Silly season heat brings out those sweaty trips to the video shop for recent additions to the new weeklies section. The local shop lets you have seven DVDs for $7.95, a genuine bargain. Making up the seventh item this trip was Wolf Creek. What the hell, I thought, let's see what all the fuss was about. Besides, too much holiday fun with the rellies requires a severe antidote.

But, Jesus jumped up Jehosophat and copped a feel from Mary astride Herod at the Bethlehem annual Prophets on Kings Parade; this was the antidote from hell.

Wolf Creek separates the misogynists from the men, that's for sure. At what stage of evolution is the director, Greg McLean, stuck? The Y chromosome as tadpole, John Howard-cum-Pauline Hanson supporting, mummy was a bitch but this pecker o' mine wants her anyway, but oh shit that's too weird so I'll have to kill her, hey why not mince her while I'm at it, wow sounds like fun stage, is where.

Then again, maybe he's just a cynical cinematic entrepreneur who thought he'd make a fortune pandering to all the bubba's out there who are stuck at that level.

I made it to the garage scene, where John Jarratt is torturing one of the girls. I held on for about minute, stunned into incomprehension by the girl's fear, her screams and her bloodied face and body, before grabbing the remote. Up to then it was a competent shoot, McLean lulling viewers into almost forgetting why they were watching the film in the first place.

Some reviewers call Wolf Creek horror and warn those who don't like the genre to stay away. But this is not horror; it's what used to be called a slasher flick. And slasher flicks have always operated primarily on pretty girls. (As we've said before, sometimes the boyfriends get hacked up too, but you never see much of them. And the conservative censorship boards are satisfied that the film is not totally sexist.)

No, real horror is The Haunting, The Exorcist, films meant to scare the bejesus out of viewers by invasions of the unseen or diabolical distortions of normal human physiognomy. Slasher flicks are inevitably confined to innocent young girls wandering into creepy habitats where smelly male inbreeds lurch out and grab them for a grand old time of ritual slaughtering, being sure not to offend sensitive conservative folk by including any sexual references.

So, what is it about men that they not only like the idea of torturing and killing women, but also can even contemplate it? Sure, lots of us blokes have fantasies of capturing luscious babes, slipping fur-lined handcuffs around their thin wrists, cuffing them to a big brass bed and ravishing them for hours on end. Don't forget the real story of Sleeping Beauty. Our Prince didn't just discover, kiss and waken Her Nibs. He enjoyed her warm, unconscious body for days, weeks, maybe even months. Wouldn't you? All right, maybe you wouldn’t, but that just means you're not a European, like me.

By the same token, women are known to have rape fantasies, but the object of these fantasies is to be manipulated into monumental orgasms by a composite über-figure representing the perfect union of lust and love. Torture is not included.

Point is, how could anyone hurt a being so exquisite as even the plainest female? OK, even the ugliest female.

Lots, evidently. The torture and murder of women has been regular sport for the Y chromosome since the patriarchal paradigm crawled out of the swamp. And you know what? I'll bet the torturers always vote for fascist straiteners and punishers. And they work, or would love to work, for cold-blooded organizations like the SS, the Stasi, the CIA, ASIO and so forth. That way they can torture and kill and collect a paycheque.

Which reminds me. One of the main differences between the Mafia and legalised crime, as practiced by the corporate sector, is that the Mafia used to have a code of honour wherein women and children were spared from contract killings over non-payment of debt and other transgressions. This no longer applies: if they're in the way, they get it too. Reason being, the bad influence of the corporates, who wouldn't know a code of honour from a bucket of shit. To them, human life is merely a generator of profit.

So here in its home country Australia, Wolf Creek, a film about no-holds-barred violence against women, gets an R rating, while Ken Park, a movie dealing with sexually explicit scenes of teenagers grappling with small town boredom gets banned outright.

We know why, of course. Conservatives are scared shitless of sex. The right-wing governments they form compensate for this fear by censoring, repressing and banning. After accomplishing the neutering of their citizens, there is nothing left for them to do but make war, that is, to kill people, the only thing they have any imagination for and their only legacy to mankind.

Poor John Jarratt. Australia's beloved character actor must have really needed the money. Things are looking up, though. Quentin Tarantino is now his biggest fan.

We're living in a truly fucked up world, folks. And Wolf Creek is A-grade proof. Or B-grade, actually.

-- Benoît Balz