A young schoolteacher tries to escape small-town Australia and reach Sydney…but gets waylayed in the darkest possible way. This is an amazing examination of small-town madness, the unspoken insanity of such a life and the brutality and destruction undertaken by men.It's also an amazing portrayal of cabin fever being caused by huge open spaces. The …
Continue reading Marsupial March- 31 Days of Aussie Movies- Day 3- Wake In Fright (1971)
George Miller's Mad Max is set in a future in which lawlessness is abundant. Max (Mel Gibson) is a young cop battling with a motorcycle gang who are bringing chaos to whomever they cross paths with. There's lots to like about Mad Max. Miller's comic book dystopic vision of the future, the stylisation not being …
Continue reading Marsupial March- 31 Days of Aussie Movies- Day 2- Mad Max (1979)
I first learnt of this film when it was marketed as The Day After Halloween, a sequel to John Carpenter’s classic. It isn’t, but it’s still a really interesting movie. Angela (played by Prisoner Cell Block H’s brilliant Sigrid Thornton) is persuaded to ditch her low-paid hairdressing job and enter the world of modelling. Nude modelling. This …
Continue reading Marsupial March- 31 Days of Aussie Movies- Day 1- Snapshot (1979)
The bath is a great place to ruminate, self-reflect and generally have a good think. I was thinking about my favourite Aussie movies and how I needed to review them and generally show them some love here. And then it struck me! A whole month of Aussie fare. And today is the 1st of March. …
A runner, Laura, literally drops dead after winning a 200-meter race. Her sister, who is in the Navy, comes to town for the graduation ceremony in which her sister will be honoured. A killer then starts bumping off Laura's teammates. But who is this murderer and what is their motive? I still can't believe that …
When the big screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage extravaganza Cats was released in 2019, it garnered the wrong kind of attention. It was reviewed as if it was the celluloid equivalent of cholera and easily the worst film of the year (some critics even said it was the worst film of the decade). …
This 1988 Umberto Lenzi film concerns a young girl, Henrietta who is discovered by her father after she has murdered the family cat with a pair of scissors (!) He places her in the basement as a punishment. Whilst she is there with only her clown doll to keep her company, she hears a mysterious …
Growing up, one of my favourite film books was Movies of the Seventies, edited by David Thompson. One film it highlighted was Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout from 1971. The stills from the film looked absolutely stunning, with the plot synopsis fully whetting my appetite. I then read in the excellent and much missed Premiere magazine that …
Continue reading Meathook Cinema Hall of Fame- Walkabout (1971)
Mabel Longhetti is married to Nick and they have three children. Her husband is getting increasingly worried by her seemingly wayward behaviour. This is demonstrated in the film by a couple of incidents. Early on we see her go to a bar and pick up a man after her husband is waylaid at work. The …
Ever wondered which movies I love to watch over the Christmas season? No?! Well, I'm going to tell you anyway! Christmas film fun doesn't have to be boring mainstream fare like It's A Wonderful Life or any of the other 'traditional' family fare. It can also be Yuletide-themed messed up horror movies, hallucinatory Canadian children's …
Meathook Cinema 