Carnifex

 Carnifex is a very traditional low-budget creature feature with a heavy Australian twang. Set shortly after the recent real-life brush fires, it follows two biologists (Harry Greenwood and Sisi Stringer) and a documentarian (Alexandra Park) as they track the devastating effects the fires had on the distribution of local wildlife.

 As our protagonists trek through the brush, we get to see snippets of a mysterious predator eating a couple of animals and a poacher. Except for those asides, the first hour or so of the movie is fairly uneventful. It's got a nice procedural feel as the scientists go around checking cameras and cataloguing fauna, looking for rare local species that might allow them to cordon off a section of the forest from industrial logging.
 They're good company, these three - none of them get a huge amount of detail or character development, but they're likeable enough that it's fun to watch them as they go about doing their job. It also helps that the background scenery is beautiful, and that what they're doing is interesting.

 Things finally get going once the scientists recover footage of a rare wallaby... just as it suddenly gets attacked by a large shadowy mass; Based on that and some claw marks on a nearby tree, one of the biologists wonders if it could be a prehistoric Australian beast- It doesn't sound like a particularly scientific conjecture but it makes sense for the character to posit it because the guy's a bit of a space cadet. And we know he's right because, well, genre conventions. 

 As soon as night falls the thesis is suddenly proven true when the monster drops by to eat a nearby goat, and the movie falls apart a little as it switches gears to survival horror. There's something nifty to the idea of an arboreal hunter who hunts by pouncing from the treetops and then quickly shuffles back into the woods, dragging its prey, but it ends up making for a pretty undynamic threat.
 The monster itself is mercifully shown very little because once we do get a clear view of it, it's a pretty goofy design; And even if it weren't so damn cuddly, the low-budget CGI lacks the means to give it the physicality it would need to be menacing.

 There's a wee bit of gore, some good tension, and a nice resolution that meshes with the film's conservationist ethos - Neither director Sean Lahiff nor writer Shanti Gudgeon do anything majorly wrong, and the film is reasonably well put together. The horror elements all feel very familiar, however, and the monster and mayhem are pretty underwhelming; I ended up finding the film's low-stakes setup more engaging than its action-filled payoff.