Review of Wolf Creek (2005) by Tedt. — 29 Dec 2005

I just cannot understand the negative review of this movie by Ebert and others. How, I mean really, HOW is this movie misogynistic? This is a movie about two young women and a guy taking a road trip across Australia, and the whole time their friendship is believable and non sexual.

Any other stupid horror film would have treated the two women as sex objects but in this movie they are real characters, and the pain that is put upon the three is never glorified in the slightest. Whereas in House of Wax there was joy in seeing the stupid, one dimensionsal characters killed in creative and goofy ways, and in The Devil's Rejects there was joy in seeing the human side of the serial killers, in Wolf Creek the joy is in seeing the real happiness of these three friends while on a road trip, and once it is replaced with their torture and pain the movie becomes truly terrifying.

Perhaps I saw a different edit of the film, but I did not see this film as crossing the line at all; in fact, all the gorey scenes were very short and filmed frankly and without lingering on them (except, perhaps, one scene near the very end).

I would consider myself a gorehound in some sense when it comes to some B horror movies, where the violence is obviously fake and all in fun, but Wolf Creek is a movie where the violence is taken seriously and realistically and, unlike Ebert insinuates, not once did I feel like laughing at these scenes.

This is a truly powerful film. Unpleasant, yes, but not for the sake of being malicious. It is unpleasant because it lends a humanizing eye to its unfortunate protagonists, which is rare indeed in horror movies.