I didn’t think it was possible, but Greg McLean has managed to create a sequel to “Wolf Creek” that’s even more despicable than the first. Almost ten years later, Greg McLean has seemingly come up dry in the realm of new ideas for his character Mick Taylor, and apparently fulfills a contract, judging by the quality of this long in development follow up to his terrible 2005 horror film. Not only does “Wolf Creek 2” drop the pretense of a narrative, but it reduces the entire film to nothing but a string of really violent deaths, turning Mick Taylor in to a maniac who kills just because he has nothing else to do. Director McLean revels in cruel and disgusting murders that are repetitive and senseless and lacks any and all ability to provide scares, tension, and a genuine sense of unease. It’s just a large maniac running around destroying people left and right, and nothing else.
Director McLean sets up the facade that he’s building actual characters for his film, and then really just destroys them under the murderous rampage of Mick Taylor. We have to suffer through two sub-plots while Mick Taylor roams around basically driving through roads and picking up hitchhikers to murder and or sexually torture. It’s the same damn plot as the original film, except McLean now focuses on Mick Taylor, who literally does nothing but hunt human beings in the outback and revel in making their deaths as painful as possible. I want to say Mick Taylor is the villain of the film, but McLean loves the character so much, he’s kind of just there to show us what his daily activities are like. And that wouldn’t be so bad, if the movie weren’t so inept and tedious. Like the first film, we meet two hitchhikers that are touring to Wolf Creek.
They get lost, and decide to camp out for the night, inevitably coming across Mick Taylor, who insists on driving them to his compound until morning. Except this time they adamantly refuse, and Mick makes them pay by viciously murdering the pair, and taking great joy in it. Everything about “Wolf Creek 2” is just an outright waste of time. It has no sense of terror or horror to it, thus it’s just a practice in cruelty, misogyny, xenophobia, and downright sadistic exploitation that isn’t even entertaining or tongue in cheek. He doles out a horrible murder to two road police, he tortures tourists, and chases after another good Samaritan after he dares help them escape from Mick’s clutches. All the while McLean stages these tonally uneven moments that are just downright confusing.
One moment Mick is beheading a young man in cold blood, an the next he’s running over passing kangaroos on the road to the tune of “In the Jungle.” What is McLean’s intent for his audience here? Is he delighting in the sadism that is relentless from beginning to end? Are we supposed to find this funny? Satirical? What’s the plan? By the time the final half rolls around, McLean has pretty much run out of things to do, and just resorts to half baked dark comedy, and immense disgusting violence that really does nothing to elevate the first film in any sense. “Wolf Creek 2” is just an awful, sickening waste of time, and director McLean fails to impress yet again.