Rating: B-
Dir: Jamie Blanks
Star: Nadia Farès, Robert Taylor, David Lyons, John Brumpton
Number 43 in an ongoing series: everything in Australia is trying to kill you. In this installment, the people who are about to discover this, are barrister Rob (Taylor, looking like an antipodean version of Will Farrell) and his French wife, Pia (Farès). They go out to sea on a small boat for a fishing trip, but take a wrong turn on the way back. They stumble ashore and are delighted to find a farmhouse in the distance. Their hopes of help are ruthlessly derailed by a triple whammy of events. First, there’s nobody home. Then, Rob discovers the weed greenhouse in the back. Finally, the three inhabitants of the house return, and they are not happy.
Leaving rapidly becomes not an option, not least because the couple discover they are not on the mainland as they thought. In addition, their hosts are Jimmy (Lyons) and Brett, half-brothers who are bad enough on their own terms. However, they speak in hushed tones about their father, Poppy (Brumpton), who is even more violent and degenerate. Their idea of quality family time is watching bestiality porn together. Actual subtitles:
[Woman moaning on TV]
[Horse whinnies]
It isn’t long before it’s clear to Rob and Pia that they will not be allowed to depart, and will need to be as brutal as their captors, if they are to survive. Or, as Pia puts it: “To catch a mad dog, you must think like a mad dog… only madder.” Hey, the idea is clear, no matter any qualms you may have about the grammar.
You will have to be somewhat patient. I’m not sure we need quite so many shots of storm clouds hanging ominously in the sky. Or footage of our heroes sailing. Yet once it kicks off – largely at the point the antagonists show up, yelling “Get out of my fucking house! Don’t make me come in there and drag you fuckers out!” – it becomes steadily more savage and intense. Poppy is especially memorable, coming off as Mick Taylor’s more evil brother. There is a little bit of contrivance. The homeowners’ guard dog, enchantingly named Honky, has a habit of showing up when necessary to the plot, and being absent for similar reasons. On the other hand, I was impressed by how Rob is largely sidelined, after his leg gets broken.
It’s instead Pia who has to become impressively hard-core (top). Her metal-working skills in particular are impressive, fabricating a nifty little device to prevent her from being raped by Poppy. They’ll probably be trending on Etsy next Christmas. The film doesn’t stint on the blood (presuming you’re watching the unrated cut, which is what’s on Tubi), with one part delivering a fatality in a form I had not seen before. This is also a little contrived – who the hell keeps one of those in the barn? However, the end justifies the means there, as far as I’m concerned. There’s a list of outdoor activities, such as camping, which horror movies have ruined for us. I am now adding small boat excursions to it.