Ideas of Australia generally include backpackers, and things that can kill you. It's therefore no surprise there are countless tales of backpackers enjoying sun surf and sand before being brutally chopped down and/or into pieces. Several films have tried to take on the challenge, Lemon Tree Passage is a recent example which fails to deliver on account of, amongst other things, not making sense. The one that stands out is Wolf Creek. Receiving its Sundance premiere a year before Eli Roth's Hostel brought torture porn to the masses, it divided critics into two camps; one praising the brutal violence which caused the other to walk out. For all its gore however, the biggest controversy came from its release during the trial of Bradley John Murdoch. Accused of the murder and attempted assault of backpackers Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees respectively, the courts filed an injunction which prevented the film from being released in the Northern Territory, believing it could influence the verdict. While not the direct basis for the film, this was just one of several similar instances that inspired it. Despite this, it hasn't stopped backpackers coming to, and safely leaving Australia, in their thousands.
