Rogue Talk

Greg McLean, director of Wolf Creek and the soon-to-be-released giant crocodile flick Rogue (reviewed here), spoke to shock till you drop.com, a website I had never heard of before (they need to proof read a bit more, if you ask me). McLean is a great bloke - I've met him and, as Ja at MNPP will tell you, the Weinstein brothers are effectively trying to screw him into the ground over Rogue. The topic of those brothers isn't raised in this interview, but it's still a goodie. McLean swears so much! I love it. Here are some choice quotes.

"Anacondas" - I really hate that film...a lot. And when people say, Oh, "Rogue" is like "Anacondas" except with a crocodile, I want to f**kin' kill 'em. I kinda enjoy them all, the really bad ones and the really good ones, but what you hope is that they don't relate your film to "Anacondas."

People always talk shit while making movies because they're f**kin' assholes, but he was a real trooper and it was a really hard shoot. He couldn't easily said, You f**ckin Aussie wankers, get me my agent?

I said, Holy f**k, we've got fifty minutes of people on this island doing f**kin' shit. This is going to be the most boring film in history.

F**kin hell, man. What were they [the makers of Primevil] thinking? ... It was bizarre. It was like "Cry Freedom" meets...I dunno.

My point is thus: Greg McLean is awesome, Rogue is quite good, and I love it when people swear in interviews. But, really, STYD, I can get away without proofreading my blog because nobody cares, but I noticed several mistakes in that one article alone! You site has a .com at the end!

Deep Blue Rogue

This was meant to only be a couple of paragraphs, hence it's kind of all over the place-ness...

The second film by Wolf Creek director Greg McLean is another strong effort, and another step forward in the progression of Aussie film - slowly realising that there's nothing wrong with a well-made genre flick. The film does have flaws though, don't get me wrong, but the pros mostly make up for it. Rogue features two very strong acts, the first two. The first being essentially the set up. It's not as character-forming as the work in Wolf Creek but there are about four times as many characters here as there were in that desert flick so that's understandable. These opening passages include stunning photography by the late Will Gibson (whoever says this will hurt Northern Territory tourism obviously hasn't seen the sweeping majestic cinematography on offer).


The second act is definitely the strongest as the band of characters fight for survival against the arrival of one motha of a crocodile - the first sighting (a mere shadow) had the entire cinema jumping out of their seats. Several great set pieces later (the rope sequence and the anchor sequence specifically) and two quite shocking character moments later we get to the third act, which unfortunately takes a turn for the worst with what is - quite literally - one of the most absurd plot developments I've seen in a long time (sorry, but it is ridiculous to the highest order) and I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out the moment a certain character gasps into proceedings. But, having said that, the third act is, at the same time, a sort of retro throwback to silly monster movies (15ft croc tails slamming people against rocks apparently don't do much damage,apparently!) and it's still fun, if just tainted by ruining a really great geniune shock (well, it shocked me, but I had forgotten about the trailer which sort of ruins the biggie) by following it up with one of the silliest moments. Still, McLean's command of the camera is in obvious spotlight here. As a filmmaking exorcise Rogue is, admittedly, not as good as Wolf Creek, but as a cinema-going experience I think it's better. And you won't feel like holding yourself in your bedroom slashing for days on end once this baby's finished - it even ends with a fade to white. Jesus Christ! What's McLean playing at here.


Perhaps the best thing about Rogue is the way it plays with viewers' expectations. People die who you wouldn't necessarily expect. People who you assume will die by the 20-minute mark don't ever meet their presumed date with destiny. Some people will be disappointed by this - the body count is perhaps much too low for some people's liking, to each their own - but I found it refreshing. What's that? The loud oaf turns out to be resourceful? Sounds crazy, but true. As I said, many will be turned off by this, I imagine some people will complain that there aren't enough scary moments. For me, the entire second act was scary. Just watching these people on this ever-disappearing piece of land in the middle of a croc-infested river is scarier than seeing people chomped to pieces.


I'd be remiss to not talk about the acting from the solid ensemble. There aren't any silly teenagers in distress here. The youngest castmember, Suburban Mayhem's Mia Wasikowska, equates herself well with the frantic proceedings. The rest of the non-mains are made up by the likes of ASHKA!!!!! Heather Mitchell as a thankfully un-gooey (can I trademark that phrase?) cancer patient, Wolf Creek's psychopathic John Jarratt as a solo adventurer with a reason, Stephen Curry as a loud photographer and Geoff Morrell as a desperately unhinged father. The leads aren't as memorable with American import Michael Vartan, Radha Mitchell (using her Aussie twang again) and Sam Worthington proving to be pretty faces, although Mitchell does has some fine moments as the conflicted captain.


Greg McLean has indeed crafted an old fashioned monster movie with a modern streak. At times it reeks of being an early screenplay that was only given a spritz of Spray 'N' Wipe around the edges (it adheres more to the screenwriting rulebook than Wolf Creek, which threw the rulebook out the window and gave it the "head on a stick" treatment). It works on a different game altogether than Wolf Creek, so it's not entirely fair to compare the two - although that's a given in any similar case. In the introduction he gave at the screening McLean said he wanted to make the sort of movie that foreign filmmakers would use our land for, and I think he succeeded. He has definitely utilised "Australia" as an idea and as a location. Early moments suggest a possible mythical Picnic at Hanging Rock-esque turn could be about to be played, while at other points it feels like a theatre production - Rogue the Musical!, perhaps? There is, generally, only three sets necessary, after all.


All this begs the question of what next for Mr McLean? As I've previously stated directors that show the skill of McLean's level are routinely poached for overseas and I hope that doesn't happen in this case. McLean seems so well-suited to telling Australian stories. He knows the land and he knows the way around Australian characters - that the American tourism writer played by Vartan is the film's weakest character is no coincidence I'm sure.


One film that I kept coming back to when thinking about Rogue was Renny Harlin's scientifically-altered shark movie Deep Blue Sea from 1999. Both revel in a sort of old-fashioned entertainment. Like that movie (although, perhaps without as much nudgenudgewinkwink going on), Rogue proves to be a wildly entertaining movie for people who like their scares to be more of the fun variety. It's the type of movie that you can take a date to and watch them squirm and then jump into your pants when the "boo" moments happen. The type where you can jump and then settle back in your seat and laugh to yourself. The type where you can yell at the characters for being idiots. It's the sort of scary movie that has, unfortunately, been thrown to the wayside by directors wanting to play a cruel game of oneupmanship. Just sit back with a box of popcorn and enjoy the ride. B+

How Horrific!

The horror genre and Australian film have a beginning not too dissimilar to America, but unlike that country which embrased the genre and developed it into a money-making machine, the genre never really took ahold in Australia. In the beginning it was b-grade horror films that played at drive-ins and that revelled in absurdist violent and horror. In the early 1980s Movies like Richard Franklin's Roadgames (with Jamie Lee Curtis) and Patrick, Brian Trenchard-Smith's Turkey Shoot and The Man from Hong Kong and Arch Nicholson's Fortress were at the top of the genre. Films like Roadgames, Russell Mulcahy's Razorback and equally "grindhouse" titles such as Mad Max even regularly found themselves with statues and nominations from awards groups such as the Australian Film Institute.


Patrick
The genre seemed to disappear as many of the directors responsible for the "ozploitation" movement (as it was known) followed that well-trodden trail to Hollywood when the drive in's started to evaporate and the Australian film industry tried to become more prestigious and serious. George Miller went overseas and made films like Lorenzo's Oil and the Hollywood-ised Beyond Thunderdome, Mulcahy made films such as the Highlander series and Ricochets while Richard Franklin made the apparently decent Psycho II.


Roadgames
In 2000 a movie called Cut (featuring, bizarrely, Molly Ringwald and Kylie Minogue as the "first victim") was made as a way of re-establishing Australia's genre roots - if there's one problem with the Aussie film industry (there are many) that I can't understand, it's our reluctance to embrace genre films - alas, the film was a load of crap basically (even if looking back on it, it's ridiculously silly fun) and it didn't exactly set the box office on fire.


The same fate befell 2003's Lost Things by Martin Murphy. Getting much more press and attention, the $80,000 zombie flick Undead did moderately well. It's creators, The Spierig Brothers, won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Melbourne Internation Film Festival (MIFF) for "For daring to be everything that Australian films are not supposed to be: part of a popular, disreputable genre. We commend it as an entertainment that is also political, while showing the pleasures of hands-on filmmaking." See what I mean? But these last few years have seen a resurgance in the output of the horror genre, as well as it's marketability.


Undead
Greg McLean's Wolf Creek in 2005 is the one that kicked it off, although Australians had been prominant in previous years in the horror genre overseas. Aussie Jamie Blanks, who had only made the short horror title Silent Number in 1993, was in the helm of Hollywood slasher flicks Urban Legend (good) and Valentine (very bad), while James Wan and Leigh Whannell were behind the incredibly successful Saw franchise. Wan directed and Whannell wrote and starred in the original and easily the best before being dumped/stepping down). Wan and Whannell have since gone on to direct the Magic-inspired (I can only assume as much) Dead Silence and Death Sentence.

But back to McLean and Wolf Creek. The film was marketed as being "based on a true story" (aren't they all?), but was actually only inspired by the real life cases of Ivan Milat and Bradley John Murdoch, two serial killers who roamed the Aussie outback. Murdoch convicted in 2005 of the disappearance of British traveller Peter Falconio and the attempted kidnapping and torture of Falconio's girlfriend Joanna Lees, while Milat is serving time for the known murder of seven backpackers in the 1980s and 1990s.


Wolf Creek
Wolf Creek proved to be a watershed moment if you will. For a R18+ rated (Australia's harshest rating, equivelent to America's NC17) horror film whose biggest star was John Jarratt it's box office was phenomenal, and it went on to become the highest grossing Aussie film of 2005, even making it's debut at the number one position at the box office. It proved to be a minor hit in the UK and the US (where it's release was incredibly destroyed by a Christmas Day release). It even managed seven AFI nominations including a Best Director nod for McLean.


Wolf Creek again
Jamie Blanks has returned to Australia to make Storm Warning, which is apparently going to be another gorefest (it has been rated MA15+, but, if the trailer is any indication, it actually has a storyline to go with the violence) and Greg McLean's second feature outing Rogue is set for release in November (which I will discuss in the AFI guide soon). That's just the tip of the iceburg however as the IF In Production website demonstrates.

Amongst the upcoming titles are Black Water (image, right), described as "a terrifying tale of survival in the mangrove swamps of Northern Australia", although the poster makes me think it's a direct-to-dvd Rogue. There's The Hunt which sort of sounds like a twist on Battle Royale - "5 killers, 5 victims, 1 aim... to survive." The Forest sounds promising, described as "the terrifying tale of nine Australians who are abducted while holidaying in the picturesque Flinders Ranges". The horror comedy Zombies in Combies (love that title) seems to have taken a page from the Shaun of the Dead "rom-zom-com" book with it's storyline "a backpacking American is looking forward to meeting up with the girl of his dreams before an outbreak of zombiism thwarts his rural rendezvous." Nice.


Rogue
Lastly, perhaps the biggest light on the horizon (after Rogue) in terms of both commercial (here and internationally) and quality success is the upcoming film Daybreakers. It's written and directed by the Spierig Brothers and alongside it's cast of Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe it features Australians Sam Neill, Claudia Karvan and Vince Colosimo (who you can see in the below picture). It has a budget of $21mil and is an Australian/US co-production like other recent big films Happy Feet and Moulin Rouge!


Daybreakers
Alas, with buzz and success comes the allure of Hollywood, which just recreates the whole cycle over again. Here's hoping people like Greg McLean, the Spierig brothers and Jamie Blanks choose to hang around these shores for a few more years to come.

(this entry was inspired by yesterdays viewing of Rogue, which, as I said, I will be discussing later)

Are Your McLeans Showing?

While I'm not sure if anyone outside of Australia will get that title reference, mine surely were showing yesterday when I met Greg McLean (although, in all efforts for full disclosure, I use Colgate). McLean was the director of the 2005 Aussie horror flick Wolf Creek and was at an AFI member's screening of his latest film Rogue, which I've discussed plenty of times before (click the 'Rogue' tag at the bottom to see).

He's a very talented man, which is obvious if you have seen Wolf Creek and Rogue (which I'll be writing about later) and, as an added bonus, he's totally sexy. He rocks the silver fox.


So, anyway, I was sitting in my seat waiting for the screening to start when I look over and immediately recognise him and I'm all "omg!" in my head and I rummage around in my bag and pull out the AFI Screenings Guide that every member gets, and it's filled with details about all the movies and such. I flipped it open to the Rogue page and walked up to him and did something I had never asked anyone to do since my days as a regular footy attendee - I asked for his autograph!


We briefly spoke after that. I mentioned how I "had waged a war on the Weinstein brothers" on his behalf and he and his two guests (Rogue co-producer Matt Hearn (I think) and one of the supporting actors from the film Robert Taylor) laughed and the producer said to join the club. Taylor then asked if we can do wage a war again for another Aussie horror flick Storm Warning, in which he also stars.

Someone else who was talking to him asked him if the film was any different from the last screenings they held and McLean said it was a bit shorter than before. After the screening Taylor mentioned that there will be more of him on the DVD. So, that was pretty cool. McLean was certainly nicer than the director of Irresistible, Ann Turner who, when I asked how she managed to get Susan Sarandon and Emily Blunt to star in her movie, snippily replied "I sent them the script!" and turned around to other people. Hmmm.

Rogue Issues

So, Greg McLean's last directorial effort was the terror-injected Wolf Creek. It was pretty great as those sort of movies go and Greg McLean could clearly be seen as a man of talent (remembering some of those scenes just gives me chills). So, naturally, when word came out about McLean's next picture, the mad-crocodile thriller Rogue, I was pretty excited. It has a freakin' kickarse cast - Radha Mitchell, Michael Vartan, Sam Worthington, Heather Mitchell (ASHKA!!!!!!!!!), John Jarratt, Stephen Curry, Mia Wasikowska and some more. It's set in the Northern Territory (cue stunning cinematography) and, early word gave us all hope that it could be really great.

But, of course, the Harvey Weinstein train had to come along and derail all of that. The movie had about 20 different release dates in America, and had all of about none here in Australia. There has never been a poster (there's been fan made ones though!) and no trailer. There are scant few still images on the net (maybe five or six in total). It's almost as if the movie didn't exist.

Then today, I read the horrifying news that Rogue was going straight-to-dvd! (link curtosy of My New Plaid Pants.) I was shocked, to say the least. How does a movie that costs up to (but most likely more than) $20 million dollars and from the easiest genre to sell to American audiences (horror) go direct-to-dvd? Is it because the Weinstein's were disappointed with the American returns of Wolf Creek? Well, maybe they would have made more if they didn't release it ON CHRISTMAS DAY! Ugh. Or was it because the other mad croc film, Primevil, died at the box office even though there was no advertising to make customers believe there was even a crocodile in it!

So, there I was - shocked. I told my friend Simon (who lives outside of Sydney) and he informed me that Australia at least still had a release date for Rogue of August 30. Still some time away, but I can deal. I'm still scared it will go direct-to-dvd, which would be strange considering Wolf Creek is one of the most successful and famous Aussie films of the last decade. All they have to do is throw a "from the director of Wolf Creek" on the poster and it's sold to a fairly decent amount of people.

But THEN, I start to peruse the IMDb forums because occasionally the people on there actually dig up something worth nothing. And, ta-dah, they sorta did. Over at Moviehole they were reporting the direct-to-dvdness of Rogue yet had to edit it later and put a disclaimer at the top of the page that read as thus. (edit - Bloody Disgusting is reporting it too)

The Fangoria report, mentioned below, was a little off it seems. The films local distributor tells us that "Hot off the press : The Rogue U.S DVD release is wrong, Weinstein are still releasing in the US market as are we [in AU]. TWC have pulled the info off the site."

So, what does that mean? Well,it means that the Weinstein's are probably still planning on releasing Rogue theatrically in the USA and that the Australian distributer (Village Roadshow? Who?) is definitely still releasing it theatrically. Maybe the DVD thing was just a rumour? Who knows. There's still the not-so-slight possibility that it is indeed still going to be "[...] delegated to a few bits of white space at Blockbuster."


I suppose we won't know until we actually get a poster or a trailer or something that gives us a vague idea of what the hell is going on over at the Weinstein Company. Crazy.

Although, in all honesty, the reason this film deserves to be shown in US cinemas is so American audiences can experience the brilliance that is ASHKA!!!!!!!!! Granted, it's not actually ASHKA!!!!!!! in the movie, but it's CLOSE ENOUGH!