I first saw Wolf Creek under the rarest and sparkliest of horror-movie-watching conditions--I knew nothing about it. Without even seeing the trailer (only hearing it from another room late at night), I knew that I had to spend Christmas Day watching this movie.

Ben (Nathan Phillips) is driving Liz and Kristy through the Austrailian outback. They plan to go hiking in Wolf Creek; after a pool party, a run-in with some rough, lusty locals and some "really, really shit" guitar-playing, they hit Wolf Creek's trail to see the meteor that landed there. The meteor leads to talk of UFOs, especially when their watches stop working and the car won't start. "Ben, I really don't think we need to be talking about that right now," Liz warns Ben when he points out that "things stopped working" when UFOs were about, and I agree completely. I really don't want this movie to be another Signs.

Just as I'm about to give up on Wolf Creek altogether, a truck pulls up and a desert-dweller (John Jarratt) gets out. He laughs warmly, says things like "Bob's your sister" and offers to fix the kids' car. "What a nice, quirky man!" I think.

Then: BOOM!

Wolf Creek was inspired by the "Backpacker Murders" that happened in Austrailia in the 1990s, with elements of other cases thrown in. There's no real mystery, lots of running around at night, and extended torture sequences. But all the same, it never feels like just another serial killer movie. The movie is genuinely frightening--one of the scariest movies I've ever seen-- because we care so much about these characters. Instead of populating his movie with 6-10 empty-headed teenagers whose only function is to die, writer/director Greg McLean presents us with three people, and lets us get to know them for 45 minutes before putting them in danger. It's a risky choice, and Wolf Creek's first half is slow and sometimes boring for people looking to be scared right away, but all this character development pays off in the end.

There is, for instance, something between Ben and Liz--something so fragile and fluttery that even they are extra-careful with it. Liz wakes up with her foot in the crook of Ben's arm, and he snuggles it like child with a favorite toy. They don't seem like lovers at all, but like children--siblings, maybe--sharing the same bed.

Even Mick Taylor, the desert-dweller, isn't completely unlikeable. He's not the kind of serial killer you feel sorry for or the kind that cracks one-liners every five minutes, but I still attached to him somehow. Mick is a friendly, awkward, almost fatherly fellow. Instead of entering the story enshrouded in ominous music, he's bathed in light: the headlights of a working truck. His laugh--a nasally haw! haw! haw!--is comforting, if strange. I trusted Mick, and that trust, that connection, made his real self all the more terrifying.

Certainly, that trust is due to John Jarratt's performance: his Mick doesn't kill robotically, but with a pensiveness that's much worse. But it also comes from my own prejudices. Mick Taylor is exactly the sort of Austrailian adventurer I know from movies, TV shows, and commercials. Equal parts Steve Irwin and Paul Hogan (indeed, the backpackers call him "Crocodile Dundee"), he's somebody I'd get in a car with.

Wolf Creek is constantly using our own stereotypes against us, and, in some ways, is actually scarier for slasher fans than for people who don't normally watch horror movies. We know the rules, but this movie doesn't follow them. People who'd survive any other low-budget horror flick die in Wolf Creek; the film's score, while creepy, doesn't cue us to what's happening on screen. And when Liz stands over Mick, who's lying face-down on the floor, we expect him to grab her. But he doesn't, so it's even more of a shock when he shows up again.

The film is presented beautifully. It was shot in high-definition video, in locations that look bright and sunny but are not. ("It was freezing!" actresses Kestie Morassi and Cassandra Magrath admit in their commentary). The outback is almost a character in itself, gorgeous and terrifying all at once. I really believe that someone could disappear here. And the blood is genuinely ugly; it even clots. Sound is crisp and clear, and the music never overwhelms the audience. It doesn't blare or shock, but sneaks up on you. Sometimes it's nearly hummable, like the funeral march that plays when Mick picks up the backpackers and drives away. Extras are modest, with a filmmaker's commentary, a deleted scene, a "making-of" documentary and a theatrical trailer.

Wolf Creek definitely has its flaws. While the first half does a good job of making us care about Ben and the girls, it gets boring (especially on the first viewing) and, even worse, doesn't blend well into the second, scary half. Wolf Creek feels like two separate movies; as often as I've seen it, I'm always jarred by the movie's tonal shift. And yet, that shift--so like being hit over the head with a shovel--adds to our terror.

I like Wolf Creek, a lot. It's not perfect, but its characters are likeable and genuinely funny (in a just-out-with-friends sort of way) and its last 59 minutes are some of the most relentless and scary I've ever seen. Slasher fans should definitely check it out.