The True Story Behind Paul Hammersmith In Wolf Creek

Paul Hammersmith is a character who appears in the Wolf Creek Australian horror franchise, which includes two movies and one TV show, and some fans are wondering if the character is a real person or not. Much like the horror thriller movie Alone, Wolf Creek is an abduction horror film that is just as much about isolation as it is about the kills. A notoriously bloody franchise, Wolf Creek is shockingly real and frightening in regard to its depiction of serial murder and terror. Each film in the franchise has been criticized for its gore and depictions of torture.

Unlike similar movies in the torture porn genre, Wolf Creek is particularly vilified because it's based on real events that happened in Australia in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The first Wolf Creek premiered in 2005, with the second coming in 2013. The TV spinoff ran from 2016 to 2017 and there have long been discussions about a legacy sequel. Wolf Creek 2 is particularly brutal with some kills rivaling something like Terrifier 3. Paul Hammersmith is introduced in the second movie and some fans are wondering if he's based on anyone.

Wolf Creek Is Based On A Real Australian Serial Killer

Mick Taylor Is Mostly Based On Ivan Milat And Somewhat Based On Bradley John Murdoch

The Wolf Creek series is based on the real-life backpacker murders, a series of kidnappings and murders that took place in Australia between 1989 and 1992 (via BBC), and then again in 2001 (via StarburstMagazine). The main villain of the series, Mick Taylor (John Jarratt), is a combination of Ivan Milat from the first murders and Bradley Murdoch from the 2000s killings. Wolf Creek director Greg McLean said about creating the character,

"He [Mick Taylor] was based on two true killers in Australia. The true story element of it is where he began, in one sense – in the sense that he’s a combination of Bradley Murdoch and Ivan Milat. So it's combined elements of those true characters, and then took a lot of Australian archetypal characters and cultural mythology, like Crocodile Dundee and Steve Irwin, and wove those characters into a combination to come up with the character. 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."

Mick Taylor emphasizes that archetypal Australian identity with his swaggering bravado and cheeky sense of humor, but McLean takes that idea to its furthest pole, showing just how terrifying someone like that could be in the wrong situation. John Jarratt, who played Mick, prepared for the role by reading about Milat (via SciFiBulletin),

"I read Sins of the Brother, the book about Ivan Milat [an Australian serial killer on whom Mick Taylor was partly based]. I'll never understand a serial killer, but I tried to find the justification. Then I did what I always do: I built the character from when he was born to page 0 which is just before you step onto the script page 1. I had his whole life mapped up and found justification for why he was like he was. But I'll never understand how people can do what they do in that serial killer psychopath world. It's beyond me."

Milat's crimes were indeed horrendous. He kidnapped and murdered at least seven victims before his arrest, all ranging in age from 19 to 22, including three Germans, two Britons, and two Australians. All of his victims were picked up while hitchhiking between Sydney and Melbourne, either in pairs or alone. Once picked up, Milat took them into the Belanglo State Forest in New South Wales. When bodies began turning up in 1992, coroners found evidence of savage beatings, stabbings, and gun wounds, and some of the victims were assumed to not have died instantly.

While Milat's crimes were incredibly vicious and grisly, Wolf Creek and Wolf Creek 2 exaggerate the character to an extent, turning him into a full-blown rapist and torturer. Milat may have sexually assaulted some of his victims, but it does not appear that he kidnapped his victims and held them for long periods, physically and sexually assaulting them as Mick does in the movies.

Paul Hammersmith Is Based On A Real Person

Paul Onions Escaped Being Kidnapped And Murdered By Ivan Milat

For years, Milat escaped detection until a British man, Paul Onions, contacted the Australian Federal Police. This British man is the loose inspiration for Paul Hammersmith (Ryan Corr), the protagonist of Wolf Creek 2 (via DailyMail). In Wolf Creek 2, Paul is an English tourist who is driving along a highway when he stops and sees one of Mick's victims fleeing him. Paul picks Katarina (Shannon Ashlyn) up and they both flee Mick, who is in hot pursuit. Mick's gunshots kill Katarina and Paul has to regretfully leave her body to escape.

Paul is eventually tracked down and brought to Mick's torture chamber. He eventually escapes, but his ordeal leaves him scarred and mentally unstable. The police don't believe his story after he experiences a mental breakdown, and he ends up back in England, placed in full-time care at Ashworth Hospital. There's a loose connection between Paul Onions and Paul Hammersmith, with their only similarity being that they both escaped the clutches of a serial killer.

In reality, Onions was picked up by Milat in 1990, but upon seeing a rope and gun in the car, he jumped out and was pursued on foot before Milat gave up. Onions immediately went to the closest police station in Bowral where he gave a rushed report and eventually left the country and the ordeal behind while the report sat in a drawer. Years later when bodies began turning up in the area, Onions caught a news report about the killings, and he immediately called the Australian Federal Police to remind them about his report in 1990.

He was flown to Australia in 1996 where the investigation was already underway and Onions was considered the star witness in Milat's four-month trial. Onions' testimony and strong evidence linking Milat to the crimes, such as his possession of personal possessions of the deceased, eventually led to Milat being convicted of the murders and sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences without parole. Milat remained in custody until he died of cancer.

Wolf Creek Changes Much From The Real Story

Wolf Creek Is Only Loosely Based On The Backpacker Murders

Wolf Creek is really only loosely adapted from the so-called backpacker murders, and they serve more as a broad inspiration for the horror franchise than they do as an instruction. As such, there are many differences, the least of which is that Mick Taylor is still at large in the movies and the TV show, while Ivan Milat and Bradley John Murdoch were convicted and sent to prison (via National). Neither man held on to their victims for very long and the convoluted evil lairs and kills are movie fabrications. The real murderers were much more primitive in their methods.

Paul Hammersmith and Mick Taylor in the Wolf Creek franchise may be based on real people, but the actual events were much less "cinematic". Paul Onions, for his part, was much more heroic than his movie counterpart, and he can be proud that he had a hand in catching one of Australia's most notorious serial killers.