Editorials
Greg McLean’s ‘Rogue’: An Underseen Killer Croc Creature Feature With Teeth
Between last summer’s Crawl, Shudder’s recent release of The Pool, this summer’s Black Water: Abyss and the lethal lion feature, Rogue, man versus apex predator horror movies are on the rise. The latter of which shares a title with one of the aughts’ most overlooked creature features, 2007’s Rogue. Writer/Director Greg McLean broke out in 2005 with brutal horror-thriller Wolf Creek, but his immediate follow up proved just as vicious. The film’s very limited theatrical release and lack of Blu-ray release in the U.S. (it only went to DVD) meant that this underseen killer croc movie slipped under the radar. Of this particular subgenre of horror, Rogue ranks incredibly high and is well worth seeking out.
Rogue stars Michael Vartan as travel journalist Pete McKell, on assignment in Northern Territory. He joins a group of tourists on a river cruise, led by wildlife researcher Kate Ryan (Radha Mitchell). The tour goes swimmingly, with Kate spouting terrifying facts about the saltwater crocodiles that inhabit the river until it’s interrupted by rowdy locals Neil (Sam Worthington) and Collin (Damien Richardson). As the tour winds down and Kate prepares to take the group back to base, a flare in the distance leads them to a shipwrecked boat in a sacred, remote stretch of the river. Something fast and large crashes into their tour boat, leaving them shipwrecked on a tiny island mid-river that will go underwater once the tide rises.
That leaves them all in a race against time, with a 25-foot man-eating crocodile closing in for dinner.
Designed to be a classic monster movie in the vein of Jaws, McLean penned Rogue long before Wolf Creek. The project very nearly went into production but went south. It wasn’t until the success of Wolf Creek that McLean was finally able to tackle the film he envisioned, and the years it took to getting Rogue off the ground allowed him to revise it into something leaner, and meaner. It’s based on the true story of Sweetheart, a 17-foot male saltwater crocodile that attacked multiple boats between 1975-1979 until it was caught by the Territory Parks and Wildlife Commission. Unlike the killer croc in the movie, though, Sweetheart had no known cases of ever attacking a human.
The key ingredient here, as tends to be the case with creature features like this, is simplicity. McLean gives us just enough to establish the characters and dynamics but keeps the central focus on the dire situation and the ever-looming threat of a monster-sized predator. Like Jaws, Rogue doesn’t show off its beast too often, at least not until the final act. Many of its early kills are quick and off-screen- true to form; this croc snatches its victims off the shore in the blink of an eye. There’s safety on the other side of the river, but that means entering the water to get there. The characters can’t delay too much, or they’ll all be underwater anyway. The animal’s speed and murky river waters mean near-constant suspense as the group panics and bickers amongst each other.
Like in Wolf Creek, McLean builds up to an explosive, brutal final act that pits the film’s leads against the gigantic killer in its claustrophobic lair. While the director showed restraint leading up to the climax, he lets loose with the violence in the final encounter. The downside is that the croc is very clearly CGI, but the good news is that it’s minimal, and the action compensates anyway. For many, the film’s biggest flaw will be in its handling of Kate’s pup Kevin- spoiler warning: it suffers the grim fate we all expected Sugar to suffer in last year’s Crawl.
A tautly paced thriller that favors tension over overt violence, Rogue opts for restrained simplicity, and it’s effective. The setting is gorgeous and contributes a lot to the overall production value. The cast brings it, adding authenticity to characters we never get to know much beyond their harrowing night trying to survive. Look for Mick Taylor himself, John Jarratt, in a nearly unrecognizable role as one of the tourists. Also, look for Mia Wasikowska (Crimson Peak, Stoker) in one of her earlier parts before breaking out with Alice in Wonderland. Speaking of Disney, “Never Smile At A Crocodile” by The Paulette Sisters as the end credits song is a stroke of inspired genius.
If you’re in the mood for more aquatic horror, or perhaps you’d like to pair something with 2020’s Rogue in a thematic double feature, the underseen Rogue is an excellent addition to the subgenre.
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
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