Director: Greg McLean
Year: 2005
Country: Australia
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Torture Slasher
Plot:
Traveling through the Australian outback together, British tourists head out for a tourist spot, but after they get caught in a rainstorm, they accept a ride from a local only to be kidnapped and tortured mercilessly, which forces them to make a desperate effort to escape before being killed by the madman.
Review:
There isn't that much at all to really like. One of the few bright spots is that the outback locations are rendered with a nice eye and bring in a sense of spooky isolation at times, as if anything could happen to you out here and no one would know, much less be able to help. That sense of isolation is nicely captured and gives it some points. The only other part that works is the final half-hour, which is where all the action and torture are. Some of them are pretty good, especially the truck chase down the highway, which has a spectacular revelation, as well as the film's keynote sequence where a victim is attacked in a garage and inflicted with one of the most brutal, creative, and quite inventive tortures around. Otherwise, this is a really overrated film.
There isn’t much to like elsewhere in the film. The way the story plays out amounts to most of the film's problems. Introducing the killer over forty minutes in means that the time spent before is all about the victims, and nothing is going on. It's all about them driving around in the desert and visiting the crater, but nothing else, and it's absolutely excruciating to sit through. It's not about building suspense, as by the time it came to that point, it decided to throw more exposition along the way and make the film go on even longer. Even the fairly rousing final half can't make up for extreme inactivity and non-action at the beginning with the relationship issues or partying going on, and it makes it nearly impossible to sit through at the right times.
Another big factor is the extremely un-extreme violence in this. For supposedly being a backwoods throwback, it contains so little gore as to be shocking. The film's goriest moment, the garage kill that’s graphic in concept but little else, is done with such rapid cuts and extreme shots that it renders it completely confusing as to what's going on. It also doesn't look that gory either, as another scene where the fingers are snapped off is done so that the finger stubs land, and a shot back to a bloody hand is all that's seen, not at all that shocking. That all the rest of the blood and gore comes from seeing the remains of off-screen beatings or previous victims makes this completely unshocking in the gore department, not something that such a film with the reputation it seeks.
The film's last big flaw is the way it handles its ending. It strips one of the main characters for well over twenty minutes of screen time, then puts them back in to serve the climax, which really sticks out as being so obtrusive and clearly there for no reason other than having noticed the character was forgotten about and thrown in to give a sense of relief. It really doesn't work and is there for no reason other than to run up the running time since the film is way too long for its own good and can knock the film down even more, along with the other big factors, to make this a really dull, drawn-out, disappointing, and overrated effort.
Overview: 0.5/5
With a whole host of flaws mixed in with only a few good moments sprinkled so infrequently here as to be virtually worthless, this really doesn't do much of anything and serves as a severe disappointment. Had several flaws been fixed, which could've been quite easy to do, this would at least rated higher, but this is only for those who enjoy these kinds of sadistic genre movies but most others should steer completely wide of this one.
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