Mike LeMar At the beginning, the two cops are driving off after giving Mick a ticket. I thought in two seconds: "Here comes a missile of a bullet from afar to the back of one of their heads, leaving the other to endure the car spinning out of control and off the road, leading him to be mangled, unable to move, but alive of course just so that Mick can come along to finish him off face to face as he helplessly begs Mick for his life." How he begs is telling him that he can make the charge against him go away. I thought, "Or he could just make YOU go away." Then Mick goes, "...Or...I can make YOU go away." As for unnecessary gore, I'm talking about chopping the guy's body all up into every little segment he possibly can once he kills the young couple. Gore, like this, for example, isn't scary. It's just gross. And also pointless, because we get it: he's dead; so move on.

Martin Bradley One of the best horror films of recent years was the Australian "Wolf Creek". Its success has lead to this belated sequel, simply entitled "Wolf Creek 2", (and now a television series in production), which is even more effective and a lot nastier than the original. John Jarratt's Mick Taylor is still out there, slicing up backpackers; first a couple of young Germans run up against him and then Ryan Corr's gutsy Pommie falls foul of him in the middle of nowhere. This is a nerve-shredder of the first order, terrifically played by Jarratt and to a slightly lesser extent Corr and brilliantly directed, once again, by Greg McLean with a couple of nice nods in the direction of both "Duel" and "The Night of the Hunter". Terrifying and terrifyingly funny in almost equal measure.

Truth Speaker The first Wolf Creek was brutal and unforgiving. Nothing out-of-the ordinary in story terms except that (spoiler alert) it had some decent performances and an unhappy ending. Wolf Creek 2 (spoilers ahead) doesn't have enough ideas to create one coherent story, so it combines three and allows some segments to become long and drawn-out. With obvious nods to Alien and Duel in places, performances are again decent but the lack of variety in the final act becomes boring. The film regularly pushes you over the limit of horror into abandon — too much violence and gore becomes tasteless and somehow turns you off to the peril. If this dude is gonna get away with it all the time; if the victims are all gonna make such dumb mistakes, why should I care?The opening scene is interesting — giving you a touch of empathy for the bad guy — but the rest doesn't live up to it. There's a modicum of hope that good will triumph, but not much. It could've been something different and memorable, but it's just a slasher film in the outback, despite its increased budget. Obviously, the producers want to keep this franchise going rather than just make a good two-film saga.Oh, and the Fargo-style, "this is based on a true story," lie has been done-to-death. You can stop that now.

Andrew Gold I'm a huge fan of the original Wolf Creek. Mick Taylor cemented himself as one of the best horror villains of all time. Yeah I said it. He doesn't wear a mask, he's not invincible, he doesn't have any superpowers; he doesn't need any of that. No, this guy is a hunter. A straight up Australian outback sharpshooter with weapons up the wazoo. Thing is, he hunts tourists. Any poor bastard wandering around the wide open plains of Australia better not cross paths with the guy because he'll kill them in the slowest, most degrading way possible. He thrives on fear and wants to squeeze as much life out of each one of his victims before letting them die. His smirk is chilling, his laugh is sinister. He's a sick sadistic psychopath, and he's absolutely captivating to watch. The thing about Wolf Creek is that it focused on these three backpackers who were going to the Wolf Creek Crater or whatever but their car broke down, so some guy in a truck comes by and offers them a lift. Turns out this guy is Mick Taylor, and after a brilliantly tense campfire scene where they're all having a drink and a good laugh, he poisons them and proceeds to do vile things. What made it so terrifying is that we knew these characters. They had chemistry, you believed they were friends, you were on this adventure with them, so when the sh*t starts happening, it gets downright disturbing because you feel for these people.In Wolf Creek 2, the focus is almost entirely on Mick Taylor. It's literally just a day in the life of Mick Taylor, which I don't have a problem with at all. But there really isn't a clear protagonist we can root for during a large portion of this movie. At first you think it's a German couple since we follow them around for the first act, until they set up a fire that catches Mick's attention. Then, the guy gets killed. And the girl runs and runs until she reaches the road, and this is where we're introduced to our "real" protagonist: Paul. He almost runs her over but quickly stops, lets the girl in his car and hauls ass out of there. But of course Mick catches up, things happen, and it ends up becoming a cat-and-mouse game between Mick and Paul.Paul really is a good protagonist though. He's a British tourist who was just driving through the Australian wilderness until he finds the girl in the street, then things start heading south for the guy. Paul is a sympathetic character because he was genuinely just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even Mick reminds him that he wasn't his primary target, but Paul interfered with his hunting so now he's in the crosshairs. The psychological warfare between Paul and Mick near the end was riveting, and the actor who played Paul did a phenomenal job despite having such little character development to work with. It's definitely a fun ride. There are some cheesy moments like Mick riding a horse with the sun going down behind him, but overall it has the same thick, brooding atmosphere as the original Wolf Creek. It's just told from a different perspective. It's the same type of extreme over-the-top sadistic horror as the original so if you don't like that stuff then steer clear. But if you did like the first one and want to see more of Mick Taylor, Wolf Creek 2 will give you exactly that.