This giant-pig-on-the-loose-in-Australia epic is way more stylish than it has any right to be. This is obviously due to it's director Russell(HIGHLANDER) Mulcahy who started off being a music video director before embarking on his feature film journey. I've seen this compared to that wild Australian classic WAKE IN FRIGHT and while this might have some of the same energy as that it is clearly something made with a very 80s sensibility(especially with Duran Duran on the soundtrack). Check it out for something that's elevated above the average trashy JAWS-inspired animals-run-amok dreck.
The only reason I watched this martial arts flick is because the great Gordon(MASTER KILLER) Liu is in it. I should know better than to get my hopes up for any modern kung fu/action flick though. The main star here is someone named Zheng Liu, who is no relation to Gordon but was in real life a Shaolin monk before becoming an actor. The blu-ray I have of this movie calls him the next Bruce Lee due to his slight resemblence. I wonder how many billions of Asian actors have been tagged this before? The plot here deals with some rival gangs, one is the triad in Hong Kong and the other is Columbian, fighting each other over some big cocaine shipment. Zheng plays a hitman who gets caught in between the two gangs and while it was a very glossy and good-looking production, I can't say it was all that engaging of a narrative (the CGI blood and FX and a rapper I never heard of didn't help very much. Mr. Gordon does get one scene where he gets to show off his kung fu skills which has to be close to the last time he did that on screen before falling into bad health. It's too bad it wasn't in a better movie. Perhaps the problem is that this is actually an Australian production and not made by an Asian company since they still seem to be able to churn out some entertaining product.
Australian sexploitation that really doesn't have much of a plot outside of being the adventures of a young girl discovering her sexuality and ultimately discovering the power of love. So basically it has the same plot as most romance novels. I'm just assuming this though since I haven't actually read any. It's kind of like the Aussie version of an Emanuelle film except this one didn't spawn a million Italian rip-offs. Many attractive people get nekkind and there's ample lesbianism so if that's your bag dig in.
Not to be confused with the later Italian owl-headed killer giallo flick of the same name, this one is a crappy Australian slasher movie that originally went under the name NIGHTMARES. There's some bloody naked boobs, bush and terrible sex scenes. There's also a considerably high body count for such a generally lackluster experience. The whole film appears to have been edited by an epileptic having a fit and scenes that are supposed to be tense and unnerving come off pretty underwhelming. I'm gonna stick with that ol' owl-head movie for better quality stalk n' slash thrills.
I originally had no interest in seeing this. A modern movie featuring a little kid in one the lead roles is not exactly on the top of my list of things to watch. Due to a recent movie night gathering of friend and acquaintances I was forced to watch this. Luckily it was way better than I had anticipated. Perhaps due to it being made in Australia and not the U.S. it ditched some of the cliched ghost movie tropes that I was expecting and worked as a metaphor for dealing with loss and the inevitable accompanying grief. GHOST STORY meets HOME ALONE meets a psychological thriller that doesn't pander for mass acceptance. I'm not sure this one is very re-watchable but I'm glad I experienced it once anyway.
This was based on a short film from 2005, also by director Jennifer Kent:
As usual if we want to find anything even remotely interesting in more modern-day cinema we need to leave the shit-hole regurgitation-factory of Hollywood(and the U.S. in general) and look to foreign lands. Here we have a pretty simple revenge tale made in Australia concerning a dad whose daughter is murdered after appearing in a rough porno flick that he anonymously gets sent in the mail. A very ugly looking movie that matches its look with its content fairly well. This thing is basically a mash-up of a revenge drama and a torture porn flick. We get fishhooks in genitals, a bicycle pump shoved down a guys dick, a nipple ripped off and then cauterized with an acetylene torch etc. You get the idea. Of course most of the tortures are performed by our "hero" so sick weirdo gore-hounds don't have to feel too bad about cheering on the gruesomeness on display. Also most of the more extreme gore isn't super graphic, this isn't one of those stupid GUINEA PIG movies after all. The only negative point might be that our main character(Peter Marshall) does seem a bit like Superman by the time things end but I wasn't expecting a documentary.
Director Steven Kastrissios has to be commended for a strong first movie. He went on to make one other movie after this called BLOODLANDS (something about violence in The Balkans) which might be worth a look.
So this Australian biker flick was made 5 years before MAD MAX and features a couple of actors from that timeless classic. This one is clearly less well known, especially here in America, but I think it deserves to be called a classic in its own right. The plot deals with a gang of Kawasaki riders named The Grave Diggers(one of the members is even named Bad Max(Jim Walsh) which foreshadows where Australian cinema would be heading a few years down the road) led by a dude name The Undertaker(Sandy Harbutt)(not to be confused with that big stupid pro wrestling character) who are getting picked off by an unknown sniper. Enter our title character, Stone(Ken Shorter), who's an undercover cop(who's clearly not very good at the "undercover" part of his job) sent to join the gang and find out who's knocking them off. The whole thing plays like ma sort of blue-print for the crazier Aussie vehicular-based action flicks to come. There are a few crazy stunts, a biker jumps off a cliff into the ocean, Stone takes a nasty spill off his bike etc. and things end up in a pretty bloody downer ending which makes seems fitting. The Nightrider(Vince Gil), Toecutter(Hugh Keays-Byrne) and even the Chief, Fifi(Roger Ward- complete with hair!), from MAX appear as members of the gang. This one makes me want to find more classic Aussie gems that I may have missed.
Japanese poster!:
Norwegian VHS!(which Google assures me translates to STONE- REVENGE OF THE MOTORCYCLE TIRE?):
Director Brian Trenchard-Smith, who is clearly the greatest Australian exploitation movie director, gives us a futuristic fascist government that throws people into re-education camps for the slightest of infractions and then murders them if they do not get with the program to become model citizens. Things start off with a very women-in-prison-feel(even though there are men prisoners also including Steve Railsback who will forever remind me of Charles Manson, whenever I hear his voice, giving me flashbacks to the classic TV-movie HELTER SKELTER, where he so expertly portrayed the world's most famous crazy person) before going into THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME-territory when a handful of prisoners are released only to be hunted down by our Nazi-like guards and warden named Thatcher(very subtle social commentary there!). If all this isn't exciting enough Mr. Trenchard-Smith also throws a naughty werewolf into the mix(I guess technically he's supposed to be some kinda mutant but he sure looks like a werewolf to me) who likes to rip off people's toes and chomp on them like wolf-people do. It's a great mix of action, there's some blood despite cutting away from a few graphic scenes(there is an uncut 90 minute version that is supposed to be quite a bit more graphic in this department), mandatory naked shower scene and heads get blown apart! AKA TURKEY SHOOT and BLOOD CAMP THATCHER(this was obviously the popular British title)
The title should technically be ESCAPE 1995:
"The blood and thunder shocker" of 1982!!:
I've seen the super -gory Italian sequel to this, 1980's PATRICK STILL LIVES, where a lady gets a poker jammed up her vagina, so I figured I should check this one out. This is probably not the optimal way to watch these two movies since this first one is like the complete opposite of it's Eurotrash follow-up. While technically a better-made film I probably woulda liked this way more if it wasn't so damn long. It's a slow movie which can be fine for building tension but slow and almost 2 hours is usually a bad recipe for my personal enjoyment(there's also a 140 minute director's cut that I don't think I need to endure). Also this movie has very little gore and no blood so basically it's just a psychological thriller about a creepy vegetable-guy with telekinetic powers(which were very popular powers to have in the late 70's thanks to CARRIE) falling in love with his nurse and I'm more of a trash-cinema aficionado.
There was a remake of this made in 2013 and if I know anything about remakes made in 2013 it's that none of them are ever worth a shit. It was actually made in Australia though so maybe that's a good sign??
I got a chance to experience this film which was lost for many years last night in a theater and I have to say it's definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of insane cinematic head-trips. This film is really the story of a man's decent into madness as he ends up stuck in a strange outback Australian town where binge-drinking, gambling & friendly drunken fistfights are everyday expected events. A place for rugged manly men who shoot kangaroos for sport and when they don't die fast enough don't mind using their bare hands and knives to finish the job.(these kangaroo kill scenes are edited together from real hunts which might upset ultra-sensitive animal lover-types) Donald Pleasence isn't our main character here(that would be Gary Bond) but he really steals the show as an alcoholic doctor of sorts who's a complete madman under his seemingly intellectual exterior. It does start out a bit slow at first and you're not sure where things are going but this all works to build things up until they reach an insane climax. A strange view into a part of Australia that I'm not sure I could ever live in but it would be one hell of a vacation. AKA OUTBACK
