Reception
Wolf Creek opened on 151 cinemas in Australia on 3 November 2005 (the film had previously been shown at a number of film festivals) and took A$1.225 million in its first weekend, making it the number one film for the weekend. In the United Kingdom, the film was given a modest release on 16 September 2005, and grossed £1,500,000. The film opened on Christmas Day 2005 in the United States and grossed $16,188,180 on American screens, while also garnering an extra $11,574,468 overseas, bringing the total gross to US$27,762,648.
Despite the film's commercial success, it has received a mixed reception from critics. Some critics were deeply offended by the film's brutality, while others praised it for its unorthodoxy and daring. Critic Roger Ebert gave it a rare zero stars rating, saying, "It is a film with one clear purpose: To establish the commercial credentials of its director by showing his skill at depicting the brutal tracking, torture and mutilation of screaming young women ... I wanted to walk out of the theatre and keep on walking". Seattle Times film critic Moira Macdonald said that Wolf Creek was the first film she ever walked out on. She called watching the film "punishment" and wondered how someone's real death inspired this "entertainment".The Independent praised its departure from the generic rules of the horror film genre. Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw awarded it 4/5 stars. Time Out said "by making us feel the pain, Greg McLean's ferocious, taboo-breaking film tells us so much more about how and why we watch horror movies". They admitted, however, that the film was not for everyone. The film magazines Empire and Total Film gave the film 4/5 stars, with Empire calling it "a grimy gut-chiller that unsettles as much as it thrills, violently shunting you to the edge of your seat before clamping onto your memory like a rusty mantrap". Fangoria called it the scariest film of the year.
At Rotten Tomatoes, Wolf Creek has a 52% "rotten" rating based on 108 reviews.
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