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Dying Breed (2008)

Dir: Jody Dwyer

Nina (Mirrah Foulkes) is on a quest. A quest to find the mythical Tasmanian tiger in the forests and mountains of Australia’s Tasmanian wilderness.
A quest that her older Sister was on when she went missing 8 years ago, later to be discovered as a drowned, partially mutilated, corpse.

With her boyfriend Matt (Leigh Whannell, “Saw”), his abrasive long time friend Jack (Nathan Phillips, “Wolf Creek”, “Snakes on a Plane”) and Jack’s girlfriend Rebecca (Melanie Vallejo), Nina heads out to find the tiger, and just perhaps some closure.

Arriving at a dilapidated village they find it full of weird and suspicious locals all it seems descended from the exiled convicts shipped to the area from Great Britain in the 1800’s.
The group uncomfortably rests up in this strange and unwelcoming environment before heading down river into that beautiful, majestic realm of the mythical predator Nina has come to find.
It is an isolated, wild land though, a land where more than just a legendary tiger may hunt its prey…

Before we start, a little preamble is needed methinks.
Once again the 21st century shows why it’s become on of the most vital and exciting times (ever growing and utterly pointless re-make trend aside) for Horror/Exploitation film production. But this stupendously satisfying time has come with a hefty price tag for everyone.

The World started to crack, fragment and teeter on the edge of a medieval abyss after the events of 9/11 (it still does in fact), and once that dust had settled it seems the Western World was in a darker place than before. And Horror likes the dark.

In the late 60’s and 70’s, when the perfect storm of more liberal censorship, with an exploding independent film production/distribution market to enjoy it, met the upheaval of Vietnam, the Kennedy assassination, race riots and the threat of nuclear destruction, it buffeted not only America but most of the World and this extreme climate ensured that we were offered up some of the most groundbreaking, radical, pessimistic, cruel, extreme and just plain brutal Horror (and Exploitation) cinema we had ever seen.
Psychologists often state that at times of great upheaval Horror cinema goes through a resurgence, and just as in the 60's/70's this is being proved correct once more.

Now that upheaval is in the form of an unprecedented terrorism threat from within and without, of brutal conflict worldwide, of Global political mistrust at an all time high, of religious dogma at its most unrelenting and extreme since The Crusades and in the very real, very close to all our homes, fight for modern society's cultural survival.
And once again censorship is at its most forgiving (The UK for example now routinely passes films uncut it would have once banned outright) and although the great indy Drive-In/Grindhouse circuits for film distribution have long since gone we now have the even more widespread and powerful distribution tools called DVD, Blu-ray and even the internet as home theatre systems becoming bigger and more sophisticated.

From around the globe we are being treated to some of the bleakest, nastiest, most exciting genre cinema. They may not all be masterworks, though some are, but all are deeply effective and make most of what came in the last decade (more underground/indy fare like "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" aside) look like the drab, weak, safe efforts they were.
Flawed some of these may be, but the likes of "Wolf Creek", "The Devil's Rejects", "Hostel", "Hostel 2", "The Descent", "Cannibal", "Inside", "House of 1000 Corpses", "Martyrs", "Shuttle", "Mum and Dad", "Frontiers", "Gutterballs", "Dead Girl", "Murder Set Pieces", "Storm Warning", "August Underground" and "Saw" have all, from the multi-plex. to the DVD player, to the PC monitor given us something as close to those halcyon days of 70's extremity and grime as we will ever get again.

And with bigger budgets (even for indy productions), easier to use equipment and more sophisticated effects possibilities, than the rough 'n' tumble 60's/70's film makers could have imagined, Horror and Exploitation cinema has been able to achieve much more in terms of what we see and yet (thankfully) has often remained as gritty, uncompromising and unforgiving (as these dark times display their inescapable influence) as those rough, tough products of that other harsh era.

And "Dying Breed" is very much a creation of all these elements. Nothing particularly original here, but it's packed with the well loved elements we actually want from such a film and delivers them with razor sharp, sadistic, unforgiving precision.



Like its distant cousin "Wolf Creek" this excellent example of Australian terror cinema utilises the country's huge, mysterious, ancient wilderness to great effect.
This may be internationally exportable, but it retains its Australian roots.
The scenery here may not be the arid dead lands of the sweltering, colossal, outback so well used in "Wolf Creek", but the huge lakes dotted with drowned skeletal trees, overhung rivers, mighty peaks and ancient misty woodlands are just as otherworldy, lonely, treacherous and forbidding.
The excellent Cinematography by Geoffrey Hall ("Chopper") not only captures the overwhelming scale of the landscape to wonderful effect but also captures the stifling intimacy of the deep forest with equal effectiveness.
The movie is a genuinely startling visual treat.

The film's opening third plays very much like that of "Deliverance" and although it may not have anything as iconic as the 'duelling banjos', "Dying Breed" perfectly captures that essential uneasiness of strangers entering a world they can have no understanding of or can truly realise, despite shows of bravado, how dangerous their situation is.
The vast landscape leads us into the awkward, and then violent, meeting of two cultures who share the same country but may as well be on another planet, and the tight script (story by Rod Morris, screenplay by Dwyer and Michael Boughen) keeps the incidents coming and the characters interesting.

When the film moves into its middle section the pacing does start to sadly flag though. And although we are now deep inside the heart of this fascinating wilderness the film does offer us more scenes of the antagonism that exists between Jack and Nina than we really need, as this friction has already been introduced and exploited during the drive to Tasmania.
If the otherwise stunning "Wolf Creek" could have moved 10 minutes from it's first half to its second, "Dying Breed" could at least exchange 5 minutes of the time spent in the forest now to the betterment of the movie's last third.
But even then, what a last third it is! Chilling, exciting, brutal, grotesque and filled with tension and surprise set-ups you dearly wish that those extra 5 minutes were available to play with.

Director Jody Dwyer delivers all we could have hoped for during the generally effective build-up as the movie now crushes the audience's face into a bloody mire of hacked limbs, ripped open flesh, animal fury and the most chilling and twisted gene pool seen in the genre for a long time.
You can keep the weak, bland, mutants of that unnecessary "The Hills have Eyes" remake...this rather more realistic and, dare one say it, human psycho set-up delivers so much more and is able to utilise these strengths to deliver some unsettling twists and grim reveals as to the influence and power of this backwoods, inbred, community existence.
That is not to say that the essential 'mutated cannibal' character is not here though. With a generally excellent mix of make-up and CGI tweaking the main, hulking, deadly patriarch of this 17th century throwback existence makes for a wonderful visual treat with his grotesque face being the crowning achievement of perhaps all inbred cannibal killer movies.

Mention of the effects brings up the stunning corpse reveal in the film. Strung up, cruelly naked and exposed, half eaten and mutilated this shock scene moment would be at home in any of Deodato's classic Cannibal films and is uncompromising in how it visually wallows in the explicitness of the sight. There is a pure Exploitation sensibility being indulged here and we should welcome it.
Other effects are far more low key, short and sharp and pack a more violent punch rather than a gloating gore experience. Sadly the side is let down by an awful (why it was even allowed into the final film is a mystery, perhaps time was short to deliver something) CGI heavy death that sticks out like a sore thumb and takes you out of the grim, down and dirty feel the movie has carefully built up. Luckily the FX set-ups that follow this help us forget (though not totally) this folly.
Certainly, as the superbly twisted finale vomits out its putrid contents over the audience, any such simplistic shortcomings seem moot.

Performances are all good, with newcomer Mirrah Foulke doing a good job essaying the rather strung out and compulsive Nina, Leigh Whannell brings his likeable personality and deliver that worked so well in "Saw" to Matt and truly gives it his all during the brilliant finale. Nathan Phillips is far broader and initially plays the kind of arrogant, irritating Jock yahoo character seen in many American Horror films, but he certainly brings an energy to the film and handles the later action very well.
Billie Brown as the main backwoods character has lots of fun, and does some very astute tweeks to his character's personality as he has to essay a very mixed up individual indeed...More so than you at first will suspect.
No one puts a foot wrong here and eagle eyed viewers will spot a much older Reg Evans (the Station Master in "Mad Max") as one of the village folk.

Overall then "Dying Breed" may be a creature stitched together from many other Horror and Exploitation parts, but in the right hands, and in the right environment, such homage to past glories can be equally as effective and just as unforgiving as what gave it life. And, some pacing and one FX fault aside, "Dying Breed is thankfully part of a breed of movie that is far from dying out at the moment.
In fact such harsh, uncompromising, extreme and cruel Horror films are alive and well in these dangerous and uncertain times and "Dying Breed" can run with the best of the pack.