Wolf Creek 2 (2013) Review

I really enjoyed the first Wolf Creek film (you can read my review by HERE) for some reason it’s taken me a while to get round to watching the sequel, I’m not sure why as I love Mick Taylor as a killer and have heard good things about this film. Although some people say it’s a bit too cheesy and jokey.

Director: Greg McLean (as Greg Mclean)

Writers: Greg McLean (as Greg Mclean), Aaron Sterns

Stars: John Jarratt, Ryan Corr, Shannon Ashlyn

Run Time: 106 minutes

Budget: £7.2 million estimated

Trivia – Supposedly, there was a back-story on Mick Taylor written in the original script that was supposed to be shown in this film; it revealed more details about Taylor’s past explaining what made him become such a sadistic, violent serial killer. Obviously, the idea was scrapped and nothing about it was ever filmed. Later developments showed this information on Mick Taylor’s history would finally be revealed in the series, Wolf Creek (2016).

Trivia – When Paul is speaking to his girlfriend, the connection begins to get bad which forces him to hang up, right before he hangs up you can hear Mick’s laugh.

The opening scene to this film is one of the best opening scenes I’ve watched in a long long time, it made me think “oh no you didn’t” as the kids say, then it made me laugh. It revolves around a cocky police man and his goonish side kick stopping Mick and giving him a speeding ticket. To be fair to the homicidal killer he does ask them if they’re sure they want to do this, laughing smugly and saying yes was the stupidest move they could have made. It doesn’t take a great deal of brain power to work out what’s going to happen to these idiot police.

The film then slips back into what we know well from the first one a bunch of backpackers making their way through the Australian outback, have these clowns not seen a horror movie before? We meet up with a German couple and it’s not long until they become the next targets of Mick however one manages to escape and in a what can only be considered immense bad luck or the universe screwing him over, the escapee is picked up by someone in their 4×4.

Soon Mick is giving chase and this is where the film takes a slight twist. The rest of the film focuses on Mick chasing his latest victim or victims, along the way he encounters a few other cannon fodder characters that he dispatches of in true Mick style.

The chase goes on and on but eventually Mick catches his victim and ties them up. Producing probably the second best scene in the film after the opener, Mick ties them up and after strangely developing a bond with them gives them a chance answer ten questions about Australian history and he’ll set them free.

Mick didn’t bargain on his captured victim being an expert in history and he does not like it at all. Despite getting the questions right Mick still chops off some small body parts, however it all leads to the person attempting to escape from Mick’s crazy torture house.

The Good

• Mick, Mick, Mick and Mick, he was good in the first film but in this one with so much screen time he’s even better.
• The demented version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
• The Opening scene.
• The Ending.
• The kill scene played out to The Blue Danube Waltz (if you don’t know it then you will once you hear it!)
• I’m English but even I found Mick’s massive hatred of the English really funny!

The Bad

• Feels a bit disjointed to start with, like it’s a series of scenes of Mick chasing/killing rather than a film.
• Although I liked it I can see how someone may not like the fact that the films focus is shifted onto the killer rather than the victims and Mick is now the main character.
• If you like kangaroos you may not be very keen on the massive truck chase scene.

This is a great addition that compliments the original film by really showing what their killer is capable of, making him the main focus of the film along with him being more wise cracking could swing your opinion either way. Whilst I loved this one I can’t really separate it from the first one ratings wise. Based on Twitter it appears that people prefer one or the other I find it hard to separate them but I think the first one just edges it for me. If you’ve seen the first one but not this one then you need to get this watched, if you’ve not seen any then you really need to get them both watched now!

Overall Rating – 7/10