Movies
Mick Taylor Will Return In a Third ‘Wolf Creek’!
Image Entertainment’s Wolf Creek 2 was awesome. In fact, I like it way better than its Sundance Film Festival predecessor (here’s my review).
While the franchise isn’t a big deal here in the States, it’s quite successful in its home country of Australia.
So, when word came out that a third film was in the works, I wasn’t the least bit surprised. Still, I’m beyond elated.
Manly Movies caught up with John Jarratt, who plays the Freddy Krueger-esque Mick Taylor in Greg McLean’s Wolf Creek films. When asked about a third film, Jarratt had this to say: “It’s being developed, should shoot it next year. Great plot, secret of course.”
In the 2005 Wolf Creek, stranded backpackers in remote Australia fall prey to a murderous bushman (played by Jarratt) who offers to fix their car, then takes them captive. The outback once more becomes a place of horrorin the 2013 sequel as another unwitting tourist becomes the prey for crazed, serial-killing pig-hunter Mick Taylor.
The sequel went for a more comedic and fun spin, so it’ll be interesting to see where McLean takes Taylor in the third.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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