Wolf Creek (2005) – WTF Really Happened to This Horror Movie?

The episode of WTF Really Happened to This Horror Movie covering Wolf Creek was Written and Narrated by Andrew Hatfield, Edited by Mike Conway, Produced by Lance Vlcek and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.

One of the biggest and some would say overused tropes in horror movies is the killer stalking people in an outdoor setting. The main series for this is, of course, the Friday the 13th series but we have nearly countless other examples to pull from. Sometimes, like today’s entry, or The Burning, these stories and movies can be based on true events and make it even more frightening. Unlike The Burning, which is based on an urban legend with the true story being far from fact, Wolf Creek (watch it HERE) had an original script that was tweaked to be based on the real life killers Ivan Milat and Bradley John Murdoch who terrorized Australia from 1989 to 1993 and 2001. The movie combines the two into one memorable and horrifying character. Be careful which charismatic outback serial killer you befriend as we find out what REALLY happened to Wolf Creek.

The movie was written and directed by Greg Mclean. Mclean actually had the screenplay done in 1997 but it read like a prototypical slasher and in the age of Scream that just wouldn’t play as well. He retooled it eventually after learning about the case of the Backpacker Murders that took place in South Wales, Australia from 1989 to 1993. Those now infamous murders were perpetrated by Ivan Milat and a 2001 abduction and murder of a man named Peter Falconio by Bradley John Murdoch. He mixed the two men and created a killer named Mick Taylor who he would imbue with the charisma of a Steve Irwin or Crocodile Dundee and mix it with the intense ferociousness of the family from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films. It was made for a very modest 1.5 million and would end up being a smash success with a take of 35 million total worldwide with the majority of that coming from the U.S. and Australia. I was lucky enough to see it at a drive-in theater which added a lot to the type of movie this is.

It was filmed using digital handheld cameras over 5 weeks and completely on location in various parts of Australia. It premiered at Sundance in January of 2005 and while it had about 5 minutes cut from the final product, that has since been added into future releases of the film. Writer/Director Greg Mclean got his start with a short film in 2001 but really hit it big with the release of Wolf Creek in 05. While that has been his bread and butter with also writing and directing its 2013 sequel and some of its 2017 TV series, he has some other fun things under his belt. On the TV end, he’s worked on things like Jack Irish, Bloom, and La Brea. Other movie projects include the fun giant animal movie Rogue which he wrote and directed, and he also directed The Belko Experiment and Jungle in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

The cast is made up of mostly the main four of Nathan Phillips, Cassandra McGrath, Kestie Morassi, and John Jarratt. While there are some other minor characters that show up throughout, screen time is almost completely cannibalized by these 4. Phillips had already been around a while, showing up on legendary Australian TV show Neighbors in 1999 and after Wolf Creek he would show up in genre fare like Snakes on a Plane, Chernobyl Diaries, and These Final Hours. Cassandra McGrath has been around even longer than her co-star but hasn’t really appeared in much that our audience would recognize her in while still working today. Kestie is in the same boat as Cassandra. She’s been around for a bit but other than a small part as nurse Lauren in Darkness Falls, she hasn’t shown up in a lot of projects seen outside of Australia. The star of the movie, and coincidentally the actor who had been around the longest is John Jarratt. He first appeared in a couple of TV movies in 1974 before showing up in the classic Picnic at Hanging Rock the following year. Plenty of movies and TV shows would follow including the wonderful slow burn horror Next of Kin in 1982. He worked consistently until Wolf Creek, but the movie gave him a resurgence that continues today.

The movie opens with our favorite saying on this show that the following film is based on true events. We are then also told that 30,000 people are reported missing in Australia and that 90% of that number are found within a month while some are never seen again. The movie opens in earnest on an Australian beach in 1999 where we meet our characters and victims. Liz and Kristy are English tourists on a trip with their Australian friend Ben. Ben buys a car that is just good enough to get the trio to Queensland, but they stop to party and end up in Wolf Creek to sightsee first.

(Factometer 25%) The movie does a good job setting up both the vastness of the Australian landscape and the inherit danger found within. By the mid 90’s, backpacking through Australia had become a sort of team sport after a series of missing persons from 78 to 91 had made people begin to at least pair up while hiking through it. While the movie depicts a trio of friends on an adventure, the Backpacker Murderer would always stick to pairs, presumably to be able to take them out easier and worry less about having to track down more people. It is also of note that two of the three victims in the movie are foreign to Australia, being from England, and five of the seven in real life were also not from Australia being mixed from Germany and England.

The car doesn’t start, and their watches inexplicably stop dead, and they are stuck with seemingly no way out. A car comes up to them and we meet Mick Taylor who is genuinely one of the most charismatic and frightening villains in the history of cinema. He tells them that the battery is ok, but he is unable to fix the car. He does offer to tow them to his place where he will fix the car and have them off by morning. After some trepidations, the group agrees to Micks proposal, and he tows them south to his shop. The group hangs out by the fire while Mick tells them tales that end up being more suspicious than anything else and he starts to give off a very creepy vibe. He continues to work on the car as the travelers fall asleep. Liz wakes up tied at the hands and feet with a gag and that’s when we find out Micks intentions.

(Factometer 10%) John Jarratt’s Mick is hard to take your eyes off of while he’s on screen but the man he was based off of, Ivan Milat, was far less likeable and charming. One of 14 children to Yugoslavian born parents, Milat and his 9 brothers were known well to the local authorities by carrying knives or guns on their persons. While the parents seemingly tried to raise the kids well and even sent them to Catholic school, it was reported the father was an alcoholic with a temper. Ivan was remembered being anti-social and even exhibiting psychotic tendencies including killing animals with a machete. He was sent to juvenile detention at 17 and from there would be in and out of trouble for theft and at 22 he kidnapped and raped two hitchhikers near a train station. They escaped and he faked his death before a trial could take place and fled the area only to come back from time to time to commit more crimes.

Liz wakes up and finds Mick torturing Kristy. She burns the now useless car up to distract him before shooting Mick with his own rifle and attempting to free herself and Kristy. They are both already bloody and beaten and it is heavily implied that he sexually abused them. we see other older, more mutilated bodies in the shed and the girls take a truck to escape. Mick catches up to the girls and Liz tells Kristy to run if she isn’t back in 5 minutes. Liz heads back to look for more transportation and weapons but discovers something far worse with a pit of skeletons and video footage of other people that Mick has trapped. She also finds Ben’s camera and sees that Mick has been following them longer than she thought. She finds a car, but Mick is in the back seat. He stabs her before cutting off the fingers on one of her hands and stabbing her spine to paralyze her. It’s a truly brutal scene.

(Factometer 50%) This section of the movie actually follows part of the real murders as two female British backpackers were discovered by runners in September of 1992. Autopsy confirmed it to be Joanne Walters and Caroline Clarke and their bodies were brutally dispatched. Just like Mick starts using Kristy for target practice in his garage, Clarke had 10 bullet wounds in her skull, and it was later theorized she was used for target practice. Walters had nearly 20 knife wounds on her body including some that would have paralyzed her just like Liz in the movie. Many of the victims that were found showed these injuries and just like Mick was doing in the movie, they were almost all tortured before death.

Kristy makes it to the road and is picked up by an older man in a car but when he goes to get a blanket out of the trunk, he is shot from somewhere off screen. She gets the car started but Mick shoots the tires out before fatally shooting Kirsty and bringing both bodies back to his place. Ben finally wakes up and we see he is crucified before he pulls himself off. Ben wonders the outback until he is found and rescued by a German couple and taken to a hospital. On screen titles tell us no trace of the girls was ever found and after Ben was cleared of suspicion 4 months later, no arrest was made.

(Factometer 10%) Well unfortunately there were no survivors to Ivan’s murder spree, but the good news is he was caught. A witness came forward after the bodies were found and a profile was made that claimed a man known only as Bill attempted to rob and kidnap him at gunpoint, this was corroborated by the girlfriend of a coworker of Ivan, and he was arrested on May 22nd of 1994 and was in possession of weapons that matched the damage done to the bodies. On July 27th, 1996, Ivan Milat was convicted of the murders and given multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole. After many appeals and stunts to get various items like a PlayStation vis hunger strike of all things, Milat died of cancer on October 27th, 2019, after never admitting to the murders even after conviction.

Wolf Creek is a great piece of low budget horror cinema that is still brutal and fascinating nearly 20 years after its release. While it may not be the closest to the true-life events its based off of, it’s closer than a lot of the incidents we’ve covered. Wolf Creek is a harrowing story based on atrocious acts that are reminders for all of us to stay safe when out adventuring.

A couple of the previous episodes of WTF Really Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To check out the other shows we have on the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel, head over to the channel – and subscribe while you’re there!