Wolf Creek

[last_texas_dem]

**** If you do plan on seeing this movie, you may not want to read on as I am going to include some spoilers. *****

I was wondering if anyone else has seen and been pretty deeply disturbed by this movie?

I tend to like horror movies, though I'm a much bigger fan of the psychological-type thrillers and don't really care all that much for slasher flicks. However, it isn't really the gore (which really isn't that excessive compared to other movies of the genre) that is disturbing about Wolf Creek.

I don't think I have ever had a movie "stay" with me for so long after seeing it. There have been a couple with some images that bugged me the night after I saw them, especially The Omen. With Wolf Creek, it's more the implications than anything else. I guess that's why there were people at the movie when I saw it who are so desensitized to violence and/or too lacking in imagination as to be basically unphased by the movie altogether, thought it was "stupid", not bloody enough, etc. And maybe I am just weird when it comes to certain content in the movie...

But, for one thing, consider the idea of being stranded in an area you are unfamiliar with, at night, with no way to reach the outside world unless someone shows up on the road. The movie definitely worked on that level. Now consider some of the content (and here is where some of the ****spoilers**** are): the old man torturing, talking about raping, moving towards doing it to the girl, Kristi (I think). Consider how she ends up dying; after the man shoots at her car and causes it to wreck, he coldly shoots her to death as she is stumbling, dazed out of the car. (This may be the most disturbing thing I have ever seen in a movie, because it seemed more real than any over-the-top violent scene that I have seen in others.) Consider the way the other girl (Liz I think) is made immobile by her spine being broken. There are several other disturbing moments, but there is one that didn't really dawn on me until the movie was over. Remember when Liz is watching the videos that the man has stashed, that his victims had left behind? I started thinking about the one where the little girl is about to drink the water laced with the stuff that knocks the people out and the implications of what happened next... **** end of spoilers****

Anyway, I'm not really sure why I'm writing this, except to wonder if I'm just overly sensitive and have an overactive imagination, or if some others who have seen this movie were really disturbed by it, too. I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority, as a disturbing number of the people I saw it with were laughing at the deaths and seemed disappointed it wasn't more graphic. But myself, I don't think there is another movie that I have seen as an adult that has gotten to me this way, and I'm thinking of staying away from horror movies for a while. Why did I see it in the first place? Well, from the previews, I was thinking it might be a creepy "lost in the wilderness" Blair Witch Project-type movie. And in some ways it was... just with a whole other element. Kind of like a "Blair Witch" that deteriorates into a snuff film. In Roger Ebert's review of it, he says something along the lines of "I don't know where the line is, but this movie crossed it." I guess I tend to agree with him. Maybe I just haven't seen all that many disturbing movies, but this is the first one that truly crossed my "line." Reading some of the reviews by viewers on the IMDB and the like, it seems like this movie didn't work for a lot of people, who found it tedious, too slow, uninteresting, etc. I guess I disagree; this movie really did "work" for me, in a way that I hope another movie never "works" again.

I'm interested in anyone else's thoughts on this one.

EDITED for clarity's sake...

[ET Awful]

1. I haven't seen the movie yet, but if you want to be creeped out, read the

story of the case in Australia on which it's based. . . . VERY chilling shit.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/milat/discovery_1.html