Australian horror films

[holyzombiejesus]

Don't know how to start the thread, sorry.

Was disappointed by You'll Never Find Me after reading so many rave reviews and didn't like Talk To Me, but I consider myself a fan of Australian horror. How mad is that?!

Anyway, put Aussie horror chat here if you like.

[dead-ced-dead]

I mentioned this in the Late Night with the Devil thread, but I really enjoy Red Hill (2010).

A mean-spirited, lean at 90 minutes, horror-western. It subverts the western trope of vengeance coming to town and has a lot of fun doing it.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Wake in Fright, obvs

The Ozploitation era has some right gems. Long Weekend is great, obnoxious environmentally unconscious campers getting mullered when nature decides to fight back.

[Minami Minegishi]

Next of Kin!
Turkey Shoot!
Razorback!
Hounds of Love!
Alison's Birthday!
Braindead!
Bad Taste!

I'm not sure if these are strictly horror but I react to them like horror films:

Snowtown!
Ghosts... of the Civil Dead!
The Plumber!
Picnic at Hanging Rock!

I love the utter nihilism and disturbing amorality of Australian films.

[Bad Ambassador]

Very strictly horror-adjacent, but The Last Wave is excellent.

[Minami Minegishi]

Very strictly horror-adjacent, but The Last Wave is excellent.

Weir has a truly eclectic CV. I adore most of his films, but his 70s works are my favourite:

The Cars That Ate Paris
Picnic At Hanging Rock
The Last Wave
The Plumber

Although these films are masterful, I don't think they necessarily herald the arrival of the crowd-pleasing Director he would become.

[Mister Six]

Braindead!
Bad Taste!

They're from New Zealand, you racist.

[Minami Minegishi]

They're from New Zealand, you racist.

They're all flamin' galahs to me mate.

[George White]

Next of Kin is great. It also has my avatar in it (Tommy 'Jock Stewart' Dysart).

[druss]

Boar.

[Blinder Data]

I really enjoyed the babadook. a horror with considerable emotional heft.

most shocking moment was when the woman wants to get her son psychiatrically assessed and the GP says "ok but you'll have to wait a couple of weeks". a couple of weeks! I almost screamed at how terrifyingly better the Australian health system is than ours

[13 schoolyards]

Nobody's mentioned Wolf Creek yet? First one was good, diminishing returns after that (though I appreciated the way the second tried to do something different), never finished the TV version.

And Lake Mungo is excellent

[phantom_power]

Another NZ one but I really enjoyed Housebound (2014) about a woman who has to go under house arrest back at her parents' spooky house. From the director of M3gan!

[jonnyunitus]

Hounds of Love was pretty great, from what I can remember. Bloody tough watch though, a hallmark of Australian horror generally, I guess

[Minami Minegishi]

Another NZ one but I really enjoyed Housebound (2014) about a woman who has to go under house arrest back at her parents' spooky house. From the director of M3gan!

Oooh cheers

[holyzombiejesus]

Is there a loose theme that you could group a lot of Aussie horrors under? I was going to say that there's almost a genre - 'outback horror'? - but I may be just thinking of Wolf Creek, and a bit of You'll Never Find Me and a couple of others. There does seem to be a looser theme where it seems easier for people to go under the radar and (generally) men to get away with doing what they like.

Or am I just spouting bollocks after afternoon pints?

[Catalogue Trousers]

Long Weekend (1978) and Razorback are both well worth watching.

[Minami Minegishi]

Or am I just spouting bollocks after afternoon pints?

You are, but it's my kind of bollocks.

I saw an hour-long conference plenary on Ozploitation once and the academic made the argument that the term shouldn't be applied to films before the 60s and not beyond the 80s. I bit like the French New Wave, or Italian Neorealism. You know, navel gazing genre studies type stuff. But he did contextualise post-80s Australian cinema as having it's own sense of Australia as a place for people to hide. Outback Horror sounds pretty good to me. Of course it doesn't always fit every fucked up Aussie horror, but most do feature the lawless expanse of the country as kind of psychogeographical characteristic.

[Brundle-Fly]

I really enjoyed this dumb'n'nasty cannibal flick from 2008.

[paddy72]

Also NZ, but Coming Home in the Dark is an excellent psychological horror.

[jonnyunitus]

Oooh cheers

Really enjoyed this, genuinely funny in places too