Wolf Creek is a 2005 Australian horror film written, co-produced and directed by Greg McLean and starring John Jarratt, Nathan Phillips, Cassandra Magrath and Kestie Morassi. Its plot concerns three backpackers who find themselves taken captive and subsequently hunted by Mick Taylor, a sadistic, psychopathic, xenophobic serial killer, in the Australian outback. The film was ambiguously marketed as being "based on true events", while its plot bore elements reminiscent of the real-life murders of backpackers by Ivan Milat in the 1990s and Bradley Murdoch in 2001, both of which McLean used as inspiration for the screenplay.

Greg McLean is an Australian film director, producer and writer, principally of horror films. He rose to fame in 2005 with his debut feature film, Wolf Creek, creating the character Mick Taylor. The sequel to his first feature, Wolf Creek 2 was released February 2013. Mclean also wrote, directed and produced Rogue (2007) and was executive producer of Red Hill (2010) and Crawlspace (2012). He is also the co-author of two novels about Mick Taylor; Wolf Creek: Origin and Wolf Creek: Desolation Game and the four-part comic book series Dark Axis: Secret Battles of WW2 and the graphic novel Sebastian Hawks – Creature Hunter. In 2016, his film, The Darkness, was released, and a Wolf Creek TV series was released on Australian streaming service Stan.