Wolf Creek

Plot synopsis:
In Broome, Western Australia, 1999, two British tourists, Liz Hunter (Cassandra Magrath) and Kristy Earl (Kestie Morassi), are backpacking across the country with Ben Mitchell (Nathan Phillips), an Australian friend from Sydney. They constantly get drunk at wild, extravagant pool parties and camp out on the beach. Ben buys a dilapidated Ford XD Falcon for their road journey from Broome to Cairns, Queensland via the Great Northern Highway.
After stopping at Halls Creek for the night, the trio make another stop at Wolf Creek National Park, which contains a giant crater formed by a 50,000-ton meteorite.
Hours later, upon returning to their car, the group discovers that their watches have all suddenly stopped and that the car will not start. Unable to solve the problem, they prepare to sit out the night. After dark, a rural man named Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) comes across them and offers to tow them to his camp to repair the car. Initially hesitant, the group allows Mick to take them to his place, an abandoned mining site several hours south of Wolf Creek. Mick regales them with tall stories of his past while making a show of fixing their car. His manner unsettles Liz and Kristy, although Ben is less concerned. While they sit around a fire, Mick gives the tourists water which he describes as "rainwater from the top end". The water eventually causes the tourists to fall unconscious.
Liz awakens to find herself gagged and tied up in a shed. She manages to break free, but before she can escape from the mining site, she hears Mick torturing Kristy in a garage, and witnesses him sexually assault her. Liz sets the now-dismantled Falcon on fire to distract him, and goes to help Kristy while Mick is busy trying to extinguish the blaze. When he returns Liz manages to shoot Mick with his own rifle, the bullet hitting him in the neck and apparently killing him. The women attempt to flee the camp in Mick's truck. But before they can do so, Mick stumbles out of the garage, revealing the gunshot was non-fatal and that he's still alive. He proceeds to shoot at them with a double-barreled shotgun before giving chase in another car. The women evade Mick by rolling his truck off a cliff and hiding behind a bush, before returning to the mining site to get another car. Liz leaves the hysterical Kristy outside the gates, telling her to escape on foot if she does not return in five minutes.
Liz enters another garage and discovers Mick's large stock of cars as well as an organised array of travellers' possessions, including video cameras. She watches the playback on one of them and is horrified to see Mick "helping" other travellers stranded at Wolf Creek in almost identical circumstances to her own. She then picks up another camera which turns out to be Ben's, and while viewing some of Ben's footage, she notices Mick's truck in the background, indicating he'd been following them long before they got to Wolf Creek. She gets into a car and attempts to start it, but Mick shows up in the back seat and stabs her through the driver's seat with a bowie knife. After more bragging and furious about his truck getting wrecked, he hacks Liz's fingers off in one swipe, and headbutts her into near unconsciousness. He then severs her spinal cord with the knife, paralyzing her and rendering her a "head on a stick". He then proceeds to interrogate her as to Kristy's whereabouts.
By dawn, Kristy has reached a highway and is discovered by a passing motorist. He attempts to help Kristy, but is shot dead from far away by Mick, who has a sniper rifle. Mick gives chase in a Holden HQ Statesman, prompting Kristy to take off in the dead man's car. She succeeds in running Mick off the road when he catches up, but he gets out of the car and shoots out Kristy's back tire, causing the car to flip over. Kristy climbs out of the vehicle and attempts to crawl away, but is immediately shot dead by Mick. He bundles Kristy's body into the back of his car, along with the body of the dead motorist, and torches the wrecked car before driving off.
Ben, whose fate until now has not been revealed, awakens to find himself nailed to a mock crucifix in a mine shaft, with two aggressive, caged Rottweilers in front of him. He manages to extract himself from the crucifix and enters the camp in early daylight. Ben escapes into the outback, but becomes dehydrated, and eventually passes out beside a dirt road. He is discovered by a Swedish couple who take him to Kalbarri, where he is airlifted to a hospital.
A series of title cards states that despite several major police searches, no trace of Liz or Kristy has ever been found. Early investigations into the case were disorganised, hampered by confusion over the location of the crimes, a lack of physical evidence and the alleged unreliability of the only witness. After four months in police custody, Ben was later cleared of all suspicion. He currently lives in South Australia. The film ends with the silhouette of Mick walking into the sunset with his rifle in hand.

Tags: cruelty, murder, sadist, violence, cult, atmospheric, insanity, suspenseful, storytelling, home movie

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