By Stephen Pytak 

     Starts off slow. I mean, really slow. I fell asleep
at one point actually.
     But the second half of this flick about a slasher
stalking Australia's outback has got a lot of punch.
     The film is supposedly based on a true story, 
the "Backpacker Murders" committed along the 
Hume Highway by Ivan Milat between 1989 and 
1992, according to IMDB.com.
     Info at the top of the show tells us that about 
30,000 people go missing in Australia every year, 
and that only 90 percent are recovered.
     What about the other 10?
     Well, the film gives us a pretty good idea.
     Our main characters are three tourists heading to
Cannes: Ben (Nathan Phillips), Kristy (Kestie 
Morassi), and Liz (Cassandra Magrath).
     On the way, they stop at booze parties and 
beaches and an out of the way place where a 
meteorite supposedly fell way back when. They call
this place "Wolf Creek."
     When they try to leave, their car fails to start. 
After they discover they're stranded, the three are
visited by an over-the-hill 'roo trapper. 
     Quite a character,  he's named "John Jaratt" and
is played by Mick Taylor.
     He promises to give the kids the parts they need 
to fix the car. And that's when the movie really starts.
     The kids fall asleep at a campsite. And they wake
up either chained up, bound up with plastic ties
or crucified in a shed with a bunch of mad dogs.
     Ol' Jaratt means to torture them silly. The violence
gets pretty strong here. At times it kinda feels like an
Australian "High Tension (2005)." There are a lot of 
scares. Which is good actually, because people who paid
$7-$10 to see it are going to want to get their money's
worth after suffering through the first hour.
     The ending packs a few surprises, because the
killer is pretty good at what he does. So when you place 
your bets on who's going to survive, don't go by what you 
learned watching the "Scream" movies.
     If the first half of the picture didn't put me to sleep,
the picture had the potentional to be one of our "Mazz
Picks."
     It's intense and you have to be out of your mind to 
watch it over and over. In truth, I don't know how they 
managed to edit the last reel without going slightly mad.