Dying Breed (Horror / Completed)

Tasmania, Australia, the world's most isolated island.

It's rumoured deep within Tasmania's wilderness an ancient species known as the Tasmanian Tiger is alive and breeding.

Yet modern science refuses to believe such a creature now exists since no witnesses have ever been able to prove it.

That is until Zoology student, Nina, claims she can breach Tasmania's impenetrable forests and reveal the tiger's existence to be true.

Driving Nina's quest is one critical piece of proof: a paw print taken by her sister just before she met with a fatal accident eight years before.

But what Nina doesn't know is how Tasmania became Australia and the world's most dangerous island in 19th century when the murderous convict Alexander Pearce (aka "The Pieman") broke out of prison only to eat his fellow escapees. Pearce was hung for cannibalism in 1824, but not before he'd spawned a blood line who inherited his taste for human flesh.

Soon Nina and her friends discover that in the wild whilst one species may have died out another has thrived - in the form of the Pieman's descendants.

When she sets out with her partner, Matt and his old mate Jack and his girlfriend Rebecca, their little expedition encounters the island’s reigning breed, but one who stands on two legs, not four.

The Pieman clan has survived and their need to feed and breed turns Nina, Matt, Jack and Rebecca into the next endangered species.

Cast: Leigh Whannell, Nathan Phillips, Mirrah Foulkes, Melanie Vallejo, Bille Brown, Ken Radley, Elaine Hudson (Credits may not be contractual)

Director: Jody Dwyer

Writers: Michael Boughen, Rod Morris

Producers: Michael Boughen, Rod Morris

Executive Producers: Christopher Mapp, Matthew Street, David Whealy

Production Company: Ambience Entertainment

Tribeca Film Festival (2008):

- Official Selection, Midnight

Ron Wilkinson, Monsters and Critics:

"The cinematography is very good and the location, in the deepest wilderness of choking rain forest, is excellent. The set-up is a lot like Deliverance, and one of the characters even mentions the film, as a tip of the hat to James Dickey. The film is a combination of Deliverance isolation and Cabin Fever young adults ripe for the skewering."

Dean Treadway, Filmicability:

"After a stunning period prologue (this is based on a true story) and an even more eventful, crimson-coloured credits sequence, I was settled in - as much as I could be - for the very best horror movie I've seen since maybe Se7en in 1992. Dying Breed is a hair-pulling, face-grabbing, oh-no-not-that-anything-but-PLEASE-not-that! sort of horror movie, one that confirms a new wave of Australian scares for us to get all balled-up over."

Scott Weinberg, Cinematical:

"Dying Breed succeeds through sheer force of mood, tone, atmosphere, and high-end and very disturbing mayhem..."

"Saw fans will appreciate the presence of lead actor Leigh Whannell, who does some fine work as the trip's semi-leader, although Mirrah Foulkes, Nathan Phillips and Melanie Vallejo also manage to create characters multi-dimensional enough to care about. Which is a shame because all four of 'em are put through absolute hell here..."

"First-time director Jody Dwyer combine a pair of old-school Aussie legends in this terror tale, and there's little denying that the movie sure feels effective. This flick could do for Tasmania what Wrong Turn did for West Virginia, but Dwyer does a bang-up job of delivering a forboding forest landscape that's absolutely infested with dripping leaves, grungy pockets of light, icky caves, strange creatures, abandoned mines, and (yes) bear traps..."

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