Halloween Marathon: Wolf Creek & A Lonely Place to Die (Double Feature)

Its a bit hard to get so many movies up in a week so I’m going to keep up this double feature going.  It’ll help me cover a few more movies and not have to over analyze any of them.  How does that sound? The main features will get full reviews.

Next up was a last minute addition since it expired today: A Lonely Place to Die.  I like Melissa George a lot in thriller-esque movies so I was pretty excited to add this in.  Its more of a thriller than a horror but I like to group in thrillers for these marathons.  And for the next horror, I decided to finally watch Wolf Creek.  I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect for either so lets check it out! 🙂

 WOLF CREEK (2005)

Director & Writer: Greg Mclean

Cast: Nathan Phillips, Kestie Morassi, Cassandra Magrath, John Jarratt

Ben (Nathan Phillips), Kristy (Kestie Morassi) and Lizzy (Cassandra Magrath) all go on a backpacking/road trip. Their plans are to go hike to Wolf Creek before making it to party in Cairns. Outside Wolf Creek, the car ends up dying and they are stranded in the middle of nowhere.  Luckily, they get help from a man driving through the area.  This man offers his help however, it turns out he ends up taking them captive instead.

Wolf Creek is a pretty effective horror movie.  It builds up slowly in the beginning to how everything just turns to crap afterwards.  I found the ending bit a little bit predictable but the whole setup of the movie and the building up pulled me into the movie. There was a part where I was yelling at the character to do something. I usually am pretty contained when I watch movies so thats a pretty good thing.

I expected this one to be more gory than it actually was but then I’m not saying that the torture/kills weren’t sadistic because they were.  They were actually pretty different than others I’ve seen.  It really helps that the bad guy is extremely creepy and just gets under your skin (at least he got under mine). The three backpackers don’t exactly make great choices and some of the dialogue just makes this into a typical horror movie but the premise of it all, the sum of everything makes it a pretty good and effective horror movie.

What I’m saying, despite some flaws, Wolf Creek is a worthy horror film and I was highly thrilled and entertained by it (for the most part). 🙂 If you haven’t seen this, you might want to give it a chance.

A LONELY PLACE TO DIE (2011)

Director (& co-writer): Julian Gilbey

Cast: Melissa George, Ed Speleers, Alec Newman, Kate Magowan, Garry Sweeney, Holly Boyd, Douglas Russell, Alan Steele, Sean Harris, Karel Rodden

A group of five mountain climbers: Alison (Melissa George), Rob (Alec Newman), Ed (Ed Speleers), Jenny (Kate Magowan) and Alex (Garry Sweeney), go for a climbing trip in the Scottish Highlands.  While hiking to the mountain, Ed hears a sound and alerts the others. Following the sound, they find a breathing tube buried in the ground.  Collectively, they decide to dig out whoever is under there.  They find a frightened little girl, Anna.  When they pull her out, it becomes clear that she’s valuable to a hidden presence in the forest as they get targeted.

A Lonely Place to Die is a pretty awesome thriller.  There was a lot of evading, running in the woods and fast-paced action filled with bullets flying all over the place as they try to save Anna.  It was an exciting watch.  Unlike Wolf Creek, this one builds up pretty quickly and we never really quite get to know the characters before we dive straight into the action and adventure portion of things.  We quickly get an idea of where the story is headed but we never quite know at any point whether any of them will get out of this mess.

I always expect pretty good flicks when Melissa George is on board. I saw her in 30 Days of Night in last year’s Halloween marathon (review HERE) and it was pretty good.  There is no doubt that Melissa George’s Alison was the main character in this even though it didn’t really start that way.  Still, its not as much about the character as the situation they are in: stranded and preyed on in the middle of unknown grounds trying to get back to civilization where they will be able to get more help.  Whats nice in this one is that this one has really smart characters and they actually work out some viable and believable solutions.

There’s a whole lot to like about A Lonely Place to Die.  You want to hold on to the edge of your seats? This one is paced to be that way and it doesn’t fail itself.  Its remains a constant till the ending and that makes this an exciting experience.  Not to mention the Scottish Highlands are extremely beautiful to see, except I might want to hold off on any hiking trips there after this 😉

Have you seen Wolf Creek and/or A Lonely Place to Die? Thoughts on these two? 

Halloween Marathon: 30 Days of Night (2007)

If you don’t already know, I’m a huge vampire fan. I love vampires to bits, except for Twilight series.  I watch everything else pretty much.  This was somewhat of a spontaneous buy when I felt that I wanted to add a vampire flick in and bought 30 Days of Night from the bargain bin. I’m not familiar with what this is about but the synopsis on the box seemed interesting enough.  To my surprise, David Slade, director of Hard Candy, is also the director of this one.

Director: David Slade

Cast: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston, Ben Foster, Mark Boone Junior, Mark Rendall

In Alaska, there is one month where everyone lives in complete darkness.  Sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) is preparing to go into that month, when killings are found right before they plunge into darkness.  The town is suddenly cut off of power and they find that they are now hunted by species that want their blood (aka vampires).  They thrive on the darkness that surrounds them and Eben with his younger brother Jake (Mark Rendall), separated wife Stella (Melissa George) and a small group of survivors must find a way to survive through the 30 days.

I like horror thrillers and I like vampires.  I also even like the actress Melissa George.  30 Days of Night is a fun flick.  There’s really nothing deep about it and most of it is pretty predictable. Maybe its because I was pretty much brain dead by the time I turned this on but it was pretty good.  The vampires was different in appearance and they looked really creepy.  They looked downright evil and they portrayed them speaking in a foreign/unknown language.  Interesting for sure.  This was adapted from a graphic novel (that I haven’t read) so it had its decent load of blood and gore.

I’m not big on darkness so when movies focus on putting their setting in dark areas, I feel the horror in itself already. This town is covered in snow so I think the reality of it is that snow does reflect and has this nice hue and the camera kind of captured that.  I felt the movie was shot well.  There was one particular scene that I really enjoyed when it did this bird’s view over top and scanned the area while stuff was going on down in the town.  That was a pretty awesome scene.

Its been a few days since I’ve seen 30 Days of Night.  Nothing really is in my mind except a jumble of numbers ( I work with numbers).  I just remember a few scenes that I really liked.  There was some blood, some thrills, and some lengthy predictable parts.  An average horror thriller, but one that I enjoyed enough 🙂 At least the vampires are done really well.  That already works for me quite well.  The DVD box said that this was the scariest vampire movie or something, its not, ok? Stop false advertising, please.  That all that really bothered me.  I try to keep my expectations at a minimum whenever I go into anything that I haven’t heard of prior.

Are you into vampire movies? Which is your fave? Have you seen this one before?  Did you ever read the graphic novel this was based on?