Since the turn of the century, backpackers have replaced college kids as the horror movie’s favoured fodder (Hostel, the forthcoming Paradise Lost etc.). The tension here lies in mind games rather than gory shock tactics when American traveller Taylor (Mechlowicz) slides all the way from charmer to nutter as he blackmails Scouser Alex (Evans) over a Polaroid showing the Brit with a babe who’s not his girlfriend.
Menace simmers until genre clichés force the characters’ credibility to boil over for an action-driven climax. Being young, arrogant and far from home now comes with a health warning, but despite its Aussie setting, Gone lacks the vicious streak that made Wolf Creek as deadly as a pack of rabid kangaroos.