Horrorphile
August 29, 2007
Review of "Rogue"
By Bryn
I snuck into an advance Sydney screening yesterday of Greg Mclean's second feature, Rogue, his follow-up to the excellent Wolf Creek (2006). The advance screenings are to enable it to be nominated for the AFI awards, however it's not being widely released in down under waters until November, its release pushed back apparently so as not to compete with The Bourne Ultimatum, another big-budget, destructive blood-lusting beast, but with a more handsome profile, and a more sophisticated vocabulary.
But enough of the jokes, Rogue is no comedy. It growls, lurches like a locomotive, and chomps down with the most impressive biting power I've seen in a while. This is a monster flick for the discerning horror fan. Rogue rocks.
The basic premise has Kate (Radha Mitchell), a tour captain working the waters of Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory on a wildlife cruise. On board are your typical cross-range of tourists; Pete McKell (Michael Vartan), a slightly cynical American travel writer, a wealthy, arrogant American couple, an uptight English family, an overweight, amusing Irish lass, a handful of Asians, and a couple of fair dinkum Aussies (which includes a very different John Jarrett performance).
As the day's rather uneventful tour is drawing to a close Kate is reluctantly persuaded to steer their boat into unexplored territory to investigate a flare. Suddenly disaster strikes, as the boat is struck a powerful blow from beneath the murky waters and promptly starts to sink. With little choice, Kate is forced to beach the vessel on the closest dry land; a tiny mud island.
The tide is rising quickly, fear has gripped the group, and there is a massive Ôrogue' crocodile that has Ôtagged' the group, surrounding them, relying on a finely tuned hunting instinct.
When I first heard of this project I was somewhat disappointed, feeling like Mclean was going to attempt well-trodden ground (or to be more precise well-treaded water). There was a movie called Alligator (1980) about a huge, well, alligator, that breaks free from the New York sewers and goes on a rampage, and then there's the poster art which reminds one of both Jaws (1975) and Piranha (1978). Another giant reptilian horror movie also comes to mind too; the deep trash Anaconda (1997).
However writer/director Mclean has made a punchy, entertaining horror that pushes most of the right panic buttons. Like Wolf Creek the movie looks terrific, Will Gibson's stunning aerial photography of the Northern Territory; the place simply commands awe, and it looks so ... prehistoric! All the technical aspects of the film are top-notch; especially the main creature effects, a skillful combination of animatronic (John Cox's Robotechnology) and CGI (WETA and Fuel International), but also the music, a superbly atmospheric, instantly classic score from Wolf Creek composer Francois Tetaz.
The charismatic cast work well, Michael Vartan and Radha Mitchell play well off each other, a little tension, and then burgeoning attraction. Sam Worthington plays an asshole, a spanner in the works, and does it well. John Jarrett's turn as a fuddy-duddy tourist is good, as is Stephen Curry as a no-nonsense young Ocker. The characterisations are on the slender side (which is probably why the croc keeps coming back for more), but that's not wholly surprising, we're not talking about a psychological drama with a few teething problems, this is a 30-odd-foot-of-grunt, territorial killing machine, stalking and chomping with extreme prejudice.
I did have a couple of qualms during the movie's last quarter, but they're your standard "There's no way that person would survive that kind of injury!" scoff, and you get them all the time in horror movies, you just take them with a grain of salt (water). Cleverly, director Mclean holds back on the body count, maintaining an impressive sense of danger and suspense, especially during the extended jeopardy scene which has the group trying to make there way across a tight rope from the mud island to dry land. The gradual build-up of tension works similarly in Wolf Creek, and audiences who felt this bogged down the movie will probably feel disappointed with Rogue.
The violence in Rogue is restrained, well, as restrained as a hungry crocodile can get. These beasts move and attack very swiftly, and Mclean uses this behavioural technique to great cinematic effect. When I say "restrained" I mean not as blood-drenched as some might hope for, but the close contact with the rogue croc in the movie's final quarter is as frightening and intense as a horrorphile would want it to be. There's also a couple of impressive wounds on display though for the gorehounds.
Rogue is much better than Placid Lake, the other big rogue croc flick from several years back (and there's another two soon to be released: the American utter trash, Primeval, and another Aussie one that doesn't look nearly as good, Black Water). I'm sure this Rogue will slap those bony, scaly rogue arses into the middle of next week!
© 2007 Horrorphile.net
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