A taut, thrilling little survival horror film, Rogue deserved a far better fate (to say the least) than an unceremonious direct-to-DVD release.
When a group of tourists stumble into the remote Australian river territory of an enormous crocodile, the deadly creature traps them on a tiny mud island with the tide quickly rising and darkness descending. As the hungry predator closes in, they must fight for survival against all odds.
Greg Mclean's feature debut, 2005's "Wolf Creek" was a divisive film in the horror community. A simple tale of a group of twentysomethings who run into all sorts of trouble in the Australian Outback, most notable a psychopath intent on skinning them alive, the slow pace was a love or hate it trait. Then he rather quickly produced a follow-up, a film called Rogue that was revealed to be the tale of a killer crocodile. Then a competing film titled "Primeval" was rushed into theatres, promptly bombing and scaring Rogue's distributor Dimension. Well, nearly a year later, the film has finally been released, albeit not in the format many probably had hoped. Still, theatrical release or no theatrical release, nothing changes the fact that Greg Mclean has wrote and directed one very cool little creature feature, the best of its kind since perhaps "The Edge" in that like that film, it overcomes the whole killer animal angle to become a film more about what people do when thrust into a kill or be killed scenario.
The film gets nearly everything right when it comes to telling a story like this one, a story whose familiarity demands such perfection in order to become something more. The setup is quick enough to keep your interest but developed enough so that the characters become more than just cardboard cut-outs waiting to be served up on a platter to the beast.
Once the film gets into the survival angle though, here's where things get really good. Nail-biting scene after nail-biting scene commences. I don't want to ruin anything but a sequence involving a rope and keeping balance is just about the most pure thrilling scene I've seen in a movie like this, ever. The film also gets bonus points for unpredictability. Characters you'd assume are safe, aren't and vice versa. Nothing like that to keep us on our toes.
Of course, a film cannot become great without good performances. Thankfully, this film has them. Radha Mitchell is believable as the assertive and intelligent tour guide Kate, Michael Vartan is fun as the travel journalist, and the rest of the cast, including "Wolf Creek" alum John Jarratt, are also quite good.
Rogue is just about the best creature feature I've ever seen. I suspect that you won't see a better mix of suspense and horror of this kind for a while.
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