“He was based on two true killers in Australia […] he’s a combination of Bradley Murdoch and Ivan Milat,” McLean told Starburst Magazine before the release of “Wolf Creek 2.” After a life of crime including killing someone as a result of dangerous driving, Murdoch murdered an English backpacker named Peter Falconio in July 2001. He is still alive and serving a life sentence in prison. Miliat was a serial killer who abducted, assaulted, robbed, and murdered two men and five women between 1989 and 1992. He would target backpackers and offer to give them rides into New South Wales, but would instead go to a local state forest to kill them. It’s suspected that Miliat committed many more murders around Australia, but it has yet to be proven. He died in prison in 2019.

By incorporating the easily identifiable “friendly” personas of Steve Irwin or Crocodile Dundee with two of Australia’s worst offenders, McLean crafted a special brand of insidiousness. “It’s really a combination of what the international perception of the Australian personality is, then also having this hidden side of that personality that’s the dark and negative stuff as well. It’s a kind of an interesting combination of those two things; the iconography and the repressed side of the country.” All I can think about now is the terrifying possibility that “Wolf Creek 3” might incorporate some twisted take on the iconography of Australia’s current most popular import, Bluey.