STACK #254 December 2025

MOVIE FEATURE

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Daughters for my sins, and this script had arrived at my home. I read it and I thought, ‘This is really great, this could do really well’. It was a really terrific premise. It’s always about the premise, and Mick Taylor is the premise. “So, I went and met Greg, who was living above a shop in Melbourne. Not exactly tap dancing with money.” [Both laugh.] “I asked, ‘What’s the budget?’ and he said, ‘Around a million’, and I said, ‘Oh, OK.’ ‘Where are you going to shoot it?’ ‘In the middle of nowhere.’ ‘Oh, OK.’” “Greg said, ‘I’ve got a really great cameraman, he’s really good’, and I asked what drama he had shot, and Greg said, ‘Not very much.’ I said, ‘Oh, OK. What about the English actors?’ and he said, ‘Oh, we can’t afford them, we’re going to get Australians.’ And I thought, ‘If they don’t nail it, we’re f-cked.’” [Laughs.] “Yeah, no one had made a movie,” Greg interjects. “We all just loved movies but we’d never been hired professionally. So for John to walk away thinking, ‘What a bunch of idiots,’ was probably fair. But you know, where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Far from a one-off, Wolf Creek has become a franchise, including a direct sequel and a two-season TV series exploring Mick’s story and past. But the burning question is: when will we get Wolf Creek 3 ? “We’re working on it right now and we’re shooting in the new year. It’s been a long time developing the script and getting it right, but we’re looking at shooting it in the first part of next year and we’re pumped. We’re ready to rock and roll, and John’s ready to chuck on the hat and jeans and boots and get out there to carve out some new victims.” “Absolutely,” says Jarratt. “I can’t wait!”

GENRE: Horror/Action RUN TIME: 1h 39m

The cinephiles at Imprint Films have marked the 20th anniversary of Wolf Creek with a 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray 20th Anniversary Limited Edition Hardbox, featuring both the theatrical and extended cuts. Words Glenn Cochrane O n its release, Wolf Creek hit like a sledgehammer. Part of a new wave of extreme horror WOLF CREEK AT 20 and part 3 on the horizon

alongside Saw and Hostel , it carved out a distinctly Australian identity - raw,

grounded, and brutally visceral. We spoke with director Greg

McLean and star John Jarratt about the film’s enduring legacy, the creation of a horror icon, and how it changed their lives. “Thanks to Greg writing such a magnificent character, I’ve created an iconic cinema figure,” says Jarratt, whose already long career in Australian film couldn’t have prepared him for the level of global stardom Wolf Creek afforded him. “There’s not many actors who can say that. You know, there’s the Indiana Joneses and Rockys, these iconic characters, and I feel like I’m part of that. In my life and this career that I love so much, it’s a milestone to have something that everybody knows.” Before Wolf Creek , Jarratt was a familiar face in Australian films,

John Jarratt with writer and director Greg McLean. Below: Wolf Creek theatrical poster

For Greg McLean, having an instant hit meant a foot in the Hollywood door, soon working with Daniel Radcliffe, James Gunn, and Kevin Bacon. “Before Wolf Creek I was a struggling filmmaker for over ten years. It gave me a career, and it certainly made setting up the next film and the next one and the next one much easier.”

having starred in classics like Picnic at Hanging Rock , Blue Fin , and The Odd Angry Shot . But once Wolf Cree k shot him to stardom, he found himself working alongside Quentin Tarantino and Baz Luhrmann, as well as directing films of his own.

Jarratt recalls reading the script and meeting McLean, uncertain the first-time director could get such an ambitious project across the line. “I’d just returned home to northern New South Wales, I’d been out filming McLeod’s

• Wolf Creek is out now on 4K Ultra HD

36 DECEMBER 2025

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