Rumoured deep within Tasmania's wilderness, an ancient species known as the Tasmanian Tiger is alive and breeding. Zoology student, Nina (Mirrah Foulkes), attempts to 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 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 and was hung for cannibalism in 1824. 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.
Every body has different tastes, says the movie tagline in reference to cannibalistic delights. Well, so does everybody when it comes to what makes a good horror. The cinema serving that is "Dying Breed" combines real-life Australian history of convict camps with standard slasher movie elements, resulting in an interesting but rather unbalanced take on what happens when descendants of a certain 19th century Irish escapee named Alexander Pearce decide to continue his legend-making dirty habit of eating people.
Shot in Tasmania and Melbourne (including at the Pieman River on the West Coast of Tasmania, which is named after the shoe-stealing baker in question), "Dying Breed" reminds us of recent B-grade interests like "The Tattooist" and "The Ferryman" - they all feature location-centric themes with decent production values and considerable special effects but ultimately short of a few really good scares to make a memorable movie.
Here, we follow Tasmanian tiger hunters Jack (Nathan Phillips, "Wolf Creek"), Matt (Leigh Whannell, "Saw"), Rebecca (Melanie Vallejo) and Nina (Mirrah Foulkes) as the foursome unravel the mystery behind a quiet swamp of a village where tourists go missing and pies taste good. There is nothing terribly original about "Dying Breed" but we do receive proper storytelling (unlike other low-budget horrors) and it does have its moments.
However, the weak link to whatever that is authentic, historical or indigenous is soon revealed and their half-intense adventures never do seem to hit that high note. The makers seemed to have gone through a lot to get this movie done, with the production notes claiming a 28-day shooting set that was blighted by 80km winds, sleet and 600mm rain in three days, en route to discovering it was the worst weather in Tasmania for 10 years. When you read that 80% of this movie is really shot around the area where the Pieman events happened, it seems a little sorry if you consider this a wasted opportunity.
Pieman's story has recently been made into another movie called "Van Diemen's Land", released in Australia in September 2009. Perhaps that would be a more rewarding watch than this. For horror junkies however, "Dying Breed" is precisely the sort of indie feature that can't be missed.
