3. Wolf Creek (2005)
Inspired by: Ivan Milat/Bradley Murdoch
Another bone-chillingly plausible horror movie, Wolf Creek is also based on more than one real-world precedent.
Its plot follows three backpackers who are abducted, tortured and hunted in the Australian outback. Its depiction of its violence is brutally realistic, which is made all the worse by the fact that it’s based on the real crimes of two separate Australian serial killers.
Ivan Milat (also known as the Backpack Killer) committed seven murders in the late ’80s and early ’90s. He would approach hitchhikers along Australia’s Hume Highway and offer them transport, then incapacitate and murder them.
Bradley Murdoch was convicted of a similar crime to Milat – namely, the murder of Peter Falconio in 2001. Murdoch had Falconio and his girlfriend Joanne Lees – a young British couple traveling through Australia – pull over their car on the Stuart Highway, claiming sparks were coming out of the exhaust. He then killed Falconio, and tried (but failed) to kidnap Lees. Lees escaped, and Murdoch was later identified, charged with Falconio’s murder, and sentenced to life in prison.
These two horrendous criminals inspired Mick Taylor, Wolf Creek‘s sadistic killer – whose crimes closely mirror those of both Milat and Murdoch. Knowing the real-life inspiration for Taylor’s brutal treatment of his victims actually makes Wolf Creek even harder to watch.