There is also a "showdown" at the end that surely taps into any genuine resentments working class Australians feel at the British, where Mick quizzes a "pommy" captive about Australian history. I didn't know the answer to even one question, though I could recall some of the lyrics to "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport," which are made much of. (The film came out the year before Rolf Harris was arrested, and it seems like McLean and his main character both have some fondness for the song).
Though the stories are dissimilar, as far as follow-ups to popular works go, it all reminds me, a bit, of the novel Hannibal, where you get the sense that Thomas Harris was probably doing it for the payday, but figured a way to make it amusing for himself, imagining entertaining ways to expand on the world of the first film. I think McLean probably enjoyed making this movie a lot, and I've certainly enjoyed. watching it. It's unfortunate that the ending is on the weak side -- but it does have an element of surprise to it (though quite a bit of the story is wrapped up with end titles, which happened with the first film as well; and the final shot of the movie is very close to a straight repetition of the final shot of its forbear.) Not saying I had a better idea for the ending, but it's a shame that a film with so much engaging, fresh, and -- from a gory-horror-POV, "fun stuff" -- should fizzle out as un-dramatically as it does.
One question lingers: is there any country whose films are as anti-tourism as Australia's? Even movies like Razorback, which has a tourist as the ultimate hero of the film, make the prospect of visiting the land seem very, very unappealing. Rogue, too -- it is kinder to its tourists than either of the Wolf Creek films, allowing them to become flat-out heroes, with the main Australian character being in fact saved by a tourist at the film's climax... but it still depicts the country as an extremely unwelcoming, hostile place to visit. The anti-tourist theme becomes quite explicit in Wolf Creek 2, with Mick going on several rants about them, so people interested in this angle should definitely seek the film out...
Might go for the TV series next, though that does seem to be milking things a bit...
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