Wolf Creek 2 praised at Venice Film Festival premiere

Director Greg McLean, right, actor John Jarrat and producer Helen Leake in Venice for the Wolf Creek 2 premiere. Picture: Gabriel Bouys/AFP Source: AFP

 
 

The Daily Telegraph reports

Australian slasher flick Wolf Creek 2 has been well-received by movie critics after making its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

The outback sequel to 2005's acclaimed horror movie made its first showing at the popular film festival on Sunday.

The sequel follows the return of outback serial killer Mick Taylor as he reeks his special brand of gory havoc upon more unwitting tourists.

Industry publications Variety and The Hollywood Reporter praised the film's acting talent and production values, despite acknowledging the original for having stronger impact and quality.

"Neither as striking nor as fundamentally scary as its predecessor, this pumped-up, robustly crafted pic is still quite a ride, and one that genre-inclined distribs (sic) should have no qualms about hitching,'' Variety wrote.

The Hollywood Reporter, meanwhile, praised the film's "atmospheric cinematography'' and black humour.

It also lauded "very fine acting'' by John Jarratt, who reprises his role as serial killer Taylor, and Packed to the Rafters star Ryan Corr, as his hapless victim.

"If Corr acts and looks better scene by scene as his character pulls out panicked courage, Jarratt has his role as a psychopath down pat and seems calmly poised for an eventual Part 3,'' it wrote.

Director Greg Mclean on Twitter welcomed the "fantastic'' screening reaction.

"Extremely happy WC2 team today, so warmly welcomed by the coolest cat on the Lido, Alberto Barbera. Impressionante (sic)!,'' he tweeted on Sunday.

Wolf Creek 2 will be released in Australian cinemas on February 14.

Bad Jarratt a sheep in Wolf clothing

John Jarratt is actually a really nice bloke who initially had trouble playing such an evil man. Now, though, he can turn it on like a tap. Picture: Chris Pavlich Source: News Limited

Vicky Roach, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Mick Taylor is back. And this time, Crocodile Dundee's psychopathic cousin intends to fool around with your funnybone before he knifes you in the back.

"There will be laughs in the first five minutes of the movie, I guarantee it," said director Greg Mclean this week on the set of Wolf Creek 2 in South Australia.

"The first movie was really just a relentless sledgehammer to the head. It was just splat. End. There are horrifying things in this film, but it has a tonal difference."

It has taken Mclean seven years to get the sequel to his R-rated feature film debut, which took a whopping $28 million at the box office, off the ground.

The delay was partly to do with funding - the cameras were ready to roll three years ago when one of the investors pulled out - and partly with Mclean's determination to get the screenplay right.

"It delves deep into everything that was interesting about the first film ... like why that character connected to Australian audiences," Mclean said during a break from filming at an abandoned homestead on the outskirts of Port Wakefield, an hour and a half's drive out of Adelaide.

"We spend more time with him, because he was definitely one of the more enjoyable parts about (Wolf Creek)."

In spite of the delay, veteran actor John Jarratt, 61, said Taylor's hat and multiple tatts fitted him like a second skin.

"The first time was a bit different because, well, I have got six kids and I had to find a way into the character because he is anathema to me. I had to find a justification for (what he did).

"Now I can turn it on like a tap. He's kinda been sitting on my shoulder (for the past seven years). Because he's such an iconic character, someone comes up to me every second day and asks me to do the laugh."

According to Jarratt, who based the character on his own father, Taylor would actually be a fun bloke to be around, if he wasn't evil.

"If Mick was how you think he is, when you first you meet him, a good humoured larrikin Australian guy, he'd be my dad."

Like the first film, inspired bythe stories of Ivan Milat and Bradley John Murdoch, Wolf Creek 2 is inspired by real events, but Mclean is not saying which ones.

"You'll be able to work it out pretty quickly when you see the film."

Distributor Roadshow films is aiming for a December release for the $7 million film, which stars Packed to the Rafters' Ryan Corr as a British backpacker who makes the unfortunate mistake of straying into Mick Taylor's hunting ground.

The original 2005 low-budget film was shot in five weeks with a small crew and went on to make more than $30 million worldwide.

Jarratt's character is a product of the outback like famed knockabout Mick "Crocodile" Dundee, but this Mick - a Vietnam war veteran and marksman - is a sadistic serial killer who captures and tortures three backpackers in the chilling first film.

The crimes of convicted serial killer Ivan Milat, Falconio murderer Bradley Murdoch and the gruesome Snowtown murders are all said to have influenced the creation of the baddest bad guy in Australian cinema.

Three minutes with John Jarratt

John Jarratt as he appears in Django Unchained.Source: National Features

Neala Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, reports

AFTER shooting Django Unchained with Tarantino, John Jarratt is back in the bush for Wolf Creek 2.

1. HE'D KILL TO GO OUTBACK AGAIN

John Jarratt is in the Flinders Ranges revisiting everybody's favourite pig-shooting serial killer Mick Taylor for Wolf Creek 2. The day before he flew to set, he looked the part: "I'm covered in tattoos, got the hairy face and the 'chops, badly dyed hair - I look ridiculous," he says.

2. BUT BEFORE WOLF CREEK 2 ...

Jarratt also features in Django Unchained. Writer-director Quentin Tarantino "owed" Jarratt after ditching a part earmarked for him in 2007's Grindhouse. "I'm glad I'm in this one rather than the other one," he says, "because it took a dive and this one's going through the roof."

3. AN AVID FAN OF OZ CINEMA ...

Tarantino took the chance to play an Aussie alongside Jarratt in Django. Jarratt reckons the director "made a fair fist of" the accent. "If Meryl 'A dingo stole my boiboi!' Streep can't do it, no one can do it."

SEE Django Unchained is now showing

Autumn keeps wolf from Jarratt's door

John Jarrett on stage in TV program, The People Speak. Photo: Nick Wilson Source: The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph reports

Los Angeles is not only bracing for another Aussie invasion - the charge is being led by our most senior actors.

As Jacki Weaver, 65, adjusts to news she is nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, John Jarratt, 60, is preparing to walk the red carpet at Sydney's State Theatre on January 21 with director Quentin Tarantino at the Australian premiere of Django Unchained.

Jarratt has hit the big time late in life since his success with Wolf Creek in 2005, though he had already met Tarantino.

"He was a fan of Wolf Creek but also liked my previous work - I've been around a while," Jarratt said.

"I first had a drink with him at Circular Quay in 2003. It's been fantastic working with him. I've hit a couple of huge goals in my 50s. Wolf Creek has opened a lot of doors and sent a lot of things my way. I've hit my mark much later than Mel (Gibson) did."

He struggles to explain his success at this time in life.

"With Mel it was luck and talent - he shone in vehicles that did well as opposed to John Hargreaves who shone in vehicles that didn't do well. Hopefully talent wins out."

His role in Django, up for five Oscars including Best Picture, is at the end of the film in what he describes as the "penultimate scene before the climax".

"It's definitely great for my career," he said.

Jarratt joins a long list of Australians making an impact on Hollywood this year including Hugh Jackman, nominated for Best Actor, and Naomi Watts, up for the Best Actress for her role in The Impossible.

Quentin's Aussie film set

Quentin Tarantino. Pic: AFP Source: AFP

The Daily Telegraph reports

He has long championed his love for Australian film. Now cult director Quentin Tarantino is eyeing an all-Aussie project to be shot here and starring only Australians.

Famed Australian actor John Jarratt let it slip during a chat with Confidential this week having just wrapped a role in Tarantino's upcoming splatter-fest Django Unchained starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx.

Jarratt plays a brutal slave trader in the anticipated Western, having brokered a friendship with the director a decade ago while Tarantino was Down Under promoting Kill Bill Vol.1.

"He wants to make this Australian film and I'll keep kicking him until he does," said Jarratt, who said the Oscar-winner had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of Australian film history."He has literally seen every Australian film ever made . ... he knows every Australian director.

"If you want to know anything about Aussie films, you ask him.

"He's told me he likes tough grittiness ... the kicking and scratching kind of movies we make that I think helped inspire movies like Reservoir Dogs and Inglourious Basterds.

"He likes the way we make movies and likes the way we make low-budget movies that look a trillion dollars and stand up next to the Bruce Willis movie next door." Indeed, Tarantino helped finance the documentary Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation about low-budget Aussie cinema of the '70s and '80s.

Jarratt, meanwhile, is set to reprise one of his best-known Aussie film characters - psycho serial killer Mick Taylor - with cameras to start rolling on Wolf Creek 2 in January.

John Jarratt in town to prepare for Chopper role

Actor John Jarratt will star in Pinball, a movie about Mark Chopper Read. Picture: Andrew Tauber Source: Herald Sun

The Herald Sun reports

Wolf Creek baddie John Jarratt will fly back into Australia tomorrow to prepare for filming Mark "Chopper" Read's final scenes in gritty Melbourne drama Pinball.

Read, who has been given about five weeks to live after being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, is waiting to find out if he will have some of his tumours removed later this week.

Pinball producers hope to film his final scenes with Jarratt on a closed set at a Collingwood pub next week.

Jarratt has been in the US filming Quentin Tarantino blockbuster Django Unchained alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz.

Having grown a beard for the western action film, he will shave it off for Pinball.

Jarratt will then have just three weeks to grow it again before he returns to film more scenes for Django.

Newly single Melbourne model Silvana Lovin has also won a role in Pinball, playing a gangster's wife.

Lovin will head to the US this year to pursue a career in film and will train with agency Hollywood Immersive.