Wolf Creek - Bloody Disgusting Blu-ray SteelBook

About a year ago I got to review Australian label Via Vision's two-disc Lenticular Blu-ray of Wolf Creek - now I haven't watched the film again in that time (not exactly one to pull off the shelf all that often), but my option hasn't changed. The film remains a terrifying excursion into the unknown. A true Terror film, it gives you enough to love about our three travelers so when their nightmare begins, you hope they make it out, even if the odds are not ever in their favor. Here's what I had to say about the film last May. 

Horror films love to work in phases. The late 90s saw the successful resurgence of the Slasher with Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Halloween: H20 among others. Then came the early aughts and horror was taken back to the gritty and tough-to-watch terror films of the 1970s. These are films that are so unrelenting in their horrific imagery, they’re often dubbed “torture porn” as they seem to relish the pain inflicted upon the hapless protagonists. I like to call them “Terror Films” or “Survival Films” because by the end of it, you’re left feeling that you’re glad to be alive and not those poor sons of bitches you just watched butchered on screen. Notable entries in this little early 2000’s sub-genre were flicks like High Tension, Hostel, and Saw with varying mileage of success. But one particular low-budget film imported from the land down under would withstand the test of time (and a mediocre sequel) as one of the scariest and most disturbing films of the decade - Wolf Creek. 

British gal-pals Liz (Cassandra Magrath) and Kristy (Kestie Morassi) are traveling across Australia with their friend Ben (Nathan Phillips). The next leg of their journey will see them traveling cross country through the outback from Broome to Cairns in a cheap barely-running car. Camping out along the way, the trio stop off at Wolf Creek National Park to view the large crater, but when they return to their car they discover their watches have stopped and the vehicle is dead as a stone. As darkness settles in, the seemingly kindly outback hunter Mick comes upon them and offers to tow them to his camp where he can fix their vehicle. But they soon discover this random act of kindness was in fact just the beginning of a living nightmare. 

It’d been some years since I last sat down to Wolf Creek and I was amazed to see how affecting it still is nearly 20 years later. I remember sitting in the theater long after the credits rolled just stunned by what I saw but also so unnerved I needed to “cleanse” myself with whatever stupid comedy was also playing at the time. I don’t remember that comedy, but I still remember coming home and still feeling the need to process what I saw. Not that it was so horrifying that I couldn’t handle it, but its sheer intensity was so unsettling and realistic I needed time to digest it and come around to the fact that it was (and still is) one of the best horror films of the 2000s. 

Shot digitally, the film has a pseudo-documentary quality making it look almost like one of your average vacation home videos (albeit with a lot better production values and cameras). With the HD video styling, it gave the film a modern edge of grime and girt akin to what 16mm was able to do for Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. And like Texas Chain Saw, the film wisely takes its time to set up the characters and let you get to like them before the unrelenting terror begins. The film also subverts your expectations with Mick, an unsettling combination of Steve Irwin/Crocodile Dundee charm and earnest friendliness with the unrelenting savagery of the worst serial killer imaginable. You can hope for the best for these characters as they struggle to outwit their captor and survive, but you know deep down things aren’t going to end well.

Watching Wolf Creek again after many years away I was amazed and glad to see that it was still such an unnerving and intense experience. Writer/Director Greg McLean crafted a tightly wound and tense script and brilliantly executed it, never wasting a second of footage. Casting choices were perfect with Nathan Phillips delivering the devilish charm, Kestie Morassi’s Kristy is that smart friend everyone should listen to (but no one does), and Cassandra Magrath stepping in as the quintessential horror tough-girl survivor Liz who thinks fast on her feet. The real star of the film is John Jarratt as our man Mick. Seemingly friendly and affable, he can become terrifying on a turn of a dime as he relishes every ounce of terror he inflicts. It’s one hell of a villainous performance, to say the least! And like Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I had forgotten that Wolf Creek actually has very little on-camera gore with the most savage moments saved for the shocking ending.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray

Lionsgate finally gives Wolf Creek a domestic Blu-ray release with a single-disc Blu-ray + Digital SteelBook. A Walmart-exclusive release as part of the Bloody Disgusting partnership, the film is pressed on a BD-50 disc (while only using about 32 gigs of that space) and housed in a horror-themed SteelBook featuring a black and orange motif with original artwork. Overall this is a pretty SteelBook, but I've got to be honest nothing can quite compare with that classic poster art of a girl in bloody clothing stranded on a desolate road in the middle of nowhere. Only the Unrated cut of the film is included. 

This release of Wolf Creek looks to use the same video transfer that's been circulating the globe for a while. Doing some disc flippies against the Via Vision disc. Bitrates are very nearly identical, higher in some places, lower in others, but relatively neck and neck. Given how the film was captured, the details aren't all that different one over the other either. The only notable difference I spotted was this Lionsgate release was a stop or two brighter. Not altogether a massive leap or anything but when looking at color saturation, whites, and dark black shadows, I started to notice it. I'd peg the Via Vision transfer a rung or two better simply because black levels just look better rendered with cleaner shadows and a little better sense of depth. Truthfully though, that difference is pretty minimal, but enough to make note. 

On the audio side, Lionsgate packs the film with a solid Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio track. The Via Vision set had the Theatrical Cut in DTS 5.1 with an LPCM stereo track serving the Unrated Cut. As far as comparisons go, this TrueHD 5.1 track is roughly on par with what Via Vision offered up for their Theatrical Cut disc. This isn't an overly aggressive surround mix, at times it feels like only the front/center channels are actually active. Gusts of wind or incidental sound effects are often the only clue that the surrounds are even engaging. But that actually lends to the creepiness of the film. It's so damn quiet and foreboding! But once the terror ramps up, that surround presence increases. Dialog is clean and clear without issue.  

On the side of bonus features, Wolf Creek storms in with a nice selection of archival extras. It doesn't have all of the extras from the Via Vision set, but we get the great audio commentary, the vintage making-of and only a single deleted scene. The Making of also oddly runs about a minute shorter than the Australian release, not sure what that extra time was for, I didn't notice anything that stood out missing or different. We also don't get all of the deleted scenes, we only get the very weird "G'Day" moment that also has a sort of clipped stuttering framerate. 

• Audio Commentary featuring Greg McLean, Matt Hern, Cassandra Magrath and Kestie Morassi
• The Making of Wolf Creek (SD 49:40)
• Deleted Scene (SD 00:38)
• Trailer (SD 2:15)

Wolf Creek isn't for everyone... to say the least! Unleashed at a time when “Torture Porn” horror films were dominating multiplexes, it made a decent box office splash in its day but was also unfairly lumped into that horror subgenre. While certainly intense and unrelenting, it doesn’t relish the pain and grotesqueries like its contemporaries. Lionsgate finally brings the film to the U.S. domestic Blu-ray market with a slick SteelBook from Bloody Disgusting exclusively available at Walmart. If all you want is the Unrated Cut, you're good to go. The A/V is solid and there's a decent assortment of archival extras. Now if you want both cuts with more extras, you'll have to look to the two-disc set from Via Vision. As is I'm calling this one Recommended - but specifically to those who haven't already imported it.