Contradicting Popular Opinion :
An Enquiry Concerning Why Your Favorite Movie Sucks
Wolf Creek
I don’t profess to be a horror movie buff.
(liar)
Okay, maybe I do.
Be that as it may, there seems to be some disturbing trends in horror, and not disturbing in that way that would be appropriate for horror. It seems that we are dealing with an inordinate number of re-makes and rip-offs. Maybe that was always the case, with horror flicks. Maybe that was always the case with most movies. I mean how many action movies of the ’90s were just Die Hard with one minor twist? It seems like modern movies don’t have much new to add, much more to say.
Maybe I’m just a cynic. But this is my reaction coming after watching a disappointing Wolf Creek. If you haven’t seen the movie, I can re-cap it by saying it is an Australian 4th generation wannabe of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, right down to the based on a true story nonsense.
Wolf Creek tells the story of two British chicks and some guy from Sydney, who are together for some reason, hang out, buy a car, and drive to a big crater. In 32 words I have just summed up what it took the film 50 minutes to show.
50 f*cking minutes, for that much information. Hell, it takes us 30 minutes to get the name of one of our characters, and nearly an hour before the names of all of them are revealed.
50 f*cking minutes, in which there is given no pertinent story information, no noticeable character development, no f*cking thematic elements, and not one single instance of competent camera work. I often rag on The Blair Witch Project, and rightly so, but at least the Blair Witch has a reasonable excuse for being so poorly shot. It is supposed to be shot by characters who are amateur documentarians. But ever since Blair Witch every low budget flick feels it has creative license to get away with haphazard camera work to add to the realism of the picture.
Fuck that shit.
But I’ve written about this before, and hate repeating myself. I’m sure if you snoop around my archives, you’ll hear me blathering on about the effective “dangerous realism” of films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre versus the “shitty camera work” of myriad modern films.
Back to Wolf Creek, about an hour into the movie, the car of our protagonists refuses to start. They are stuck. “Lucky” for them an Aussie redneck finds them, offers to fix their car, and tows them to his home in the middle of nowhere. Then they exchange stories around a campfire until the redneck slips them all a Mickie Finn. At this point we start following the girl obviously designed to represent the “last girl” of standard dead teenager movies, i.e. the girl with shorter hair. The movie followers her as she escapes, saves her incompetent female friend, steals a car, ditches the car, then drives back to the redneck’s place to get a different car for some reason. “Last girl” tells incompetent girl to wait outside for her.
So Last Girl, breaks into the compound, climbs into a hole filled with dead bodies for some reason, climbs out, tries to start up a car, fails, tries again, and the car starts. It is at this point where it is revealed that the Redneck was in the car the whole time (?!) and he stabs her in the back. Then he stabs her again, severing her spine in what is the only interesting part of the whole dang picture.
Now that our alleged “main character” is all but killed off, we start following the incompetent girl. She spends a lot of time running away, but is eventually killed off rather unceremoniously.
So that leaves us back with “guy from Sydney,” a character whom we haven’t really even f*cking seen in the previous half hour. He frees himself, and runs away, at which point the movie is over, save for some end of movie recap text over the last two minutes about how he was accused of the murders himself, but got off.
Then the movie once again asserts that it was based on a true story. You know, all that is well and good except for the fact that, uhm, dead chicks tell no tales. Assuming the movie isn’t just pulling the standard TCM lie, where did the film-maker’s get this true story from? The guy from Sydney saw only a small fraction of what occurred in the film. The women are dead. The redneck, probably is talking too much. I know the phrase, “Based on a true story” scares the snot out of 15 year old chicks, but can you at least make it somewhat plausible that it could be?
The movie doesn’t really work for simple reasons. It isn’t about anything. There is no message to be taken from the film. No thematic statement, no clever lesson, no truth exposed by means of fiction. Plus, the film isn’t entertaining. It doesn’t work as a dead teenager flick due to a low body count (2) and a lack of interesting death scenes. It doesn’t work as a serious film for it lacks story and character development. It doesn’t work as a black comedy (as TCM does) because it isn’t funny.
It doesn’t work because it doesn’t aspire to be anything beyond an imitation of an imitation of better horror films. It doesn’t bring anything new or interesting to the table.
And it could. That is the tragedy here. It could.
Here is how you do it. (One of many possible ways)
Step one: Lop off the first 40 minutes of the movie. They add nothing. Nothing.
Step two: Keep the focus on the guy from Sydney. Let him witness what he can of his friends’ struggles for survival. Show him as helpless, emasculated, incapable of saving the women he wants to protect.
Step three: Make the climax of the film his persecution for the crimes. Show the cops sadistically interviewing him. Don’t focus too much on his damnation by the media (too cliche). a lot of that can be implied. Focus instead on how the general pubic has turned on him, is distrustful of him.
Step four: Have our guy be haunted not only by his neighbors but by his own inability to save his friends, until it reaches the point where he turns himself in for their deaths.
You’re welcome.
A brief message that may upset fanboys.
Anything good that came out of V for Vendetta should be considered a triumph of its source material over insipid and derivative film-making. The direction had all the subtlety and grace of a “noogie” administered by a fifth grade bully. At no point were we even given the option of believing that V’s quest might be even somewhat misguided. The movie could’ve been 20 minutes shorter had all the superfluous f*cking slo-mo been eliminated. Natalie Portman has a lousy ear for accents, and I reassert my position that she should be shot in the face.
This has been:
A brief message that may upset fanboys
(But be all that as it may, I am considering getting my 3 year old a Guy Fawkes mask for Halloween, as she has the proper haircut.)
