Anyone else seen this?
I was always fascinated by the upsurge in Australian cinema throughout the 70's and 80's, and not so much the high profile pics like Picnic At Hanging Rock and Breaker Morant (good though they were), but the upsurge in cheap exploitation flicks.
I worked in the cinema industry during this time so I did get to see a lot of these movies.
And this documentary really covers that whole period very well.
As well as the better known movies like Patrick, Barry McKenzie, Alvin Purple, Mad Max, Long Weekend etc, it's the unknown, forgotten gems that I found fascinating.
Stuff like Turkey Shoot, a variation on 'The Most Dangerous Game', which has been filmed many times (Jean Claude Van Damme's Hard Target was a variation on this theme, and was Schwarzenegger's The Running Man).
Shot on a budget of about 3p, it had a third rate cast with people like Steve Railsback, Olivia Hussey, Michael Craig and many familiar Aussie faces (back then I think every Aussie film used basically the same cast, there were only about 20 actors in the whole country, or so it seemed). It was inept in every way possible, and I can remember it had audiences in hoots of laughter. But it was meant to be deadly serious. Lots of fake blood and limbs being hacked off, cheap special effects and very poor stuntwork.
I think I saw Barry McKenzie once, and found it virtually unwatchable. Maybe back then as a schoolboy I may have got a few laughs out of it, but certainly not today.
I was surprised at how many horror movies were made, a lot of which I had never heard of. And they seemed to be aping the Friday 13th movies and other horrors prevelant at that time.
Quentin Tarantino is interviewed, of course...it seems anything with the word exploitation in the title and he is in like flint. But to be fair, most of the major players from those days are also interviewed, like directors Brian Trenchard-Smith, George Miller, Fred Schepisi, Richard Franklin, Phillipe Mora, plus other famous names from that period like stuntman Grant Page, and actors John Waters, Jack Thompson, Wendy Hughes, Rebecca Gilling, George Lazenby and Steve Bisley.
Lots of great clips on show, and some very interesting and frank views from that period from the people interviewed.
The only glaring omission I could see was no mention whatsoever of composer Brian May, who did both of the Mad Max movies plus a whole host of other Aussie movies during that period such as Turkey Shoot, Race For The Yankee Zephyr, Roadgames, Survivor, Harlequin, Thirst, Patrick and many more.
However, it's a fascinating documentary and highly recommended.
I was always fascinated by the upsurge in Australian cinema throughout the 70's and 80's, and not so much the high profile pics like Picnic At Hanging Rock and Breaker Morant (good though they were), but the upsurge in cheap exploitation flicks.
I worked in the cinema industry during this time so I did get to see a lot of these movies.
And this documentary really covers that whole period very well.
As well as the better known movies like Patrick, Barry McKenzie, Alvin Purple, Mad Max, Long Weekend etc, it's the unknown, forgotten gems that I found fascinating.
Stuff like Turkey Shoot, a variation on 'The Most Dangerous Game', which has been filmed many times (Jean Claude Van Damme's Hard Target was a variation on this theme, and was Schwarzenegger's The Running Man).
Shot on a budget of about 3p, it had a third rate cast with people like Steve Railsback, Olivia Hussey, Michael Craig and many familiar Aussie faces (back then I think every Aussie film used basically the same cast, there were only about 20 actors in the whole country, or so it seemed). It was inept in every way possible, and I can remember it had audiences in hoots of laughter. But it was meant to be deadly serious. Lots of fake blood and limbs being hacked off, cheap special effects and very poor stuntwork.
I think I saw Barry McKenzie once, and found it virtually unwatchable. Maybe back then as a schoolboy I may have got a few laughs out of it, but certainly not today.
I was surprised at how many horror movies were made, a lot of which I had never heard of. And they seemed to be aping the Friday 13th movies and other horrors prevelant at that time.
Quentin Tarantino is interviewed, of course...it seems anything with the word exploitation in the title and he is in like flint. But to be fair, most of the major players from those days are also interviewed, like directors Brian Trenchard-Smith, George Miller, Fred Schepisi, Richard Franklin, Phillipe Mora, plus other famous names from that period like stuntman Grant Page, and actors John Waters, Jack Thompson, Wendy Hughes, Rebecca Gilling, George Lazenby and Steve Bisley.
Lots of great clips on show, and some very interesting and frank views from that period from the people interviewed.
The only glaring omission I could see was no mention whatsoever of composer Brian May, who did both of the Mad Max movies plus a whole host of other Aussie movies during that period such as Turkey Shoot, Race For The Yankee Zephyr, Roadgames, Survivor, Harlequin, Thirst, Patrick and many more.
However, it's a fascinating documentary and highly recommended.