Fair Game (1986)

Time for an Australian film, Fair Game - which of course is not the same as the legendary fiasco from 1995 with William Baldwin and that chick, whatshername, or that new one starring Sean Penn and that other woman I can't remember the name of. They all look the same anyway, women. Add a moustache or hat and it's easier to keep 'em apart. Anyway, Fair Game edited into that doc on Australian exploitation-films, Not Quite Hollywood, but that short clip doesn't say much about the movie itself, because it's actually not a bad movie. It's a damn fine movie I would say, even if it has a boob-scene that looks very exploitative when it's screened, but kinda fits in good to the rest of the movie without truly being exploitation.

Cassandra Delaney is Jessica, a smart farmer girl who (I think) owns a safe-heaven for animals. One day on the road she bumps into three rednecks who almost forces her off the road. She complains to the law, but no one cares, and soon the rednecks is out for revenge - just for fun. So they kill her animals and sexually abuse her (including putting her undressed in front of one of their trucks, driving like crazies at the same time). When they're finished with her they leave her... and now she's ready for her revenge! And it's gonna be brutal!

Every Aussie movie seem to have car chases and this one sure has a lot of car-related stunts, from the insane beginning - which has some very cool climbing-on-top-of-vehicles-stunts - to the violent driving later, often with one of the characters - who must have been a stuntman also - doing the most dangerous stuff on top and around the car. Lotsa cool stuff. But this is mostly a fantastic and very simple story about a woman who just won't give up. Cassandra Delaney is great. This is the first time I've seen her, but she rules the screen every time she's in frame - and she's visible most of the movie, in one state or another.

The three rednecks are three very distinctive characters, and all of them are extremely annoying and unsympathetic. There's no try to explain their behaviour, and I'm just thankful for that. Because this is a revenge-movie and there's not need to forgive any characters or in any way feel form them. They deserves what's coming. What's even more interesting with Fair Game it feels more like an adventure than action, or survival-horror - but in bright sunlight instead. It's a fresh take on the old story and it's odd that it's not more famous than it is.

Maybe because it's set in the Australian wilderness and the female character is so strong and good? I think especially a male audience, and we all know that the majority of men out there are assholes, just don't like a movie where we only root for the woman. I mean, even in I Spit on Your Grave they have a weak sensitive character, a male victim, that we actually feel for somehow (not all of course, but the character is there for a reason - so the male audience won't feel so bad). Forget that in Fair Game. Here you have three ugly motherfuckers and one great lady.

A surprise for me, a really good movie. Recommended to each and everyone who feels for some "ozploitation". 

Sky Pirates (1986)

Every time I've been mentioning this movie for the last years I've been calling it "Sky Raiders", but that's of course totally wrong. Sky Pirates has never been called Sky Raiders and never will - but I stand by my opinion that it's a better title! It's also known as Dakota Harris, and I guess the word raiders and that name gives you a clue of what this really is! Yeah, a clockpure (as we say in Sweden) rip-off on Indiana Jones! But I love rip-offs, I adore them. Sometimes I prefer rip-offs before the original movie (for example, Holocaust 2000 vs The Omen 1 and 2). Directed by Colin Egglestone and starring John Hargreaves - which means this is not only a rip-off, it's an Ozploitation-rip off! Even better!

Dakota Harris (John Hargreaves) is a maverick Air force Lieutenant pilot and adventurer who during a flight gets sucked into a time slip, together with his passengers. Why? Because one soldier takes a too close look at a secret, ancient artefact they have in the storage room. It's one piece of three, an ancient tablet stolen from the Easter Island! After coming back he's set in front of a court martial and one of the witnesses aboard the plan, a greedy military, lies and tells them he's crazy. But that's just because he himself want to go back and find the treasure and get all the power! Soon Harris is involved in a grand adventure, and with him is the cocky Melanie Mitchell (Meredith Phillips), daughter of a lost scientist involved in the mystery!

Yes, it's everything you want from an Indiana Jones-rip off! It has still a quite decent budget, or at least uses the small budget well, wild stunts, one-liners, evil militaries and a plot that very slightly resembles Indiana Jones and The Crystal Skull. VERY slightly. Hardly at all, but certain themes IS there. I've always loved when low budget filmmakers just don't give a shit about the budget and try to do the movie as close as possible to the original vision. Sky Pirates is one of those and it has it's fair share (in the last half) of very Indiana Jones-inspired action sequences - for example some impressive stunts on an airplane and people fighting on top of a truck on a dusty road. The ending has a very similar detail also, but I won't spoil it for you.

It's so much about this movie that is Indiana Jones, even the music, so it felt like the bastard-cousin from the country to Indy. And that's not bad. The script by John D. Lamond (Nightmares) is witty and fun and skips the logic and focuses on the entertainment. John Hargreaves is a great hero, very stiff - but hey, that's the middle name of Harrison Ford. He died just ten years after this movie, in AIDS. A damn shame!

Let me tell you what makes rip-offs sometimes better than the original: they take away all the crap and focuses on what the audience like. So gone are boring scenes with character development, the violence can often be a bit bloodier and not so much crappy love-scenes. I'm not saying Sky Pirates is a better movie than ANY of the Indiana Jones flicks, but it's still a good adventure movie with good action, charming actors and a chocolate box of the best scenes we want to see in a movie like this - depending on the budget of course.

It's worth watching, so fuck those whining comments on IMDB and see it with your own eyes!

The Marsupials: The Howling III (1987)

The Howling is like the slutty cheerleader of horror franchises, everyone who want’s to fuck her can do it without much work or pay. It seems so anyway. But for a person like me who are very fond of trashy unrelated sequels this is of course a godsend. The Howling III is one of the least loved parts in this long series of failures, but I like Philippe Mora’s often very outrageous viewpoint at his source material. His movies are often over-the-top (just watch The Howling 2, probably the craziest sequel ever produced) and injected with an interesting tongue-in-cheek approach which both can been seen as very stupid… or brave.

This movie starts in something claimed to be Siberia, which is just a place with very little snow and an Asian dude in a fur coat. He’s killed by a werewolf and suddenly we cut to Australia were a woman is found in a park by a young man, a filmmaker. He falls in love with her directly, gives her a part in the movie (“Shapeshifters part 8”, which is kinda ironic because soon Howling Reborn, part 8 in the series is being released on DVD and Blu-ray). But soon she’s kidnapped back by three werewolf nuns to her tribe in the backwoods and a ballet dancer also finds herself called out in the wilderness. The government wants to kill them all, but a friendly scientist understands that they are humans like us, just a bit hairier…

First of all, as you might understand when you see the title, this is not werewolves, this is weresupials (complete with a pouch on the belly and everything) based on the Australian animal species. One of the characters is a Tasmanian Devil for example, which is kinda cool. Second of all, this is by no means a scary movie. It’s mostly a very absurd take on the werewolf-myth, and to be honest, if it wasn’t for the Howling-title this would probably have gotten a bit better reputation over the years. It’s quite original, have an off-beat humour and a couple of very cheap and unconvincing transformation scenes, but the sheer amount of twists and absurd characters makes it more entertaining than I expected at first. Just don’t expect any gore or violence; this is something very different from the other movies in the series.

I’m sure this movie came to existence in this way: someone realized they could make some good money by producing a movie in Australia, something with tax returns or… well, something like that. They gave Mora the mission and he just decided to have fun with it, just be silly. Partly a send-up on other Hollywood-movies, maybe satirizing the concept of Hollywood and silly sequels and at the same time make something closely connected to his home country. A former painter and involved in the art circles of Australian, I’m sure that affected his work as a filmmaker and gave him the confidence to do something far-out every time he got the chance. Right now he’s making Dali 3D with Alan Cummings, examining the art of Salvador Dali… in 3D of course.

But back to Howling III, watch it on your own risk and don’t blame it on me if you don’t like it!

Alien vs. Zombie : The Dark Lurking (2010)

Gregory Connors The Dark Lurking, or Alien vs. Zombie as it’s know as in Germany and Sweden, is probably this years funniest DTV-movie. From Australia, the land of ancient Egyptian pyramids and Aztec tempels (just kidding there…), comes a movie with so much energy I almost could consider it hyperactive. A mix between everything from Aliens to Even Horizon (well, there’s not that much in between actually!) and tons and tons of action and monsters, could this be something other than perfect?

Yes, it is actually. It’s not perfect, but still a lot of fun.

Some tough mercenaries is called to a distant planet where something has happen deep down in an underground base. When they arrive the whole base is filled with something that I from now on will call zombsters (a combination betwee zombies and monsters) and a few scared survivors. Now they have to get from one of the lower floors up to the freedom outside… but is it possible with monster around every friggin’ corner!

The bad thing is the acting. Not that any of the actors are mega-bad, but a couple of them just have deep, deep problems talking… well, just being in front of a camera. They chew dialouge like Charlton Heston on LSD and roll their eyes like they’re in a Colin Nutley-movie. I’m not sure of they’re trying another accent or not, but it just don’t sound right.

BUT… you get used to this after ten-fifteen minutes. I promise you. Why? Because the story are so filled with action, gore and monsters (zombsters) that it’s very easy to forget the shortcomings of the film. It starts with a violence shoot-out, zombster-attack and then it’s one fleshy, juicy chase from the first minute to the last one. One after one our heroes is killed off or infected by what the darn it is that’s spreading in the base.

First we have the zombsters, mutated people with faces like raw meat and nasty little buggers for teeth. Like the Nightmare City-mutants gone wild. Nice stuff! But the most awesome thing is the Alien-monster running around (I’m not sure if it’s one or two), which is a fantastic creation, a throwback to the Corman-movies of the eighties but much more advanced and slimy.

Obviously made on a fairly low budget, The Dark Lurking also looks great. Sometimes the metal doors vobbles like cardboard, but that’s just for whiny bitches to complain about. The sets, monsters and acting is from an eighties movies, but it has a more modern and edgy visual style when it comes to directing and camera work – nothing bad with that, because this is made for an audience in 2010.

Njuta Films in Sweden will release this in January, and it’s a must for monster-geeks and gore-freaks!

Dying Breed (2008)

Little did Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel know what would happen after their fantastic movie in 1974, you all know which one. There's been versions of TCM in most countries (expect Sweden of course, but that's no surprise) and one of the latest is Dying Breed, from the fantastic country of Australia. It took my some time to finish this movie, mostly because it's TO familiar set-up with a bunch of young people going out in the wilderness and meets some nice country folks. But when I finally got thru the first half hour, it turned better than I thought it would be.

The concept is Alexander Pearce, a famous criminal and cannibal that was hanged in 1824. In this movie there's still decendants of Perce living in Tasmania, closely connected to the Tasmanian tiger - the animal that our bunch of meat is out to take a photo of. The main character is Nina (Mirrah Foulkes), who goes to Tasmania together with her boyfriend Matt (Leigh Whannell) and a couple of friends to finish her dead sisters work about finding the tiger... what they don't know is that nice town (compared to other towns in other TCM-rips) is after their blood...

As I wrote above, it took my over one week to watch the first half hour. It's really nothing wrong with the movie. It's goodlooking, as nice actors and fun backstory, but it's also very generic storytelling with the same characters we've seen a thousand times before. But when you get use to that we have an okey little movie and some very nice gore-scenes, great locations and some mean-spirited ideas. Here and there you can feel the impact of (the superior) Wolf Creek, but most of the time it's a normal TCM-copy - but with more gore.

It's shot with a HD-camera, but it still has a little bit digital look. Nothing I worry about, but here it could have helped with a notch more of video-processing. But yes, it looks great and it's nothing to be scared away buy. The digital effecs, which are very few, are okey - but I've seen much better in cheaper movies. The gore- and make up-effects are great, realistic and bloody. This movie could well have my (from now on) favorite inbred redneck. His face is truly disturbing and for once we don't have to see the usual mongoloid eyes or hare-lipped mouth.

Another piece of modern ozploitation. Better than I thought from the beginning and give it a try if you feel for it.

Stunt Rock (1978)

Brian Trenchard-Smith, of the best aussie-directors to set foot in the filmindustry, invented Stunt Rock after a few hours together with a pen and a joint. So he says himself, and I don't doubt it. He had a weekend to find a band to star in this absurd movie and found Sorcery, and the rest is history. There's not much to say about the story by the way. Macho-stuntman Grant Page, who likes to walk around with a hairy breast and sunglasses, goes to LA to work on Undercover Girl. He meets his friends in the glam-metal-magic rockband Sorcery and.... that's it. Yeah, of course he performs some stunts and the band show performers rock music and magic tricks. 

It's more of a pseudo-documentary, but with a healthy dose of fiction. A movie to show off the talents of Grant Page (and the guy is really talented, and a complete nut!) and musical talents of Sorcery. As a former magician I enjoyed the magic tricks, and I like rock music and stunts - so like the director, this was a movie that suited me very fine! It's hardly a masterpiece, but as usual with Trenchard-Smith's productions it's slick, professional and never boring.

What kinda stunts do we see? A cool car-chase where Grant is climbing from on car to another, another car-scene where he crashes the car and get's catapulted out through the front window - on fire! There's high falls, some martial arts and some nice adventure sports. Trenchard-Smith was also Grant Page's manager, and this is mostly a movie to make advertising for the best stuntman in the world. He also wanted to do the whole movie like a ninty minute trailer, and he's quite close to achiving that.

Code Red has released a wonderful dvd. It's a 2-disc set with a couple of commentaries, interviews, trailer and the best of all: the 1973-documentary The Stuntmen, also directed by the same director. It's a fun and charming fifty minute piece where the first show an action-scene and they explains how everything works. It's four or five action-scenes all together and here we also for the first time sees Grant Page, cocky as ever. I love the way these stuntmen acts behind the scenes, often with a beer and a cigarette ready, and some words about a dangerous past and real-life troubles. 

Well worth buying, and especially for the second disc containing the vintage documentary!

Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008)

I just wanna say one thing and keep it short: this is the most happy documentary I've never seen. It's so filled with love for movies, people, culture, stunts, violence, sex, boobs, explosions and more people. From the first second to the last we're bombarded by anecdotes, movie clips, cool people and so much fun information that I just wished it would never end. We're getting an exposive look through the exploitation-ages of Australia, first with sex-movies and stupid comedys, to horror and the action. Everyone is here talking, and most of them seem very proud of all the wacky movies they've been involved with. From directors, producer, marketing-guys, actresses and actors, stuntmen and fans. 

There's nothing bad to say about, except it could have gone on for a couple of hours more. And it's bad because now I have to find every single movie mentioned! And I've missed so much... and I need it all. This is a dvd you have to buy! 

The Man from Hong Kong (1975)

Oh yeah! This is almost to good to be true! The Man from Hong Kong was one of Golden Harvest's international projects, this time with Australias action-master Brian Trenchard-Smith behind the wheels. Jimmy Wang Yu and George Lazenby is the hero and the bad guy, and then there's a couple of aussie actors that dosen't to so much than bitching how Jimmy Wang Yu is breaking the australian laws all the time.

The story is... thin. It begins with a drug/money exhange at the Ayers Rock, it's Sammo Hung in a black polo who get's to fight on top of the rock, which of course is spectular. He's arrested and inspector Fang Sing Leng (Wang Yu) is coming from Hong Kong to bring him home again... but they don't get far until Sammo is killed! Everything leads to the wealthy businessman Jack Wilton (George "The Man" Lazenby) and his army of Kung Fu-thugs! And they all want inspector Fang Sing Leng!

Yes, I know. It dosen't sound like much. But wait... let's see here. During this movie you will see: a helicopter/car-chase, a fight on top of Ayers Rock, a big fight on a cocktail-party, a city-chase that ends in a total demolition (by hand) of a chinese restaurant, a huge fight where Wang Yu takes on ten guys, a skyscraper-climbing, some brutal beatings, a fantastic car-chase (with three cars and one motorcross), two scenes of fight training where Lazenby and Wang Yu shows who the boss to their men... and a lot more! Trenchard-Smith surely knows how to make great action, and this is an excellent example where classic Hong Kong-action is melted together with western action. Did I mention it's quite bloody to? And it even has a Happiness-montage! Something for everyone!

Jimmy Wang Yu is a weird hero. He's perfect in the role, but he always look like an angry twelve year old boy. And that's creepy when he's making sweet sweaty (very sweaty, just check his skin!) love to a couple of busty blondes! He fights well for not having any (or at least very little) eduction in martial arts. It looks good anyway! George Lazenby is wonderful as his small role has the main bad guy. He has three fight scenes and really shows that he could fight and does it brutal and well. In the end fight (which is marvelous, but to short) he seem to make his own stunts - including something that looks like a dangerous fire-stunt! It looks impressive.

I'm so impressed by this slice of Ozploitation. It's looks like a million bucks, and have more violence that money can buy. It even has a catchy theme song, "Sky High" performed by Jigsaw. The only bad thing is that it ends... and a couple of minutes of a very unnecessary love story. The german dvd is easy to get, is uncut and looks okey. Not a fantastic transfer, but enough for me.

There's no excuse really. You NEED to own this movie.

Strike of the Panther (1988)

Edward John Stazak is back as Jason Blade! This was shot back-to-back with Day of the Panther, and I would like to say that Strike of the Panther is the better movie of the two. Life goes on in Perth, and Jason is happy with his girlfriend. But one day one of the bad guys from the first movie escapes from prison, takes the girlfriend hostage in an empty factory and sets up the ultimate trap to kill Jason Blade!

Like the first one, we're not talking about a big masterpiece. It's cheesy and the eighties is as beautiful as we can expect it. When the first movie had a bizarre dance/work-out routine, this actually has a dance-scene - thank Mighty Mothrzokk it's quite short! What makes it's more entertaing is that they seem to have a couple of hundred more bucks in the budget. There's a little bit more destruction, a few more extras and more fun locations. The first fight is in a luxery bordello for example. Another new thing here is that the master has a psychic connection with Jason Blade and helps him through the last fight!

The last fight yeah, it's in this factory and Jason (and also a minor SWAT-team) have to fight against a small army of ninjas wearing hockey-masks! The fighting is maybe a little bit more uneven here, but more things are going on and the tension is more... tense (I'm running out of words here). One of the new characters is a Sgt Lucy Andrews, and with her looks I just presumed she sometime must have starred in a couple of episodes of the australian show Prisoner (Kvinnofängelset in swedish), and of course I'm correct about this. Sometime I wonder if there's not one australian female actor who hasn't been in that show?

Okey, I know. This aren't any masterpieces. But I like them. I can't help it! They're a bit silly, but there is some fun fighting and it's just popcorn. Just fast food for the mind, and I can't resist it! I think Australian should thank their lucky stars for having Brian Trenchard-Smith there to clean up the entertainment-trash!

Day of the Panther (1988)

Brian Trenchard-Smith is the man of the year for me. I don't know why, but suddenly my collection is flooded by his masterpieces. Day of the Panther is a slightly forgotten kung fu-movie that he did during the eighties, and I wonder what's the story behind it? He obviously shot the sequel at the same time and they where released the same years. The graphics looks cheap, but it's fun and a little bit cheesy slice of ozploitation!

Edward John Stazak plays Jason Blade, a kung fu-fighter trained in the ancient Panther-school in China. When his partner dies during a secret operation he comes to Australia to get the killers himself. The local police force is of course not happy with him going after the famous business man Damien Zukor (Michael Carman), but they realise also it's a good opportunity to let someone take of this evil drug dealer (and his henchmen) once and for all. 

Do you want eighties fashion? Eighties people and eighties dialogue? Then this is the movie for you! You'll also get some basic, but fast and good, kung fu and a lot of slow-motion! Brian Trenchard-Smith is a man of style, and even if the budget is low he really makes everything looks more expensive than it is. The first scene is a chase/fight in an old factory, that partly dosen't work because the woman who's chased isn't so good in fighting as you have wished. But the stunts are nice and it's shot in a glorious way. 

The rest of the action is better, and Edward John Stazak is a good fighter and really, really fast. What became of him anyway? He did these two movies and then disappeared. It's a pity, because he could had a decent career in Hong Kong as a western baddie or just continue ordinary acting. Anyway, Day of the Panther isn't a bad movie, it's cheesy but well made and has good action. If I have the power (and mostly, inspiration), I will try to watch the sequel tonite and see what happens to Jason Blade and his "mates".

The Siege of Firebase Gloria (1989)

"Anyone know who these belong to? This is Corporal Miller. He's dead. Hell, the whole gun crew's dead. And to add insult to injury, Charlie took the fifty-fucking caliber machine gun with him. I don't have any respect for Corporal Miller anymore, because he allowed his troops to relax. They let their guard down for five fucking minutes, and Charlie took advantage of it. Look at 'em, Goddammit! Pay attention. Stay alert! Stay alive! It's as simple as that!"

Spoken by R. Lee Ermey as Sgt. Maj. Bill Hafner when he's walking around with two decapited heads, belonging to two of his former soliders. This more or less says everything about The Siege of Firebase Gloria. It's a hard-hitting, black, very violent and critical view at the Vietnam-vet, mostly from the US view, but here and there we see scenes from behind the enemies line showing that's the same discussions, relationships and violence going on there.

We bascially follow two ass-kicking (at least what we think from the beginning) officers in the US army, Cpl. Joseph L. 'Nard' DiNardo (Wings Hauser, wonderful as usual and very intensive) and Sgt. Maj. Bill Hafner. After finding one of their friendly villages butchered they continue, with one surviving child, to firebase Gloria - that's run by a man that they quickly get rid of - not by killing him, but faking a Viet Cong-attack so he get's hurt, and taking charge themselves. 

But charlies is everywhere and they have orders to bring down firebase Gloria to any cost!

This is a very impressive action-drama. Brian Trenchard-Smith is a brilliant director and in this case he's bringing us both good drama and characters and marvelous action as well. It's action most of the time and it has a huge bodycount. But it's never "funny" in the way as Final Mission or Strike Command, this is more related to The Iron Cross or The Big Red One. It's also nice to see a Vietnam-movie where the vietnamese is more than cannon-fodder. 

According to the end credits Eddie Nicart was the stunt choreographer, but even more fun is that we have our good friend and fellow blogger Nick Nicholson in there with to credits - in small acting part as a combat photographer and as casting director. His acting part is great, and gives us some comic relief. He's like Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now, but much friendlier and way funnier. Great job, Nick!

I'm sure that Nick can explain to us what Cambodian Red is by the way? :)

This is a smaller masterpiece and it's strange that such a good movie isn't out on dvd yet. It should be, because it's a shame that people are missing it because of lack of distribution.