Is Wolf Creek Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot
Yes, 7 out of 10. It is a brutal, realistic hunt in the Australian outback that begins slowly and gets very cruel.
🐱THE SCARE SIGNAL
SCARE SCORE
7 /10
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
DREAD LEVEL
High
You will think twice about a stranger offering a tow for a few days.
DOG
Dog: fine
fine, no dog dies.
Ruling: It starts slowly and then turns merciless, so watch it only if you can handle sustained cruelty.
Wolf Creek runs ninety-nine minutes and opens with three young people driving across Australia in a car they just bought. They camp at a crater, and their watches stop there, which is where it starts to go wrong.
The premise, briefly
Two British backpackers and an Australian friend break down near Wolf Creek Crater, and the local man who offers to tow them to his camp has other plans for the evening.
How much do you want to know?
🐱
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
🐱CUT TO THE CHASE
How it ends
Kristy is shot, Liz is left paralyzed and neither is ever found. Ben escapes the mine shaft, is found by a Swedish couple and is taken to hospital. The man responsible walks off into the sunset with his rifle.
The scene you're dreading
In the middle of the film, Liz finds videos of Mick with other stranded travelers. She then gets into a car and he appears in the back seat, stabs her, cuts off three of her fingers and severs her spinal cord, which paralyzes her.
The dog
No dog dies in Wolf Creek. Aggressive dogs are kept in a cage in the mine shaft where Ben wakes up.
Wolf Creek is a realistic, bleak survival horror with some jump scares, and it scares you with how long the cruelty goes on.
THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
A dilapidated car for a very long road
The year is 1999, and Liz Hunter and Kristy Earl, a pair of British tourists, are backpacking around Australia with a local friend, Ben Mitchell. Ben buys a rundown car for the trip from Broome in Western Australia to Cairns in Queensland. They fill up at a petrol station and then stop at Wolf Creek National Park to camp by the crater. When they get back to the car hours later, their watches have stopped and the car won't start. Once it is dark, a stranger called Mick Taylor appears and proposes towing them to his camp, where he can fix the car. They agree, and he drives them several hours south of Wolf Creek to a mining site that has been left empty. Mick tells long stories about his past and puts on a show of repairing the car, and then he hands them water that knocks them unconscious.
Liz wakes up gagged and tied up in a shed. She frees herself and can hear Mick hurting Kristy in a garage. The film implies that he has sexually assaulted Kristy, and he boasts that he has done the same to another woman over several months. Her mutilated body is hanging in the shed. Liz sets fire to what remains of the dismantled car to draw him away and goes to find Kristy. When Mick comes back she shoots him in the neck with his own rifle. The women try to get away in Mick's ute. He staggers out of the garage, shoots at them and chases them. They push the ute off a cliff to shake him and return to the site to look for another car. Liz leaves Kristy sobbing outside and tells her to escape on foot if Liz is not back in five minutes.
A garage full of other people's cameras
This is the beat people dread most, and it happens in the middle of the film. Liz goes into a second garage and finds Mick's collection of cars and travelers' belongings, including video cameras. She plays back the footage on one of the cameras and watches Mick pretending to help other stranded travelers. She then picks up Ben's camera, spots Mick's ute in footage Ben shot at a gas station, and realizes Mick was following them long before the crater. She gets into a car and Mick appears in the back seat and stabs her with a bowie knife. She crawls out. He cuts off three of her fingers and then severs her spinal cord, which paralyzes her. He leaves to look for Kristy.
A highway that doesn't help
Kristy makes it to a highway by dawn, and a driver passing by stops to help her. Mick shoots him dead with a hunting rifle and chases Kristy, who takes off in the dead man's car. She sideswipes Mick's car into a ditch as he drives up next to her, but he climbs out and shoots her back tire, and she crashes into a ditch too. She tries to crawl away and is shot dead. Mick loads the bodies into the driver's car and sets it on fire. Ben, whose fate was unknown until now, wakes up in a mine shaft, nailed to a makeshift crucifix, with another dead man and some aggressive dogs in a cage. He pulls himself free and goes into the camp in early daylight, then escapes into the outback. Dehydrated, he collapses next to a dirt road, where a Swedish couple finds him and drives him to Kalbarri, from where he is airlifted to hospital.
The ending, explained
Title cards state that police have searched several times and have never found any trace of Liz or Kristy. Early investigations were disorganized, because nobody was sure where the crimes happened and there was little physical evidence. The only witness was alleged to be unreliable. Ben spent four months in police custody before he was cleared of suspicion, and he later moved to Southern Australia. Liz is left paralyzed and Kristy is shot dead, and neither is found. The last shot is Mick strolling off into the sunset, rifle in hand.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Wolf Creek scary?
Yes. Wolf Creek is a 7 out of 10, and the dread lasts a few days. It starts slowly and turns very cruel, with realistic violence and some jump scares.
How does Wolf Creek end?
Ben escapes the mine shaft and survives. Kristy is shot and Liz is left paralyzed, and neither is ever found. The last shot is Mick Taylor strolling off into the sunset, rifle in hand.
Does the dog die in Wolf Creek?
No. No dog dies in Wolf Creek. Aggressive dogs are kept in a cage in the mine shaft where Ben wakes up.
Is there a post-credits scene in Wolf Creek?
No. Wolf Creek has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
Does anyone survive in Wolf Creek?
Ben does. In Wolf Creek he escapes the mine shaft, collapses beside a dirt road and is rescued by a Swedish couple. Liz and Kristy are never found.
BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
The whole plot of Wolf Creek is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
You don't need to sit through ninety-nine minutes of Wolf Creek to find out who gets away. Install Scaredy Cat and the internet's horror gets blurred before you see it.
