Dying Breed
Still riding on the fear he generated as Wolf Creek's Mick Taylor, John Jarratt (above) is taking a knife to the Australian film industry. In fact, he wants to lead the genre revolution with his new film Savages Crossing. He wrote, produced and stars in the thriller which opens in cinemas this Thursday. It follows a group of strangers who are forced to take shelter in an outback roadhouse while a flood rages around them. However, the tension inside the building becomes greater than the threat outside.
Jarratt says he hopes the film is another step away from the `dark and depressing dramas' Australian cinema has become synonymous with in recent years.
"We've created the market for it,'' he says.
"A lot of the Government funded films in the last 12-years have been boring, coming of age dramas or smack films.
"Myself, Jack Thompson and people like Shane Jacobson, we said `enough of this' and we've started trying to make films that Australian people want to see.
"The lunatics have taken back the asylum.''
Jarratt says he looks up to actors like Anthony LaPaglia, especially after his work on Balibo recently, because it shows `experienced and true Aussie actors have got off their bums and put something back in'. Jarratt has become renowned for playing `the villain' after his chilling turn as Mick Taylor in the hit Wolf Creek and says he is once again the bad guy in Savages Crossing.
"It wasn't highly intentional,'' he says.
"I do write with people in mind and he, the character, wasn't that bad: just one of the crew really and more of a bumbling fool.
"But by the end he had to become the menacing person with a gun in his hand.
"He's quite mean and reacts badly.''
Jarratt says people have been `hanging' for him to play another villain.
"I'm playing another maniac and they've been waiting a long time, since Wolf Creek,'' he says.
"He's not evil like Mick Taylor though, he's just a drug addled fool.''
Jarratt raised the film's $3.6 million budget and says so far audiences have been `very supportive'. You can check out Savages Crossing trailer below and click here for all on the dets on session times etc.