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Screen cap from promotional trailer
form y separately published work icon Wolf Creek single work   film/TV   horror   thriller  
Issue Details: First known date: 2005... 2005 Wolf Creek
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Inspired in part by some unsolved murders in the Australian outback, and by the gruesome backpacker murders committed by Ivan Milat in NSW during the late 1980s/early 1990s, Wolf Creek tells the story of three young backpackers, Ben Mitchell, an Australian, and Liz Hunter and Kristy Earl, both English. Although the girls don't know Ben all that well, he and Liz fancy each other. After buying a car in Broome, situated in the far north coast of Western Australia, the trio head east with the intention of driving across the top end to Cairns (Queensland). At the end of their first day in the desert, their car breaks down at a deserted tourist site - the large crater of a meteorite. Later that night a truck arrives, driven by a real outback character, Mick Taylor. He tows them to his isolated camp at an abandoned mine site, promising to fix their car. All three tourists fall asleep after Mick drugs them. When Liz wakes up, she is bound and gagged and her friends are missing and the nightmare begins.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

10 Years of Homegrown Horror Hits : Talk To Me and the Golden Age of Aussie Horror Jessica Balanzategui , 2023 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 8 August 2023;
The Isolation at the Heart of Australian Horror Nina Culley , 2020 single work column
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , November 2020;

'Australian horror films have always had a unique fascination with the continent’s landscape. Though the genre has evolved from the Ozploitation era into more complex territory, it remains moulded by the terra nullius myth and a colonial sense of disconnection from the land. '

Leave No Trace Madeleine Watts , 2019 single work essay
— Appears in: The Believer , 1 April no. 124 2019;
Dead Heart : Australia’s Horror Cinema Geoff Stanton , 2018 single work column
— Appears in: FilmInk , 31 October 2018;
Dead Heart : Australia’s Horror Cinema Geoff Stanton , 2018 single work column
— Appears in: FilmInk , 31 October 2018;
Highway to Hell Des Partridge , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 29 - 30 October 2005; (p. 1-2)

— Review of Wolf Creek Greg McLean , 2005 single work film/TV
A True Blue Psycho Liam Phillips , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: The West Australian , 2 November 2005; (p. 8)

— Review of Wolf Creek Greg McLean , 2005 single work film/TV
Wolf Creek (Greg Mclean, 2005) William “Bill” Blick , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , no. 52 2009;

— Review of Wolf Creek Greg McLean , 2005 single work film/TV
Up the Creek Charles Purcell , 2005 single work column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 28 October 2005; (p. 4)
The Cars That Ate the Picnic at Wolf Creek: A Symposium on Australian Horror Films David Carroll , Lee Battersby , Robert Hood , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australian Weird Fiction , no. 3 2009; (p. 147-166)
Critics David Carroll, Robert Hood and Lee Battersby answer several questions posed by Studies in Australian Weird Fiction and provide fans of the genre with personal insights and interpretations never before discussed, spotlighting a variety of old and modern films.
Top Five Oz Road Films Gillian Cumming , 2009 single work column
— Appears in: The Sunday Mail , 20 December 2009; (p. 12)
The Murderous State : The Naturalisation of Violence and Exclusion in The Films of Neoliberal Australia Jon Stratton , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Cultural Studies Review , vol. 15 no. 1 2009; (p. 11-32)
Dying to Come to Australia : Asylum Seekers, Tourists and Death Jon Stratton , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Our Patch : Enacting Australian Sovereignty Post-2001 2007; (p. 167-196) Imagined Australia : Reflections around the Reciprocal Construction of Identity between Australia and Europe 2009; (p. 57-87)
Last amended 29 Aug 2022 15:39:20
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