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"Arnie Bragg" hunts down Greg McLean's giant killer croc movie ROGUE!!!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I agree with our spy, Arnie Bragg, about his thoughts on WOLF CREEK. Some of it doesn't work, but what John Jarratt brings to the film pushes it to being a winner in my book.
That said, if a movie has a giant crocodile or alligator in it then I will see it and 99 times out of 100 I will like it. I don't know why, but the sub-sub-genre of giant man-eating crocs or gators revs my motor. It's probably some off-shoot of my love of JAWS.
Anyway, I'm really excited to see this one and Mr. Bragg below tells me I might be putting my trust in the right place. Enjoy the fairly spoiler-free review!!!
Hi all, Arnie Bragg again.
Last night I had the pleasure of an invite to the world premiere of new Aussie monster croc movie Rogue - Greg McLean's follow-up to Wolf Creek
The screening was held in Darwin, the capital of Australia's northern Territory, where much of the film was shot. It was screened at our beautiful outdoor Deckchair Cinema before a packed audience of a few hundred locals. In attendence were McLean, some producer types and stars John Jarratt and Stephen Curry (although I didn't personally see Curry, just heard he was there)
I wasn't a huge Wolf Creek fan, I loved parts of it (mostly Jarrett's spine-chilling performance) but I though there were a few clumsy plot devices and some sketchy characters that kind of undermined the picture. I enjoyed Rogue much more, and I think McLean shows that he is maturing as a filmmaker with this second feature…
I'll give you a few hopefully spoiler-free impressions of the film…
First off, it is beautifully filmed, using many of the Territory's spectacular landscapes that we locals seem to forget are just a few hours from home. It made me homesick, even though I'm here…
To counter claims the film will scare off tourists by playing up the croc threat, McLean has said it is a $30 million ad for the Territory _ and he is pretty spot on. Sweeping escarpments, picturesque billabongs, wildlife … it's all there…
The opening scenes have a distinctive flavour of another Aussie "monster animal" classic Razorback, about a giant pig!. A lot of Aussie films play on this notion that the Outback is a weird and dangerous place (which it kind of is)… but these films have a certain "feel" about them… usually conveyed by a low electric "buzzing fly" kind of noise laid under the soundtrack…
Michael Vartan is Pete McKell, an American travel writer who seems to be the only person getting off a bus to take a crocodile tour for a piece on travelling in the Territory – his normal stock and trade is hotel reviews so he's not overly impressed.
After a straight-out-of-Razorback exchange at the local pub, complete with a wall filled with articles from our croc-loving local newspaper the Northern Territory News about killer crocs, he heads down to the tour boat.
There he meets tour guide Kate Ryan (Rhada Mitchell), who has never been out of the Territory (or the Terrortory, as the films poster loving calls it). Enter a menagerie of tourists _ including an almost unrecogniseable John Jarrett as a dorky widower, the very funny Simon (Stephen Curry from The Castle) a keen photographer who fancies himself as a bit of a ladies man, an upper class British couple with a teenage daughter, an American couple and a friendly but ignorant Scottish backpacker and Kate's beloved dog Kevin. Meanwhile they run into a couple of loutish locals (including Sam Worthington) on their tour.
Each of these tourists has a back story that is played out to give them some dimension, but it is really pared back so as not to take away from the point of this film – the big, angry, man-eating croc.
The crux of the tale is they head up the river on a croc tour. At the end of the tour they spot a distress flare and head up river to see if anyone needs rescuing _ but they only find a sinking fishing boat. They have unwittingly stumbled into the territory of a rogue crocodile – the term used for very aggressive saltwater crocodiles. Basically the croc attacks their boat _ an unusual but not unheard of event here in the Top End (we had one big 16-foot croc called Sweetheart who apparently hated the sound of an outboard motor and gladly let fishermen know about it). The boat starts to sink so they manage to make it to an island – but the radio is playing up in the high-walled gorge … the river is tidal, so the island is slowly disappearing … and it's getting dark…. crocs love to attack things on the banks of rivers, as seen in the excellent opening sequence… you get the picture…
There are some great scares, and a few excellent set pieces. The scenes with the rope were really well crafted, building the suspense nicely. There are also some very funny moments in this film. It has an irreverent humour _ kind of like Peter Jackson's earlier films (Braindead/Dead Alive or Bad Taste spring to mind). The scene when they are looking for bait to "trap" the croc is great, very funny and the audience will squirm with delight or discomfort.
Part of the problem for this film is that the 7m croc is the money shot, so you don't see it for quite some time. As a result, the early attacks on the tourists seem a little anticlimactic. That said the croc is pretty good. Mostly CGI, they have done a pretty good job of capturing the movements and behaviours of big crocs. No clunky robots here or snakes that move faster than lightning here… this croc is doing pretty much what I've seen crocs doing all my life… just more aggressively…
Also, I think the film failed to create enough empathy for the characters … basically I didn't actually care what happened to them. Others in the audience, however, clearly did. It was a very vocal screening – just like you'd expect from a good 70's style monster animal flick. So maybe it's just me…
The great thing about this film is that _ like Jaws _ it's not a completely unbelievable scenario. Sure the croc is slightly bigger than usual (crocs usually don't get much bigger than 6m … but that's still bloody huge considering a 2m croc is big enough to eat a person). There is also some dramatic licence taken here and there, but it's a movie! The length is perfect. I'm guessing about 90 minutes, so there is not a lot of fat on it…
It's not as scary, violent or shocking as Wolf Creek .. but it is a very different film. Where Wolf Creek relied too heavily on the fears of women IMO… Rogue targets the instinctive fears of all humans. Crocodiles are beautifully frightening looking prehistoric beasts, one of those creatures that if you stumbled upon one in complete ignorance of their existence, you'll still be scared… so in that sense it works…
I had a lot of fun watching it, and I think people will really enjoy it. It's not out until November I don't think and I heard it's opening on 1500 screens in the US. Given the reputation of the Weinsteins, who own the US rights, I am curious to see if they tinker with the film at all, just to beef up the emotion maybe…
It was good to see the film premiere here in Darwin. It's a small town of about 100,000 so we don't see much of this action here. There is a bit of a push on to get Baz Luhrmann to premiere Australia here (unlikely but cool idea). Large parts of it are set in and around the WWII bombing of Darwin in the 1940s and they filmed a few weeks worth of stuff here at the wharf (which was bombed in the Japanese raids). It caused quite a stir having Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in town :)
Cheers
Arnie Bragg
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Croc movie? Hasn't this been done a time or twelve?
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giant pig movie would be cool
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Hope I love this too. Rhada Mitchell is welcome to lovingly stroke my balls, she can even name them if she so pleases.
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Dust Bunnies. Think of the horror!And they're eventually stopped by a giant swifter....does anybody know the number of a good agent?
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Aug 12, 2007 11:59:06 AM CDT
There's actually a book about man-killing dust bunnies.
by jackpumpkinhead
It's called, originally enough, "Dust". And it makes Matt Reilly's "books" seem almost readable.
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I have had a massive crush on Radha Mitchell ever since I saw "High Art" and I love pigs. (Not in that way!) By the way, just a quick mention about what a great film "High Art" is.
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ever since i ate pork.
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c'mon Hollywood, make it happen.
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Aug 12, 2007 2:44:31 PM CDT
usually conveyed by a low electric "buzzing fly"
by talkbacker with no name
um...is he talking about a didgeridoo instrument? If so, how strange he didn't just say that.
Movie sounds good though. Crocs rule, mate! -
Without question, the best movie about a giant man eating pig ever made. Who want to argue that point with me? Come on, I will take you all on! And the upcoming Hogzilla film will pale, that's right, pale in comparsion.
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If I was truly bored one weekend and IF the reviews for this are ok, I might check it out. But to be honest, I don't need another giant croc movie. For crying out loud, we just had PRIMEVAL and the Sci Fi Channel seems to make a bad, new freakin' giant croc movie every other week. That's more than enough to give me my fix.But mutated GIANT ANTS storming out of the desert and eating people in their mandibles while fighting the military? THAT would be cool. Give me my damn THEM! remake that's been stalled for ages already!
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I'll take what I can get.
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Just image the scene were the giant pill bugs roll up into huge balls, roll down a cliff, and flatten the whole town. Get Tim Story to direct.
Instant classic folks. -
There were two great evil/giant/insane killer animal movies: Jaws and Cujo. Did I spell that dogs name right? Whatever. Anyway, everything after that is just boring. So out played that it's painful.
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We need a remake of "Attack Of The Killer Tomatos" Wacka Wacka Wacka
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Being a sucker for giant killer croc/alligator movies, I watched Primeval (rented it - knew it was going to suck, so there's no way I'd see it in a theater). Not surprisingly, it sucked hard (the crocodile was hardly in the film - hey, it's a killer croc movie - it should be the focus!)- I'd take Dinocroc over Primeval. I didn't really care for Wolf Creek, but Rogue sounds more like a decent-production value killer croc movie, plus it has Radha Mitchell.
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My mom out played you, last night. Got it straight from the horny bitche, so you can't deny it you fucked my mommy motherfucker.
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GRIZZLY, Snakehead Terror, Sabertooth, Rattled, Boa, Python, Boa vs Python, King Cobra, Komodo, Komodo vs. Cobra, Venom (1981), the Swarm, BUG (1975), Giant Spider Invasion, see there are lots of good ones out there.
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...in the theaters and on DVD. They did blow it with that one. Orlando whatever-his-last-name-is sucked. He was the Will Smith of that movie. I did think the opening scene where the lady steps on the dirt mound as pretty impressive and scary. The rest was stupid. But, will anyone care about this croc movie on the heels of the other. I think there will mostly be ambivalence...
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Set in the Aussie outback with a rogue croc (showing at London's Frightfest)... just maybe Mclean should've kept quiet about this project and not tell everyone in the world what he was gonna make next!
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it would be better to advertise it as a serial killer flick eh? eh?
wouldnt want anybody to think it was a remake of Lake Placid would they?
speaking of remakes...
remake SLUGS, somebody, anybody?
i'd take a CGI enhanced JAWS over another damn giant croc movie. -
A croc of shit.
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I remember seeing that as a little kid and being completely freaked by it, to the point that at night, when I could hear some frogs coaking in our wooded backyard, it seriously kept me awake wide-eyed.Ah, the innocence of youth and simpler times for the way a horror movie could scare the shit out of a kid!
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I mean, come on, if we're talking big critters, what a true cinema classic THAT was. Stuart Whitman fighting oversized mutant bunnies that were either real rabbits badly filmed on mock miniature sets to make them look big or were men dressed in truly, truly bad rabbit suits, so they could stand up and swat with their paws? It doesn't get any cheesier than that.And it had Deforrest Kelley. I mean, come on! What more do you want? Actually, a true anecdote involving the movie (SPOILER FOR THOSE WHO NEVER SAW IT)...The ending involves the town super-electrifying the local railroad yard and rail lines to fry the bunnies as they come charging across. When I was growing up, I saw LEPUS at a local drive-in that was built right next to a railroad yard. So when the rabbits started their attack, my Dad snuck out of the car and started pounding on the roof and sides saying "They're coming! They're here! Look out!".LOL Trust me, when you're a tiny little runt at the drive-in in your pajamas, that's enough to make you scream "WAAAHH!" at the top of your lungs.Ah, the innocence of youth yet again...
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Make it happen, Hollywood!
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bad guy crashes his car, miraculously is seemingly completely unhurt or unfazed, finds his high-precision rifle is equally completely undamaged, aims at car thats been zooming away at minimum 40 mph for a full 40 seconds, hits world class shot. Crap - utter crap. And seriously - the "I shot roos in the bush from helicopters" bit - i'll give him that for the old guy killshot - not twice
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Aug 13, 2007 6:17:01 AM CDT
Spate of man-eating hog movies just a couple years ago
by jackrabbitslim
Hannibal and Snatch both had the sinister porcine threat looming.
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He wrote a good killer croc movie.
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Remake that one. Flesh eating worms!! what could be better?
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where i live in south dublin. The Videocover looked like crap, real bargain bucket rubbish. The vibe off the cover suggested deliverance meets a giant croc movie. Saw lake placid again the other night brilliant. I love that film. Betty white was great.
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Try Slugs, classic 80´s spanish crap
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It was called Aliens.
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What other movie offered you men changing nto snakes? That last scene of the guy on the table in the freak show still creeps me out....
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And Magic Rat, there is a some good source material for a giant snapping turtle flick out of Indiana, in the "Beast of Busco." Look it up. Native Americans and whiteys both claimed they saw a giant, 500 pound snapping turtle between the 1890s & 1940s.
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though SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS was the shit.
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...Rhada Mitchell.
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gets compared to early Peter Jackson movies. I think the accents are fooling people.
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... there's a giant, killer alligator/crocodile movie. Every few years, that movie sucks. Every few years, that movie bombs at the box office. Every few years, that movie is run endlessly on basic cable and... every few years we rip on that movie. WTF? Does H/wood just churn 'em out to antagonize us?!!?
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Vinegar tits - who do you mean, Arkie Whiteley or Judy Morris (who co-wrote Happy Feet!)?
Or are you mistakenly thinking of someone else? -
Creepy, inbred southern town invaded by nasty li'l slimey critters... Slither! They just cribbed the "mind-controlling alien parasite" thing from a million other movies, and the "aliens impregnate human causing them to bloat up to immense proportions" from a Garth Ennis comic. Bad CGI and creature FX, box-office kis-O-death Nathan Fillion, loads of fake southern accents... all redeemed somewhat by the unbelievably lovely Elizabeth Banks!
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Killer plants= next Titanic
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Night of the Creeps myself. Any one recall the tv movie from the 70's with these creeepy little dudes who lived the basement? What the hell was that called?
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...was uneven and disappointing. It takes 45 minutes of boring Character Development (yaaaawn - the three leads are friends, we get it, MOVE THE STORY ALONG), and it jacks up in terror when the Keira Knightley clone wakes up tied up. Some exciting moments as she and her cute friend Kestie Morassi (the Aussie Jennifer Aniston who I'm in love with now) escape from John Jarratt's terrific Outback Psycho -- but then... they drive their escape vehicle off a cliff to psych him out! Oh yeah, that's a good plan! And they then have to go back to his creepy lair to try to find another car, and McLean has Keira-clone casually moseying around, going DOWN A MINESHAFT (because we know we'll find a car down there) only because he needs the audience to see the pit of human remains of other victims. Then, when she finds a car and should be hightailing it out of there, instead she picks up her friend's camcorder -- and sees that Jarratt has been tracking them all along. Well DUH, I got that -- and then of course Jarratt catches her, and what he does to her is pretty freaking horrifying. That's the problem with this film -- some truly great moments, an awesome villain, but just lots of meandering writing. McLean needed a good producer to shape this thing. The ending is also disturbing and disappointing, and I got mad that the guy character escapes with nothing happening to him, while we watch the sympathetic females get tortured and killed. A main title said "based on true events", so I searched the web for this account - turns out it's veeeeery loosely based on an amalgam of events, which only pissed me off more. I really wanted to like "WOLF CREEK" but it was an exercise in frustration. I'll pass on "ROGUE"...
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A better, more crackling version of this similar premise (city dwellers stranded out in the middle of nowhere, kidnapped by desert psychopath) was done better by Hollywood -- see Jonathan Mostow's breakout suspenser "BREAKDOWN" with Kurt Russell, and pass on "Wolf Creek".
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how about the giant bear thing in Prophecy? Looked like a bear with a plate of linguini plastered on the side of its face. Not one of John Frankenheimer's better efforts.
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I believe the die hard fans refer to it as "Inside Out Bear." Scared me to death as a kid, later made me say WTF??? as an adult. And there's been lots of love for Squirm. I swear, anyone who hasn't seen it needs to check it out. There are 2 scenes that my sister and I grew up laughing out loud at, the dude throwing the door down on the other dude and the timing and sound effects of the worms causing the tree to fall on the house during dinner. HILARIOUS!!!
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Prophecy did indeed rule. Love the scene were the giant, mutated trout eats the duck. The "big bear" looks really cheesy today, but that little cub in the movie still works if you ask me.
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As count floyd would say "that gave me shivers on my goosebumps"...aaaaahoooooo
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. . . the cub scared the crap out of me as a kid. I couldn't stand the sound it was making when they found it in the creek. I also freaked out when that raccoon having seizures attacked the cabin. The trout was hilarious but not as funny as the bear swatting that kid who tried to escape by jumping away while still in his damn sleeping bag. Right into a tree. Ouch! If I'm lucky someone else here has seen Deadly Eyes as well. Dachsunds in rat costumes. 'Nuff said . . .
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Anyone remember a movie from the '50s called the Monolith Monsters. It was a "giant monster" that was actually a quartz crystal that grew when exposed to water. It would grow to the size of a large building then fall. The debris would grow during rainfall, and eventually it threatened a small town, by falling on it. Talk about running of of ideas for giant monsters.
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I was reminded of The Giant Claw. I saw it once as a child, probably 25 years ago, but it left an indelible mark. It is always a good one to pull out for the ultimate in obscure 50's monster films. I just Googled it because I literally hadn't seen the creature in decades. Check it out for a good laugh.
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You got me with Monolith Monsters. I can't believe I missed that one. Thanks for giving me something to read up on and a good question to stump my Dad with!
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the best move about giant man eating rats, ever. Food of the Gods, dog shit compare to it.
Why use CGI when you can just dress dogs up as rats? Save your budget for big name actors like Scatman Crothers and Lisa Langlois. -
Thanks for reminding me of The Giant Claw. I remember the monster puppet looking like a meth addicted vulture on crack. And the mention of Bert I Gordon's Food Of The Gods, has to include his earlier "adaptation" of HG Wells...Village Of The Giants. Nothing scarier than a 30 foot tall Beau Bridges...
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SCIFI Channel originals pictures produces a Tim Story film, starring Jason Biggs and Tara Reid, and a CGI Mutant Bear! From the effects crew who brought us "BOA vs PYTHON"!!!
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The similar premise would be Texas Chainsaw, right down to the petrol station. They just swapped Southern/redneck hicks for Aussie hicks. I liked it except for the end (true or not the pacing there was lousy) and agree it was uneven, but geez man, it's really TCM again, like so many horror flicks.
You're avoiding Rogue now? Based on your thinking if you went to see American Graffiti which had good bits with meandering writing, you would have boycotted Star Wars. Yep. Some filmmakers do get better after their first films. It's been known to happen -
Was that 30 foot tall or 30 foot wide? Ha ha.
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Starscream.
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So i'll be catching this one. I really hated wolf creek though.
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(which was actually the first time I saw it) and I've worked with Judy (who is the one that gets mauled in the car) but I think the woman in Prisoner you're thinking of is Fiona Spence, who played Vera Bennet, "Vinnegar Tits" (what a great name, as was 'the freak') in Prisoner.
A funny sidenote is that a friend of mine has the head of the Razorback. It's bloody huge! -
Bit where he severs that girls spine. Horrific. Total detachment. Amazing and chilling acting in that.
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I remember them but I completely forget the titles.
1. Woman is squeezed to death and stabbed in a party dress during a rock concert while her friends hangs in the closet. A naked woman is also branded with a five pointed star and another woman is killed with a garden rake by a guy in a devil mask.
2. A woman has a pail with a rat in in it tied to her midsection. A blowtorch is applied to the pail, driving the rat crazy until it eats through the woman and comes out her back.
3. A woman is murdered in her back yard and falls on a sprinkler which sticks out of her back and sprays the yard with blood. Another woman is suffocated with a bottle of sun tan lotion.
4. A boy becomes a serial killer after his fraternity brothers sets him up in a fourposter bed with a cadaver whose arms fall off.
5. A woman in a bathrobe is stabbed in the back with a claw hammer.
6. A girl is pulled into an department escalator and strangled while her girlfriends watch in horror.
7. A woman has her foot bitten off by a tiny version of Godzilla.
Any assistance would be appreciated and yes, I know I need help.
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The only one I can say for certain I've seen is #2, it certainly rings a bell. Now you have me curious!
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I have two of them..."4: A boy becomes a serial killer after his fraternity brothers set him up in a four poster bed with a cadaver whose arms fall off."That's the opening prologue of TERROR TRAIN. The boy thinks he's going to lose his virginity to Jamie Lee Curtis, who is whispering to him off to the side through some curtains. He then ends up with the cadaver and freaks out. The movie then jumps ahead several years to a college graduation Halloween train ride and murders start happening. Actually, that movie has a rather wacky ending in terms of revealing "who" the killer is at the end..."7. A woman has her foot bitten off by a tiny version of Godzilla."That's DRAGONSLAYER, and occurs when Princess Elspeth (of the local town) decides to offer herself up as a sacrifice to the dragon. In a good stoy twist, she doesn't actually survive. Galen (Peter MacNicol) -- the so-called Dragonslayer who has a crush on her -- arrives too late to save her. When he finally makes his way into the lair/cave of the Dragon, he finds a baby dragon feeding on the dead Princess...at which point you see the little critter tear off her foot and eat it.
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What is the name of this giant killer Alligator movie?
It can't be more than five years old and I forgot what cable channel(US) that I saw it on. It involves about six young people on a houseboat out in the middle of nowhere and they are being stalked by this gator. It was pretty low budget as I can remember. -
If you find the answer to #2 tell us! I have had that movie in my head since I was a kid and Ive been trying to find the name of it like forever!
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