The desire to photograph the Tasmanian tiger, due to it's significance as having not been recorded as proof of it's existence, has sent many into the wilderness of Tasmania hoping to capture it on film or other media as a means for a substantial payday. The Tasmanian wilderness is known for holding over 250 missing persons, tourists hoping to find the tiger, no sign of them remaining. Nina(Mirrah Foulkes)hopes to finish what her deceased sister started, to be successful in discovering the Tasmanian tiger. Something terrible happened to Nina's sister, she was used by backwoods cannibals living in the wilderness of Tasmania as a breeder, later found by the local authorities dead, having drowned after leaping from a mountainous cliff once cornered by her pursuers. Along with her boyfriend Matt(Leigh Whannell), his pal Jack(Nathan Phillips)and Jack's girlfriend Rebecca(Melanie Vallejo), Nina will head for Tasmania, and into the wilderness, on a trek to find the tiger..ill prepared for what they will find instead. Idyllic Victoria, Australia is quite a feast for the eyes in this Deliverance/Wrong Turn variation with our four protagonists being trapped within the wilderness, among them descendants of a famous cannibal named Alexander Pierce who continue the tradition. Fans of this genre will rejoice as "Dying Breed" follows a bleak course to a grim conclusion. It contains sickening flesheating as meat is pulled from bodies(..such as the shoulder) by sharp teeth and body parts are found throughout the killer's lair. Bear traps do serious damage to one victim and we see the grisly remains of another body that had been fed from. I thought the highlight featured a crossbow's arrow pinning a victim's mouth to a tree! While the movie does take a while to get going(..this is to build the dread, I felt, and once the violence/action starts, the movie doesn't let up), I thought "Dying Breed", while unoriginal and overly familiar, kicks in high gear, though we obviously question why in the world these people wound up in their current situation, how characters find themselves fighting for survival far from home or civilization. Billie Brown steps into the John Jarratt(Wolf Creek)part, as Harvey, a seemingly likable Pearce villager whose role in the ongoing terror becomes well established. Characters trying to survive in the wilderness haven of menacing inbred cannibals, attempting to escape an environment alien to them, is nothing new, but it's a frightening scenario I find myself always gripped by.."Dying Breed", I think, follows the mould rather well.
Review of Dying Breed
