Dying Breed

By J. Anthony Lucas

There’s two ways one could view the aptly-titled ”Dying Breed” – either as a junky exploitation horror movie that’d fit nicely into a ”Not Quite Hollywood” sequel, or as a bit of nonsense that’s about as Australian in tone as Colin Hay’s voice (clearly influenced by those cheesy off-the-beaten-track American horror movies this one is).

Whatever way you look at it, it’s still crap.

If you’ve seen ”Wrong Turn”, ”The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” or ”Cabin Fever” – in fact any of those yankie films about dumb kids that head out to the sticks and get more than they bargained for – you’ve seen the Aussie version (besides a meat pie made of human remains, there’s nothing much to even says ‘Aussie’ about it though).

Zoology student, Nina (Mirrah Foulkes) is headed to Tasmania to find the apparently-extinct Tasmanian Tiger, something her sister was looking into just before she died in an ‘accident’. Joining Nina on her journey are partner, Matt (Leigh Whannell, co-star and co-writer of ”Saw”) and his old mate Jack (Nathan Phillips of ”Wolf Creek”) and his girlfriend Rebecca (Melanie Vallejo).

Not surprisingly, it’s not the Tiger that sees lunch when the four arrive into town – but the locals, most of whom are related to a 1800s cannibal convict who had a taste for human flesh.

Someone’s obviously come to the conclusion that if they cast the stars of horror hits “Wolf Creek” and “Saw” in the pic, film it in the Dandenong ranges for less than the cost of a decade’s worth of rates payments, and throw in some corn syrup and prosthetic human parts, they’ll have a bonafide hit on their hands . “Field of Dreams” lied – if you build it, they don’t always come. And I believe that’ll be the case here.

”Dying Breed” is entertaining in that there’s-nothing-else-on-TV-this-late-at-night sense, but for an Aussie thriller it’s terribly mediocre. After Greg McLean’s superbly crafted ”Wolf Creek”, and even lesser but still effective local thrillers like ”Cactus” and ”Noise”, it’s a sure sign that the AFC really needs to establish some sort of guideline that your film’s script must measure up to similar films that have come before it or it ain’t getting made.