Long Weekend
1979 Directed by Colin Eggleston
Synopsis
Their crime was against nature. Nature found them guilty.
When a suburban couple go camping for the weekend at a remote beach, they discover that nature isn't in an accommodating mood.
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Long Weekend might just be the best Ozploitation film ever. It's certainly the best I've seen thus far. Which makes it all the more frustrating and unjust that this splendid ecological chiller seems largely forgotten.
In Not Quite Hollywood, the excellent documentary film on Australian cinema, it's suggested that Long Weekend, with it's message of nature being extremely dangerous, didn't do very good business in its native land; because it was a message Australians were all too aware of. It seemed to have done rather well internationally before being forgotten about, the oft tale of many a low budget non American exploitation feature.
The story, by Ozploitation regular Everret De Roche, is a simple one; a suburban couple, in the…
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Crazy, but effective, Aussie eco-horror in which a couple head off for a weekend away at a remote beach locale in the hope of rekindling their failing marriage, only to have Mother Nature meet out karmic revenge on the pair for their repeated transgressions against the environment.
The absurd premise is tempered with black humour and an unsettling, eerie atmosphere, partially created by a menacing soundscape of frequent indistinct wailing, and piercing animal or bird screams on the soundtrack whenever one of the humans despoils nature.
For the most part, the couple remain fairly oblivious to the angry environment, and even when they are polluting or scarring the ecosystem, it's only out of sheer thoughtlessness, never deliberate. Yet in ever… -
Film 20 of "The December Project" 2012
92 minutesI've been wanting to watch this ever since I watched "Not Quite Hollywood" and it arrived from Netflix today, so I figured I should watch it so I can het another film ASAP. It has high praise from Jay Cheel, so I figured also that it can't be a bad movie.
I tell you what, this mihgt be one of the highest tension films I've ever seen that doesn't have a psycho murderer, or a zombie horde, or any monster in it. The film is quite amazing in the fact that it achieves that tension, when it's simply a story about a couple that is estranged, that goes on a camping…
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Heavy-handed as fuck but admirably sticks with its central thesis 'til the bitter end. Like Cannibal Holocaust, is guilty of the exact same thing it condemns. The final sequence is a formal masterstroke.
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See instead: WALKABOUT, THE LAST WAVE.
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Set up as a 'man-versus-nature' film but the way it's cleverly written means that it could all be tragic coincidence. Tense and frightening without the need for gore or special effects.
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CRIIICKETTT!!!
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Creepy, stylish and with two excellent leads, this could have been a masterpiece if not for the ending.
This isn't a horror of jump scares and spooky music. Instead, it dumps you in the middle of a camping trip taken by a couple in an attempt to save their marriage. Both members are deeply unpleasant people, and their constant thinly veiled hatred for each other is portrayed wonderfully.
After a brief reconnection and rekindling of their relationship the film gleefully begins tearing it apart again as nature itself starts lashing out at the pair. The realism here is what makes the film as compelling as it is. A bite from a possum or ants getting into the food lends much…
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Long Weekend might just be the best Ozploitation film ever. It's certainly the best I've seen thus far. Which makes it all the more frustrating and unjust that this splendid ecological chiller seems largely forgotten.
In Not Quite Hollywood, the excellent documentary film on Australian cinema, it's suggested that Long Weekend, with it's message of nature being extremely dangerous, didn't do very good business in its native land; because it was a message Australians were all too aware of. It seemed to have done rather well internationally before being forgotten about, the oft tale of many a low budget non American exploitation feature.
The story, by Ozploitation regular Everret De Roche, is a simple one; a suburban couple, in the…
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OMG!
This movie is so bad, it's completely funny.
Is it the bad lines ("How did this egg brake?"/"I had an abortion!"); the original plot (A couple goes on a holiday to deserted beach and destroys the environment, so the environment fighs back; the stalking dead dugong; the horrible Australian Accents or when the protagonist yells at his trusty animal companion ("CRICKET!!!!") that makes this movie good? -
Crazy, but effective, Aussie eco-horror in which a couple head off for a weekend away at a remote beach locale in the hope of rekindling their failing marriage, only to have Mother Nature meet out karmic revenge on the pair for their repeated transgressions against the environment.
The absurd premise is tempered with black humour and an unsettling, eerie atmosphere, partially created by a menacing soundscape of frequent indistinct wailing, and piercing animal or bird screams on the soundtrack whenever one of the humans despoils nature.
For the most part, the couple remain fairly oblivious to the angry environment, and even when they are polluting or scarring the ecosystem, it's only out of sheer thoughtlessness, never deliberate. Yet in ever… -
Film 20 of "The December Project" 2012
92 minutesI've been wanting to watch this ever since I watched "Not Quite Hollywood" and it arrived from Netflix today, so I figured I should watch it so I can het another film ASAP. It has high praise from Jay Cheel, so I figured also that it can't be a bad movie.
I tell you what, this mihgt be one of the highest tension films I've ever seen that doesn't have a psycho murderer, or a zombie horde, or any monster in it. The film is quite amazing in the fact that it achieves that tension, when it's simply a story about a couple that is estranged, that goes on a camping…
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''If you go out in the woods, you better be in disguise...''
'Long Weekend' is a classic and mostly forgotten ''Ozplotation'' film, It is surprisingly hardly ever mentioned in the lore of Australian films, hell I'm Australian and hadn't heard of this film until last week, upon reading the plot summary, I instantly searched out this film.
An Australian couple, suffering from monumental issues in their marriage, set out to a distant beach in the country to spend a long weekend, but they conduct thoughtless acts that damage the nature of the area, They disrespected nature and now nature will disrespect there cries for mercy!
To be perfectly honest, throughout the first 45 minutes of this film, I was struggling…
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Underseen Australian "man vs nature" thriller with a Texas Chainsaw Massacre sense of raucous danger mixed with unsettling tonal qualities not unlike fellow Aussie Peter Weir's 1975 Picnic at Hanging Rock or the first section of younger Aussie Greg McLean's Wolf Creek. Unlike Weir's better-known mysterious suspense film, Long Weekend focuses (like a rifle scope) on a angrily crumbling marriage and what effects a holiday weekend camping in the outback might have on the delicate artifices that hold our ideas of dominion - over bodies of land, water, creatures great and small, and spouses - together. It's a gritty, slow-burning, unruly movie that feels as apt for our times as it must have been in the late 70s. Worth a gander.
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Odd and sporadically tense Australian film about a couple who venture on camping trip to save their failing marriage, only to fall victim to the violent whims of Mother Nature after they disrespect her domain.
It's weird, but the acting is quite strong, and the sight of John Hargreaves being attacked by a fake-as-hell bird is worth the price of admission alone.
Come for the tension, stay for the weird scene where the couple kills a dugong for some reason (???)