LATE REVIEW: ROGUE! - OMG Horror - The Blog of the Living Dead: Horror Movie News, Features, Reviews, Games, Free Horror Films, Splatter, Gore, Puppies

Disclaimer: Rogue has seen shoddy, limited US releasing and is actually out on DVD in The Netherlands toady - big ups to Amsterdam!

Kate (Radha Mitchell) Does All She Can to Survive a Man-Eating Crocodile in Rogue!

Australian writer/director Greg Mclean bludgeoned international audiences with his slow burning debut feature Wolf Creek back in 2005. Some people found it boring, derivative, utterly tasteless. Not me, I thought his use of the first half hour or so to setup and flesh out the main characters was an optimal way of not only feeling sympathy for the them later on in the film, but served as a jolting transition to the true terror the back half of the film engendered. Well Mclean is back at again, and though the marketing and release of his second feature may have suffered from a sophomore jinx, Rogue – his man-eating crocodile picture itself does not. It’s a fine, simply told creature feature that moves along briskly and offers many thrills and chills along the way.

We open with an American Journalist named Pete (Michael Vartan) arriving at an outback Australian lodge. He looks none too thrilled having to be there, and doesn’t have his trusty computer to offer dutiful comfort. He examines a festooned wall of news clippings about people disappearing on outback tours, namely victims of giant voracious crocodiles. He’s even less thrilled now. But then he’s quickly hurled onto a river-raft cruise with a large handful of tourists: men, women, couples, kids even. We meet the tour-guide Kate (Radha Mitchell), a cute Aussie local who’s never felt compelled to leave her native land, away from the beauty of undeveloped nature. Pete tries to saddle up to her, but she throws some backtalk and literally puts him back in his seat. After a serene half-day cruise, a pair of redneck locals speed up in a boat and harass the tour-raft, we get the sense one of them, Neil (Sam Worthington), is perhaps Kate’s ex-dude. Kate flexes her moxie and flips the dude’s boat over – all the tourists laughing.

Then the picture, like the boat itself, takes a detour. After seeing some emergency flares, Kate convinces the tourists she needs to offer assistance, even if the tour is over and the sun is soon to set. They agree, reluctantly. Then shit gets hectic. They roll up on a capsized boat and try to suss the issue, but are then suddenly crashed into by some unknown entity. The boat is pierced and begins to sink, the radio craps out. The tourists quickly swim their way to a puny oasis in the middle of the river. Stranded, they all become quite irascible as they try to figure away back to safety. Remember, dark is falling and the oasis will soon erode into submersion. They consider swimming across the river to the other bank, but when one dude gets too close to the water, he gets savagely enveloped by a large croc-swam-beast – all we see is its massive reptilian scales. The man’s wife is shaken to say the least. When the rowdy rednecks drunkenly double back, the tourists think they're saved, but damn if their boat doesn’t get flipped over as well. Neil’s buddy eaten like fresh bait! As you can guess, people get bloodily gorged one by one under a ticking clock, the massive croc getting territorially feisty. It’s ultimately up to Pete and Kate to figure the best way of escape – but even their dynamic has an unseen twist that elevates the flick above most films of this ilk. Who survives, if anyone, is up to you to see and find out.

A Pair of Tourists Swim Across Treacherous Waters Toward Safety!

Pete (Micheal Vartan) Stares Incredulously at a Prehistoric Beast

What’s cool about Rogue is that it in effect takes the Jaws approach, we never really see the giant croc until later on in the film, which weaves a nice touch of suspense and mystery into the beast itself. Every time someone hops into or nears the water, we immediately assume they will be gorily felled – but that’s not the case. Mclean keeps the flick and its action as unpredictable as could be, given the simple set-up of a bunch of shipwrecked potential victims waiting for the inevitable demise. He paces the kill count quite judiciously, never becoming too boring or over the top. In the end, we can tell the croc is a CG creation, but Mclean keeps it shrouded in darkness well enough that it looks pretty realistic and never too hokey or flat out laughable. Showing real life crocs early in the film is a nice way to plant the live image in our heads as well.

The acting in the film is fine, even above average for a standard horror flick. I personally liked John Jarratt, who played the killer in Wolf Creek – here he is unrecognizable (save for the accent) as a mustachioed nice guy 180 degrees from his role in the former. Vartan and Mitchell do a believable job as the two endangered leads – they never slip into rote horror acting or lame histrionic performance. As far as the look of the film goes, shooting on HD video and transferring the final print to 35 mm film looks gorgeous, especially when showcasing the lush Aussie outback (all shot on real location, save for the croc’s lair). You pretty much feel like you are on the river with the rest of the tourists – a false sense of security before the real terror breaks in. But because there were a few more characters in this film than in Wolf Creek, my only real qualm with the film is the thin or even lack of character development. After all though, it is a throwback creature feature – so I’m not sure character development is as requisite as an intimate horror flick like Wolf Creek called for. Overall, if you like slick, well paced monster movies – give Rogue a chance, it’s damn worth capturing if you ask me.