Popular reviews

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  Review by ulrike ★★★½

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  i probably could have found this online with a bit of searching, but in the end it just felt easier to go to the library history room and watch their copy [eta: on god it was just on youtube this entire time this is so embarrassing]

  yeah this sure was a film adaptation of Alexander Pearce's story! I liked very much that they used Irish in this one as well!

  a comparison with Van Diemen's Land (2009) i find very interesting is the comparative scope of each - this one gives a framing narrative of other characters, and shows life around the penal colony as well as an encounter with an Aboriginal man (which, oh my god the way Pearce…

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  Review by Groan_Crawford ★★★½ 2

  Hours before I saw this, I was suffering from nausea. And then, when I finally watched this, I still was nauseous, but I try to set it aside and concentrate on the film.

  This is heartbreaking  tale about a thief who gets turned into a murderer and a cannibal in a fight for survival and later on not really. He couldn't fight off his urge. I couldn't believe this was a true story. At first I thought I was watching a mockumentary so I had to researched and I couldn't believe it.

  I'm not so sure if this is a common story that Australians know like how us Americans know about the Donner party (which was worse than Pearce's story because…

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  Review by Starland Seay ★★★

  This is a harrowing story about a bunch of men who attempt to flee to China from an Australian penal colony in the 1800's and their cannibalism of one another until only one man is left ....Alexander Pearce. When Pearce is caught and his deeds are learned, he is condemned to death by hanging and confesses his atrocity to an Irish priest who comes to him. The priest, at first shocked, becomes somewhat understanding of Pearce's plight. Pretty creepy in parts and interesting IMO.

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  Review by Matthew ★★★

  After watching Van Diemen’s Land (2008) which depicts exactly the same event - Alexander Pearce’s escape from the brutal Macquarie Harbour Penal Station and subsequent resort to cannibalism - I was keen to give this one a go too. It’s always eye-opening to see the way that different filmmakers handle the same events. In this case I could only find a pretty poor YouTube copy that wasn’t even HD (perish the thought), but still glad to be able to watch and compare.

  Inevitably my thoughts on this one were somewhat filtered through the prism of the other film, and while this was certainly still a decent attempt to tell this story it mainly succeeded in deepening my appreciation for Van…

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  Review by FilmFanFlip ★★★

  “A full belly is prerequisite for all manner of good.Without that, no man knows what hunger will make him do.”
                                              ~Philip Conolly

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  Review by Nicola Altieri ★★★

  An Aussie tv movie about desperation as a consequence of the disintegration of the human being. A strong, questionable but really interesting, even if only sketched, reflection about the violent roots of the australian society and Irish caresty as a cause of a violent dna. It would have been more deep and visually strong but it's still a medium length movie for television.