Forgotten Lessons from ‘Wolf Creek’ (2005)
The Australian horror classic twists the tropes and conventions of the genre — and it does so masterfully.
Generally speaking, two are the types of horror movies that make history: the ones that are so original and unprecedented that they end up setting a bunch of trends for mediocre copycats to follow and cheaply rely on, and the ones that, unlike such copycats, stand out by breaking the many rules of the genre and by defying tropes that audiences have grown accustomed to. Psycho belonged to the first category, setting the bar for all future horror flicks to come,¹ whereas Scream is an example of the second type, and so is Wolf Creek.
Spoilers Ahead!
The Merry Backpacking Group of Friends:
Wolf Creek essentially relies on the horror movie trope of a group of friends merrily embarking on a backpacking trip. There are countless examples of this basic storyline in modern horror cinema (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Wrong Turn, House of 1000 Corpses, Hostel, The Descent, etc.). The inevitable twist of the premise is…
