The Real Australian Serial Killers Who Inspired Horror Film Wolf Creek

It's difficult to define what makes a film "underrated," but in the landscape of slasher movies, the Australian franchise "Wolf Creek" is my go-to answer for "most underrated." It does seem strange to give the series that distinction considering there are two "Wolf Creek" feature films, a two-season television continuation series, two novels, and a rumored third film currently in development, but the average movie fan has no idea what "Wolf Creek" is or why John Jarratt's Mick Taylor is one of the scariest killers out there. And yet, the series has continued on and expanded in the ways that it has because it's genuinely terrifying.

Writer/director Greg McLean first started on the script for "Wolf Creek" back in the late '90s, but knew something was missing. His first take was a far more traditional slasher, but it was after seeing media of an Australian serial killer on TV that he elected to rewrite the script and flesh out his villain.

Mick Taylor doesn't hide behind a mask like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees, he instead lures in his victims with Outback charm. McLean has said that he wanted Taylor to embody Australian archetypal characters and "famous Australian exports" like Steve Irwin and Crocodile Dundee, which would lull folks into an unsuspecting sense of comfort. Once his victims were in his clutches, the real terror would appear, which McLean also borrowed from real-life influences. However, instead of the endlessly positive and helpful nature of someone like Irwin, the real Mick Taylor was more in line with two different men who committed atrocious acts and terrorized Australia for real — Bradley Murdoch and Ivan Milat.

"He was based on two true killers in Australia [...] he's a combination of Bradley Murdoch and Ivan Milat," McLean told Starburst Magazine before the release of "Wolf Creek 2." After a life of crime including killing someone as a result of dangerous driving, Murdoch murdered an English backpacker named Peter Falconio in July 2001. He is still alive and serving a life sentence in prison. Miliat was a serial killer who abducted, assaulted, robbed, and murdered two men and five women between 1989 and 1992. He would target backpackers and offer to give them rides into New South Wales, but would instead go to a local state forest to kill them. It's suspected that Miliat committed many more murders around Australia, but it has yet to be proven. He died in prison in 2019.

By incorporating the easily identifiable "friendly" personas of Steve Irwin or Crocodile Dundee with two of Australia's worst offenders, McLean crafted a special brand of insidiousness. "It's really a combination of what the international perception of the Australian personality is, then also having this hidden side of that personality that's the dark and negative stuff as well. It's a kind of an interesting combination of those two things; the iconography and the repressed side of the country." All I can think about now is the terrifying possibility that "Wolf Creek 3" might incorporate some twisted take on the iconography of Australia's current most popular import, Bluey.