Wolf Creek 2 (2013)

Wolf Creek 2 is a 2013 Australian horror film co-written and directed by Greg McLean. The film is a sequel to the 2005 film Wolf Creek and features John Jarratt reprising his role as Mick Taylor. It was released on 30 August 2013 at the Venice Film Festival, then released in Australia on 20 February 2014.

Plot
In North Western Australia, highway patrol officers Gary Bulmer (Shane Connor) and trainee Brian O'Connor (Ben Gerrard) are parked by a rural road and are desperate to meet a quota for speeding tickets. Mick Taylor (John Jarratt), a pig hunter, drives past going under the speed limit and they pull him over, claiming he's going over the speed limit. After belittling and insulting Mick, the two officers give him a speeding ticket and an order to get rid of his truck. As they drive away, Mick uses his sniper rifle to splatter O'Connor's head, causing the cruiser to crash in a gully. Despite Bulmer's pleas, Mick breaks his leg and stabs him with a bowie knife, and places the fatally wounded officer back in the car before dousing it with petrol and setting it alight.

A young German couple, Rutger (Phillipe Klaus) and Katarina (Shannon Ashlyn), hitch-hike to Wolfe Creek Crater and camp nearby. In the middle of the night, Mick is driving by and sees their tent in the distance. He offers them a lift to a caravan park so they do not get charged for camping in a national park. When Rutger declines his offer, Mick loses his temper and stabs Rutger in the back. He then attempts to tie down and rape Katarina, but Rutger comes back and attempts to fight him off. He is eventually overpowered by Mick, who then decapitates him and Katarina faints, and later wakes up to see Mick cutting up Rutger's body to feed to his dogs. She flees into the bush, and Mick pursues her in his truck.

Paul (Ryan Corr), an English tourist, is driving along the highway and stops for Katarina standing in the road. He picks her up, but Mick follows them. He shoots sat Paul, who ducks but fails to warn Katarina, inadvertently killing her and Paul then drives off, dumping Katarina's body covering it with just a sleeping bag at daybreak, and doesn't report the incident. Paul reaches a highway, but realizing he is off course and has low fuel, tries to flag down a truck in the distance, but realises that Mick is driving it, having killed the original driver. After a long chase, Mick nudges Paul's vehicle at a cliff side, sending it rolling down into a valley, and Mick sends the truck crashing and imploding into Paul's vehicle before Paul has escaped. Exhausted and dehydrated, Paul passes out at an outback cottage and is given food and shelter by elderly couple Jack (Gerard Kennedy) and Lil (Annie Byron).

They plan to take Paul to the nearest town after he has eaten, but Mick finds the house and kills Jack and Lil. Paul flees again, while Mick follows him on Jack's stolen horse. He catches Paul hiding in the grassland, and knocks him out.

Paul wakes up in Mick's dungeon, zip-tied up to a chair. Mick is furious at Paul for helping Katarina and prepares to torture him, but Paul pacifies him with his "English wit" by telling bar jokes and leading Mick in drinking songs that Paul claims he learned at boarding school. Mick's torture for Paul is a quiz of Australian culture and history, promising to free him if he passes the quiz. If Paul gets a question wrong, he loses a finger. Paul answers the first two questions, since Paul is a history major. After he gets the next question right, an annoyed Mick (fed up with Paul's knowledge) grinds off one of his fingers with a sander.

During the last question, Paul tricks Mick into cutting his other hand free to drink by deliberately answering the question wrong (and losing another finger) and slips a nearby hammer into his hand and hits Mick in the head with it. He then flees through the tunnels, pursued by a somewhat drunk Mick. Paul finds several decayed corpses of Mick's victims and a severely emaciated woman is awoken by Paul. Eventually, he finds an exit, but notices a blanket on the ground directly in front of it.

Lifting it up, he finds a Punji stick trap underneath and considers trying to jump over it. He hears someonecoming and hides in a corner, assuming that it is Mick coming to get him. When the person who approaches walks past him, Paul hits them from behind with the hammer and they fall in the trap to their death. But when Paul looks to see what he thinks is Mick's corpse, Paul discovers that it was just the woman from earlier. Imminently afterwards, Mick finds and subdues Paul. After declaring himself "the winner" and lecturing how "It's up to my kind to wipe you kind out", head-butts Paul unconscious.

When he wakes up, Paul finds himself on a footpath in a small town, dressed only in his underpants and with wounds across his body. He finds a piece of paper near him which reads "Loser", and he is soon apprehended by police. A series of title cards reveal that despite reporting Mick to the police, Paul became the primary suspect in the murders of several tourists, and during the investigation he suffered a complete mental breakdown. He was subsequently deported back to England and placed in full-time care at Ashworth Hospital. The film ends similarly to the previous film, with Mick Taylor walking off into the outback with his rifle.

Cast

 * John Jarratt as Mick Taylor
 * Ryan Corr as Paul Hammersmith
 * Shane Connor as Senior Sergeant Gary Bulmer Jr
 * Gerard Kennedy as Jack
 * Shannon Ashlyn as Katarina Schmidt
 * Phillipe Klaus as Rutger Enqvist
 * Ben Gerrard as Constable Brian O'Connor
 * Annie Byron as Lil
 * Chloé Boreham as Lucille

Production
Despite the first film's success, McLean chose to begin work on the film Rogue rather than develop a sequel. Later he said he regretted that decision: 'If I'd known then what I know now about how long it would take to get this up, I'd probably have said yes to a sequel earlier.'

In 2010, McLean announced that he was developing a sequel and confirmed that Jarratt would be returning to portray Mick Taylor.

Geoffrey Edelsten signed on to invest in the production of Wolf Creek 2, but later withdrew his support of the film and alleged that McLean had misled him into believing that he would not be the largest single private investor. When the funding deadline had passed, Emu Creek Pictures sent Edelsten's Millennium Management a statutory demand for A$4.923 million. Edelsten asked the Supreme Court of Australia to set aside the demand so he could seek further legal recourse. McLean and Emu Creek Pictures denied they had misled Edelsten, and said they had shown Edelsten documents that clearly set out his A$5 million share of the A$5.2 million support expected from private investors. The funding plan specified that any shortfall from that level would be made up by Screen Australia and the South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC).

Filming was set to begin in 2011, but the loss of Edelsten's backing delayed the production. McLean risked losing the funds from the government bodies if he could not find another private investor. Early in 2012 the SAFC withdrew its commitment but recommitted in September to the tune of A$400,000, enabling production to resume. Filming began in 2012 and continued into early 2013. While developing the script, McLean chose to focus on Mick Taylor as the character was "the most interesting thing about the first movie." McLean says that the second story, like the first, is based on true events, a point he said would be "pretty obvious when [viewers] see the film".

Box office
Wolf Creek 2 was released theatrically in Australia on 20 February 2014, taking over $1.5 million at the box office, making it the number one film in its opening weekend. The final gross is $4.7 million in Australia. The film also opened in the United States on 17 April 2014.

Critical reception
Initial response at the Venice Film Festival was mostly positive. The Hollywood Reporter summarized the story thus: 'A psychopathic serial killer and his knife carve out an edge-of-seat gorefest that follows safely in the tracks of its predecessor.' Variety‍ '​s review commented that the film was "neither as striking nor as fundamentally scary as its predecessor" but was "still quite a ride, and one that genre-inclined distribs should have no qualms about hitching." Likewise, Norman Gator of The Sydney Morning Herald gave the film four out of four stars, calling it "Perhaps the greatest Aussie flick ever made. I hope to hell there'll be a third one."

The film currently has a "rotten" score of 49% on Rotten tomatoes based on 47 reviews with an average rating of 5.7 out of 10. The critical consensus states "After a strong start, Wolf Creek 2 devolves into an unnecessary -- and disappointingly predictable -- sequel." The film also has a score of 44 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 13 critics indicating "Mixed or average reviews."