To open, viewers are advised that 30,000 people are reported missing in Australia every year; 90 percent are found within a month, but some are never seen again. This text message is followed by an uneventful prelude that introduces a pair of British vacationers, Kristy (Kestie Morassi) and Liz (Cassandra Magrath), who are embarking on a 1999 road trip with a Sydney-based friend named Ben (Nathan Phillips). Their Broome-to-Cairns itinerary includes a giant meteorite crater in an area known as Wolf Creek, and if you've seen the trailers you already know something of the boogeyman that awaits there. If not, consider this a spoiler alert to stop reading in the event that you'd rather be surprised.
When our three adventurers return from a hike to find their car has died, the guy who comes to their rescue is trucker Mick (veteran talent John Jarratt), a kind of bushy-haired Crocodile Dundee on speed. He's plenty odd enough to send up a red flag or two, but ultimately the stranded friends accept a tow to his remote repair place, and the evening ends with jokes around a campfire that mostly come at Mick's expense.
Big mistake.
Liz wakes up alone in a storage room, bound and gagged, with no idea what's happened to her mates. She escapes and goes looking, which leads to a world of stomach-turning horrors inspired less by fact than by ''The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and ''The Silence of the Lambs." ''Wolf Creek" isn't nearly as gory or over-the-top as many splatter films, but it's potentially more disturbing because it's so mean and menacing and common-man-size. Even toward the end, when the action gets implausible enough to seem like parody, it's still pretty harrowing to watch.
McLean's script is most notable for refraining from overdone one-liners, and his tight direction deserves credit for keeping tension and dread ever-present. But there's nothing particularly original going on in this film, and if its brutality has roots or consequences, they're certainly not on the screen.
''Wolf Creek" is ultimately all about the torture and the trauma. Happy holidays.
Janice Page can be reached at jpage22@hotmail.com.
