Jody Dwyer's brutal feature film debut mines both Australia's past as a British penal colony and the legendary true story of Alexander Pearce, an escaped convict known as "The Pieman," who claimed to have survived by eating his fellow escapees. Naturalist Nina (Mirrah Foulkes) is determined to prove the existence of the Tasmanian tiger-previously thought to be extinct-and vindicate her sister's death, which happened eight years earlier in the wilds of western Tasmania. Along for the ride are her boyfriend Matt (Saw star and cocreator Leigh Whannell), his boorish friend Jack (Wolf Creek's Nathan Phillips), and Jack's girlfriend Rebecca (Melanie Vallejo), who'd rather be on a beach in Thailand. It's hard enough trekking through a peculiar little town populated exclusively by oddballs, but when they strap on their backpacks and head out into the wild armed with little more than a crossbow, the four friends will find out that something-or someone-far more murderous than a tiger lurks in the rain-slogged bush. Shot in Pearce's picturesque former stomping ground (that's the actual Pieman River they're crossing), an area where sightings of the mysterious tiger continue to this day, Dying Breed is fraught with bone-rattling suspense and uncompromising gore. Dwyer is able to balance the bizarre character traits of the local townsfolk with intense action without going off course, taking us down a terrifying path full of our most primal fears.

Jody Dwyer