By Daniel Robert Epstein

Wolf Creek is the best English language horror film I have seen in a long time. It is brutal and unforgiving and those two qualities make it a lot of fun. I’ve seen hundreds of horror films but when people got stabbed in the spine and shot in the face in this Australian import I leapt in my seat like I was nine years old again.

Greg McLean is the auteur behind this new anarchic entry in the horror genre. As the writer/director/producer you can either thank him or put the blame squarely on his shoulders. I got a chance to talk with McLean from the set of his new crocodile horror movie, Rogue.

Check out the official website for Wolf Creek

Wolf Creek star John Jarrat (l) and Director Greg McLean (r).

Greg McLean: Yeah, we’re going back to shoot in about three hours.

RS: What scene are you shooting today?

McLean: We’re just shooting the road crossing scene; which is a scary sequence where one of the characters gets eaten. All the visual effects guys are here and it’s looking great.

RS: That’s awesome. Who’s doing your special effects?

McLean: Richard Taylor from Weta Workshop in New Zealand actually designed the crocodile for the movie. Then we have a company called Fuel for the digital animation of the crocodile. They’re out of Sydney and they’re pretty amazing; so it’s lots of fun.

RS: There hasn’t been a good crocodile movie in a long time.

McLean: I think there’s only been one good one, Alligator which John Sayles wrote. There have been enormous amounts of bad ones, so it is time we see one that’s actually good and our crocodile looks amazing.

RS: At a certain point of watching Wolf Creek I realized that it isn’t a traditional horror film where people might be happy at the end.

McLean: Yeah, you could guess what’s going to take place in a number of the earlier drafts of the script. But at a certain point I was looking at the really great horror films and I was just thinking about story structure and the basic old-fashioned horror tale. Then a few things became clear and one of them was that the really great horror stories are really culturally subversive in some way. So the idea of killing off main characters and ending in a downbeat way and not actually having things resolved at all is something that happens less and less these days. Also when studios get involved in making movies they try to please people and ultimately horror films are meant to displease you completely. They are all about what makes a society so tense all the time. Such as if you work hard you will succeed and good characters will be rewarded and all these kind of ideals. A lot of our really great horror films destroy that idea completely.

RS: Eli Roth’s Hostel has a bit of a commercial ending, did you ever think to change Wolf Creek?

McLean: Not at all. Wolf Creek only cost 150,000 American dollars. Since it was a very cheap movie we had no pressure to do anything other than what the script was. To a degree a horror film can show you things you’d never possibly imagine and Wolf Creek has a certain amount of that. There’s a very fine line with outright exploitation but I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all though it’s something to be aware of. I’m thinking of films like Alien where everyone dies except one character. Working on Rogue is quite different in a sense that it’s cultural in terms of its ending because even though it’s a really horrific story some of the characters survive, with most of their body parts intact.

RS: Could you talk about the structure of Wolf Creek because it does follow the three act structure but with each character in a different act?

McLean: A couple drafts before the one that I shot had a very classical three act structure, and there came a point where it became a two act movie. It’s basically a 45 minute setup and then it goes to night. One of the characters wakes up and then you have act three because what we don’t have in the movie is an intentionally long opening sequence that actually comprises the first half of the movie and then you’re basically in survival mode.

RS: Is Rogue as nihilistic as Wolf Creek?

McLean: It’s pretty black but not as nihilistic. There are some really nasty things in there.

RS: I suppose it’s hard to be nihilistic with a giant crocodile.

McLean: Yeah, it’s hard to be that nihilistic when you’re working with an animal that’s not human. It works on a different level when you see people do those things because you’re reminded of how really sick people are.

RS: Were you in bad place mentally when you were making Wolf Creek?

McLean: I was definitely in an extremely aggressive mode of existence because I’d been trying to get a film out for a long time. Rogue was the first one I wrote but it didn’t get made for different reasons. Then I had a few other near runs to get things going but they didn’t happen and it was getting extremely frustrating. I was broke and I had a lot of angst so I hurried into Wolf Creek and all of my aggression about trying to make a movie made it into this movie. I was trying really hard to do something that would make an impact.

RS: At one point the character of Liz Hunter runs into the garage and basically randomly picks a car to jump unto. Then the character of Mick Taylor is waiting for her inside the car. The movie up until that point had been very realistic then Mick does something which could be considered supernatural like a Jason or Freddy move. What made you decide to go with that supernatural leap?

McLean: In the movie we’re setting Mick up to be this person that is so skillful and extremely good at what he does. Not only is he a phenomenal marksman but he has all these remarkable qualities as a hunter. It is impossible for him to have gotten into the backseat of the car. He’s very clever. He’s a thinker [laughs].

RS: It’s been about 30 years since the really great horror films first came out and there’s an interesting phenomenon happening now. When Wes Craven made The Last House on the Left he probably had some pretensions of making art but they got their budget because the investors wanted to make money. What’s happening now, Tarantino included, is that filmmakers want to make really good exploitation films. Did you want to make an exploitation film but with good actors, good production values and make it a real film?

McLean: Oh definitely. I wanted audiences to leave the theatre with the same impression of some of the films that I grew up with. I remember the first time I saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre and even though it was a deeply traumatizing experience it is a lasting one. A lot of people dismiss some of those films because they think they’re just crappy horror films. But they only work when there’s something truthful going on.

RS: Was anyone you were working with thinking that a horror film could be a breakthrough for them?

McLean: Not really. Most of the producing team that I had were people who just believed that I could make something interesting because they thought the script was a great read. It is a compelling story so they just trusted that I was going to do something interesting because I’ve made some short films and directed commercials so they all took a gamble. I don’t think anyone ever thought that it would make any money.

RS: At least not on the scale it has reached already.

McLean: No, you’d never think that this was going to play at Sundance and Cannes and get picked up by the Weinstein. It’s fantastic and interesting the way these things work because when you have 20 people sitting in a room trying to come up with a commercial movie it usually fails. A huge actor and giant special effects doesn’t always work.

RS: I read that John Jarratt is a Martha Stewart type in Australia, what made you think he could play a brutal killer?

McLean: I was aware of his work because I’ve seen him in a couple of movies; one in particular was the great Peter Weir film, Picnic at Hanging Rock. He’s fantastic in that and I remember thinking, “Wow, before he even knew what acting was, that was an incredible piece of acting.” Then I saw this play with him about ten years ago where he played a small town racist cop. It struck me that this guy had this level of violence and anger he could reach. We sent him the script and to my surprise his agent called and said, “Look he’d love to meet with you.” I met with him and within five minutes he had the job. He totally understood the part.

RS: Did he frighten you on set at all when he was in character?

McLean: He took it extremely seriously and went very deep into this character. That’s one of the reasons he’s so good in it and one of the reasons that the movie worked. He didn’t shower for six or seven weeks during the film because he thought that his character, since he lived in the Outback, wouldn’t have access to that stuff. He went on a very serious journey to find the character and it was quite weird some of the stuff that he got up to, but whatever he did, worked.

RS: I don’t really ask directors what films they’ve been offered. I ask them what films they’ve been offered to remake. So what film have you been offered to remake?

McLean: I was in LA a while back and there was a bunch of things floating around. But I wanted to do Rogue next so I said, “Look, unless it’s X-Men III, I’m not really interested” because I’m a huge comic book fan. I was joking about that and then suddenly the script arrived and I was like, “Oh my God.”

But I put a stop to lots of scripts coming in because I thought that if I looked at something I’d get distracted. I’ll go and do Rogue which I wanted to do years ago.

RS: Since you’re a comics fan are you going to be the guy that finally makes the Evil Ernie film?

McLean: I think so. It’s definitely in the cards. No I’m kidding.

RS: What’s a horror comic you’d love to turn into a film?

McLean: I know there’ve been a lot of attempts at Tales of the Crypt and all of that but they’ve always left me cold because I think it’s all about the tone. So a really nasty one of those would be great.

RS: How have you handled all this attention that came about because of Wolf Creek?

McLean: The way that I’ve handled was to really not pay too much attention to it and just go back to work. That’s the only way to stay focused. It is a blessing and a privilege to have people excited about something you’ve done but I think it’s important as well to not get too concerned about it. It shouldn’t get in the way of trying to be a good storyteller and try to make good work. I’m glad that I’m six weeks into shooting a film as its being released because I’m still just trying to make a good movie.

RS: What are the major differences between making Wolf Creek and making Rogue?

McLean: It feels remarkably similar in the sense that at the end of the day it’s all about just struggling to get the material done in a short amount of time. On that level it feels incredibly similar because we’re racing every night to complete this incredibly huge shot list and these complex setups. Also Wolf Creek had a crew of about 25 people and Rogue has about 80 people. Sometimes I see all these people walking around and I don’t even know what they do. I’ll look around and go, “Holy shit! What am I doing?” But it is also a lot of fun.

RS: Do you see yourself ever doing less nihilistic horror?

McLean: Oh definitely. I’m the opposite of a nihilistic person so I find it odd that Wolf Creek is my calling card. It doesn’t really express my view about the world, but as I said, Rogue is not really that nihilistic. But I guess at the end of the day, people are getting ripped apart, so maybe my vision of what is nihilistic and other people’s vision is quite different [laughs].