Dying Breed

Plot synopsis:
Tasmania, 1800s. Alexander Pearce, a convict known as "the Pieman", has escaped into the wilderness and he is being hunted by policemen with dogs. He is faced by a policeman who attempts to shoot Pearce, but his gun does not fire. Pearce then bites the policeman's neck, taking a large chunk from his throat, killing him, allowing Pearce to escape.
Present Day. Nina plans a trip with her boyfriend Matt to Tasmania to find the supposedly extinct Tasmanian tiger. Her endeavor is encouraged by a paw print that was discovered by her older sister in a remote area of the island before her body was mysteriously found in the Pieman River several years before. Matt's friend, Jack, and his girlfriend, Rebecca, help pay for the trip and accompany the fellow couple. When they arrive, Matt sees a small girl on the boat playing a game with yellow-tinted teeth. When Matt asks what she is doing, she recites a rhyme, then bites Matt's hand. They spend a night in a dingy motel located next to a meat-pie factory, meeting the eccentric and creepy locals.
The next day, the group goes out on a boat in the river along the forest. They decide to camp in a cave out in the woods, and later that evening Matt and Nina discover one of the Tasmanian tigers creeping through the bush. Nina rushes to get her camera to take a picture of the tiger, but it has run into the woods. The group goes into the dark after the tiger using their cell phones as light because capturing proof of its existence is critical to Nina's research. Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, Rebecca is captured and eaten by a cannibal. When the other three re-group, they realize that Rebecca is missing and that Nina has blood on her pant legs.
Desperate to find Rebecca, the group searches through the forest. The local ferryman tries to help them but is murdered by one of the cannibals. Reaching an old mining site, they find Rebecca's remains strung up on meat-hooks and Jack is killed by an animal trap. Matt flees underground and find grisly evidence of the cannibal's past exploits. Nina reaches a railway bridge over a fast-flowing river but is cornered by a pair of cannibals. She deliberately throws herself off the high bridge. The ferryman's wife then kills one of the cannibals. That night, the police arrive at the hotel but there is no sign of any of the missing people. As the police depart, a sad and weary Matt prepares to leave but is suddenly attacked.
He is later seen paralyzed in a chair while one of the cannibals explains that their settlement, much like the tiger, must stay hidden to survive. The cannibal then opens a door exposing a still-living Nina tied to a table, about to be raped for breeding purposes. While Matt watches, the young girl who was actually Nina's niece approaches him, removes a set of dentures, thus exposing a set of sharp deformed teeth. As the police drive away, Nina's mobile phone (which Matt had given them) displays a photo of the Tasmanian Tiger.

Tags: violence, flashback

Review:
Hey it reminded me of an other Australian horror film 'Wolf Creek (2005)' and maybe 'The Hills Have Eyes (2006)' remake, but this time the escalating terror is found in the beautiful forests of Tasmania as a group of young adults head out searching for the supposedly instinct Tasmanian tiger, but actually earth up something more horrifying about the area's local history.
I probably could've gone without seeing it and waited for it to hit DVD, but there's nothing quite like watching a horror film on the big screen.
The main base of the story centres on the history of the extinct Tasmanian tiger, which some still believe exists and combining that legend of the cannibalistic Irish convict Alexander Pearce that managed to escape from the penal colony and headed for the wilderness to only be hanged in 1824.
Then we hit modern times with a group of four after the exclusive photograph of the Tiger, but one of girls lost her sister within the same area they're visiting in a supposed drowning many years earlier.
Maybe too so, but it's a brash display as his not afraid to bare gore and flesh usually the latter in recent times sees little daylight in the mainstream horror releases.
We tend to focus on what's wrong with a local film rather than what's right with the film.OK, so the film is a little derivative borrowing from Deliverance, Wrong turn and Hills have eyes - so what, most horrors derive from something these days.
It could well be one of my favourite Australian Films of the year.Four young cryptozoologists go to check out Western Tasmania in search of ye ol' Tasmanian Tiger.
Little do they know they are stumbling upon the ancestors of Alexander Pearce, the famous Australian ex-convict, bush ranger and sometime cannibal known as the 'Pieman'.
Dying Breed is well cast with Leigh Whannell (Saw) giving us a great version of the metro-sexual out of his league in the wilds of Western Tasmania and Nathan Phillips (Wolf Creek) as a roustabout larrikin hunter.
I'm sure Leigh Whannell must have been showing the director Cannibal Holocaust, as this scene certainly bears the imprint of that classic film and the Dying Breed scene is very well done in its brutality.
The family of inbred freaks are memorable and varied in their motivations and actions.Dying Breed is a great edgy genre piece that is one of the first to appear in the new wave of horror cannibal films, so its ahead of the game world wide, also.
It is very very little about Tasmanian Tigers and more of a redo of some other horror movies.
The best part of dying breed were the few moments of the old (1930s) film clips of the Tasmaian Tiger.
I just got back from seeing Dying Breed and it was quite a mixed bag.It took at least 50 minutes for the main action to begin.
Leigh Whannel sadly gave a poor performance, as well as all the other members in the group of four.Onto the good, the gore was excellent and the film had that raw and gritty feel to it.
Also, the ending was very good and a fitting climax to the film.Overall, this is an above average Aussie horror with many flaws and clichés, but still manages to entertain.
Australia is a beautiful country, the people and the land, however it has a dark history and 'Dying breed' is a small piece of that nostalgic pie.
The direction and acting is steady with no real stand out performance and the characters seem a bit flat at times but the shots of Tasmania's isolated country side are fantastic and set a haunting tale.
This formula has been applied countless times so there's nothing new here but its done well serving up some good blood and guts and proves along with Wolf creek that Aussie film can do horror.
To quickly summarize this movie, you take "Wrong Turn" and put it together with "The Hills Have Eyes", and then you end up with "Dying Breed".
The movie sort of builds up some fairly good moments, but they are always toppled by an anti-climatic result.
But it didn't, at least not for me...And had the movie been based on something fresh, it might actually have been interesting, but the story and plot was handpicked right out of movies like "Wrong Turn", "The Hills Have Eyes" and such similar movies.Now as for the cast, well they were actually well cast and they did good jobs with their roles.
In the present days, the researcher Nina (Mirrah Foulkes) organizes an expedition to Tasmania to proceed the work of her deceased sister Ruth and find evidences of the extinct Tasmanian tiger in the wilderness.
She travels to a remote area with her boyfriend Matt (Leigh Whannell) and his troublemaker friend Jack (Nathan Phillips) that brings his girlfriend Rebecca (Melanie Vallejo) and they spend the night in a village of descendants of "The Pieman".
Sooner the quartet discovers that things have to stay hidden to survive."Dying Breed" is another sub product of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and gives the sensation of déjà vu to the viewer with the total lack of originality.
"Dying Breed" is a largely derivative and predictable Aussie horror flick that nevertheless benefices from a handful of marvelous elements, like a fascinating historical plot outline (albeit not at all accurate), breathtaking filming locations & scenery and a few unyielding shock sequences.
Back in the early eighteen hundreds, when the whole of Australia was still a British prison colony and Tasmania an island where the heaviest cases were shipped off to, Alexander "Pieman" Pearce was the only convict how managed to escape and flee into the impenetrable Tasmanian forests.
Obviously this plot outline isn't entirely accurate, as the real Pieman was in fact the nickname of a completely different prisoner and the real Alexander Pearce died at the gallows in 1824, but hey, it's a horror movie so everything goes.
Nina is a zoologist and wishes to continue the research of her sister who died here eight years ago whilst looking for last remaining species of the Tasmanian Tiger.
At the festival where I watched this movie, "Dying Breed" was exaggeratedly promoted like an Aussie interpretation of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "The Hills Have Eyes".
While I'm not sure that I'd watch Dying Breed again, I have to admit that I enjoyed it through the first time.There are some great landscape shots in this movie and, overall, I felt the atmosphere was creepy, lending itself well to the dark tone of the picture.
Similar movies have covered the same material before (Wrong Turn, perhaps to a lesser extent even The Chainsaw Massacre movies...) and although there's a link to an actual historical figure, it's a pretty weak link and there's no new twists to make this unique.The characters are all pretty unlovable, so there's not much to relate to in that department.The production values are high, so I have to recommend this over some of the other After Dark Horror Fest films I've seen.
I have just finished watching this so here is my simple review.The good points - love the location filmed in austrailia,has that islolated feel about it, yet another warning not to go backpacking or hiking in Austrailia a bit like Wolf Creek, the killings were quite gruesome and some good use of make up.The bad points - Acting wasn't the best even though it does star Nathan Phillips from Wolf Creek who i think is a decent actor.All in all i quite enjoyed this and could possibly watch this again, it's sort of a cross between the hills have eyes and wrong turn.Enjoy.
In this case, a woman is picking up her dead sister's search for the Tasmanian Tiger.Well, of course, they run into the stereotypical group of inbred locals who proceed to hunt them down and kill them.
You all know about that if you've watched more than a couple of horror movies.In this one a couple of legends - the Tasmanian Tiger and a cannibalistic killer - are woven together.Nina (Mirrah Foulkes) goes looking for her sister, who was tracking the Tasmanian Tiger in the Tasmanian forest.
Yeah, it's safe to say we've all seen it a dozen times before and "Dying Breed" is more of the same.Director Jody Dwyer brings this familiar story to Tasmania with most of the same repercussions.
The gore is admirable, yet the individual performances by the all-Aussie cast is the movie's saving grace.Certainly worth a viewing, if for nothing more then the great acting and the wonderful scenery..
The ending was obviously tacked on to either extend or bring the rating up to some sort of "horror" level.The change from 18th century Tasmania to a shots of a 2007 bridge with all it's safety features just grated.
Also, us Tasmanians are rather particular, the open scene in the Pub is obviously in Melbourne Victoria, and the end scene with the police wearing Vic police caps stood out like dog balls.If you want a silly movie you'll love this.
Searching the Australian outback, a group of friends out looking for a legendary animal instead stumble upon a group of deranged cannibals selling their victim's unused body parts and try to avoid becoming part of their spree.This was a pretty troubling and overall mixed affair.
That also plays a huge part of the film's first half pacing problems as not only is spending time here excruciating but their other antics are even less so, wandering through the endless miles of forest in their jeep or staying at the motel with the locals don't really have any really enjoyable sections.
The film's biggest plus here is the rather fun and charged second half, where after they get past the dangers with the family and finally realize they're being chased as there's some really chilling work in the atmospheric forest as the first encounter by the cave where they encounter the cannibal patriarch who begins munching on the victim in the bushes the guide hikes them out through the forest into the dark, trap-filled mine and then the great encounter on the other side of the mountain.
Why they thought to have the character walk around talking to themselves was a good idea is beyond me.The plot makes this sound really cool, but it quickly disappoints and settles contently with boring the audience.You know what they should've done?
Of course this will only work if you like Horror movies and don't have a problem with gross scenes.The acting is pretty good for a horror movie, the plot moves along good enough and although there aren't many surprises left for you to see, it's still a nice movie.
There's one thing for sure though: Horror as a genre ain't a dying breed ....
"Dying Breed" begins as four Aussie friends head to Tasmania in search of the elusive Tasmanian Devil,a tiger thought to be extinct.Nina had lost her sister to this quest eight years back and is anxious to get there and begin their search.The area of rugged isle has long been known for its history of butchery and cannibalism.The hunt for a tiger quickly becomes a nightmare of survival.A deformed killer is hiding deep in the woods and longs for human flesh...Admittedly "Dying Breed" starts off rather slow.The characters are interesting and well-developed and there are some truly gruesome scenes of cannibalism and butchery.The film is obviously influenced by "Deliverance" and Canadian survival classic "Rituals".It kept me on the edge of my seat.8 out of 10..
Dying breed is again a movie in the tradition of Hills Have Eyes.
It isn't a movie that makes you go jump in your settee, the problem is that it takes too long before it all really start happening (around 50 minutes).
Although it was predictable, as most horror movies of this type are these days, the actors did a decent job and the pacing of the film was such that it managed to keep me interested.
Shot for 3 million, more than Wolf Creek (1 million), shot with the same cameras as Wolf Creek and unique story for an Australian movie.Basically the movie's about 4 people, presumably science geeks, as they try to find the extinct Tasmanian Tiger and the lead girl's sister, who presumably drowned 8 years ago.
Jody Dwyer shot the movie a bit too stylish, with the camera looming in on more close up shots, feeling a little too claustrophobic.Leigh Whannell's character (Matt) was the most quiet character out of the lot, which i didn't like at all, Nathan Philips character (Jack) was the most offensive but the most funny of the pack, the Ruth and Bec characters who go with them, they do alright, but Bec dies too quickly.
The cannibals of the town give a good performance across the board, enjoying some good raw meat, courtesy of Justin Dix, who did some nice makeup effects on this show, if put into the right direction, could be the next John Carl Buechler.The ending of Dying Breed is a strange one but nonetheless a shocker, which it felt like it had a few too many endings, but once it did end i felt better because the little girl in the film was creepy.
Not everyone will like this film, but i'm a supporter of good Aussie films and this one goes on my shelf in 6 months time, good work.Rated MA15+ for Violence, Gore, Language and a Sex Scene..
I was lucky enough to catch the midnight showing of Dying Breed at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, and want to get my thoughts down immediately.
In short, its a solid horror thriller movie that I would recommend you see, if you are fan of this genre.
The film's second historical basis lies with the mystery of the Tasmanian tiger, which most scientists deem extinct.
Enter our two couples, Nina and her boyfriend, Matt (Leigh Whannel), and Matt's old buddy (your standard obnoxious peripheral character in horror movies) and his girlfriend (your standard pretty and clueless body) who are along for the ride.
This movie succeeds because you have good tension building elements; 1) the woods, caves, jungles, etc; 2) messed up locals with a tradition they need to keep alive; and 3) a good bit of blood, flesh flying around, and things called "man-traps", I mean you cant go wrong there.
The ending takes you for a good ride, but ultimately this wasn't a crazy adrenaline pumping horror movie.
Like most movies in this genre you have the "god these people are stupid" moments, there are a bit too many "you stay here, I'll be right backs" and our audience laughed at the idiocy of some decisions, but the movie is not campy as campy horror movies go, it tries and largely succeeds at keeping to a dark, serious undertone.
This realization, the fear that occurs when the character is forced to contemplate how completely screwed/messed up their situation is, is what makes horror movies horrifying.
Not a classic, but certainly worth your time if you want to see a horror movie based on cannibalism..
I have come to expect after dark to give some good movies.
or what looked like a premise starts to fall apart and it's like they are just going off on a bad improve of another bad backwoods inbred movie where people took a wrong turn....
*no pun intended*Movie starts out to look something like the first Howling with an added I want to find my sister twist then ends up in inbred Redneckville.
I think the writer was on a tight deadline and ran out of good ideas or didn't know where he was really going with the whole Tasmanian tiger thing...End rant...
As a Tasmanian (yes, where this movie is based) I have grown up hearing the story of Alexander Pierce.
(Although, is that a good or a bad thing in the end?) In the end, this movie was OK, not outstanding, but not written off..
The movie started off well, drawing us into the story.
Just a freaking crossbow.A good movie has people loose their ways of getting away from the situation "naturally".
The start may seem a little slow, however, the film does an excellent job of slowly setting the scene, making both night and day tense.
That aside, I was glad I saw it and its great to see a horror movie that isn't totally clichéd like the vast majority out there..
Dying Breed is decent, for those who like shocks consisting of gore, blood and cruelty.
Dying Breed is not a movie for weak stomach..
The desire to photograph the Tasmanian tiger, due to it's significance as having not been recorded as proof of it's existence, has sent many into the wilderness of Tasmania hoping to capture it on film or other media as a means for a substantial payday.
Nina(Mirrah Foulkes)hopes to finish what her deceased sister started, to be successful in discovering the Tasmanian tiger.
Along with her boyfriend Matt(Leigh Whannell), his pal Jack(Nathan Phillips)and Jack's girlfriend Rebecca(Melanie Vallejo), Nina will head for Tasmania, and into the wilderness, on a trek to find the tiger..ill prepared for what they will find instead.
While the movie does take a while to get going(..this is to build the dread, I felt, and once the violence/action starts, the movie doesn't let up), I thought "Dying Breed", while unoriginal and overly familiar, kicks in high gear, though we obviously question why in the world these people wound up in their current situation, how characters find themselves fighting for survival far from home or civilization.
Characters trying to survive in the wilderness haven of menacing inbred cannibals, attempting to escape an environment alien to them, is nothing new, but it's a frightening scenario I find myself always gripped by.."Dying Breed", I think, follows the mould rather well..