Tuesday 31 January 2017



ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - January 31st
"FINAL DESTINATION 2" released in 2003



When a young woman has a violent premonition of a highway pileup, she blocks the freeway which keeps her and a few others meant to die, safe...Or are they? When the survivors mysteriously start dying, it's up to her to try and find a way to stop Death's design before she's next, in David R. Ellis' Final Destination 2







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One year after the tragic events of Flight 180, college student Kimberly Corman (A.J. Cook) is heading to Daytona Beach, Florida for spring break with her friends, Shaina McKlank (Sarah Carter), Dano Estevez (Alex Rae), and Frankie Whitman (Shaun Sipos). En route, Kimberly has a premonition of logs falling off a semi, causing a massive car crash that kills everyone involved. She stalls her car on the entrance ramp, preventing several people from entering the highway, including Lottery winner Evan Lewis (David Paetkau); widow Nora Carpenter (Lynda Boyd) and her fifteen-year-old son Tim (James Kirk); businesswoman Kat Jennings (Keegan Connor Tracy); stoner Rory Peters (Jonathan Cherry); pregnant Isabella Hudson (Justina Machado); high school teacher Eugene Dix (T.C. Carson); and Deputy Marshal Thomas Burke (Michael Landes). While Thomas questions Kimberly, the pileup occurs just Kimberly foresaw. Shaina, Dano and Frankie are killed by a speeding truck, but Kimberly is saved by Thomas. The survivors are brought to the police station, where they learn about the curse of Flight 180, and later, a chain reaction causes a fire in Evan's apartment which he barely escapes; but when Evan slips the escape ladder falls and impales his eye. Kimberly starts to wonder if the flight 180 incident and the events after weren't just a coincidence. Her only hope lies in Clear Rivers, the sole survivor of flight 180, has been living life in a mental hospital after the bizarre events that lead to the deaths of her friends. But can she help the survivors cheat death one more time?


Clear Rivers: Look, we drove a long way to get here, so if you happen to know how to stop Death, it would be really great if you told us.
William Bludworth: You can't cheat Death. There are no escapes.
Clear Rivers: Bullshit! You told me Death has a distinct design. But Alex and I cheated Death, not once but dozens of times. The design is flawed, it can be beaten.
William Bludworth: Such fire in you now. People are always most alive just before they die. Don't you think?
[rips off Evan's nipple piercing with a pair of pliers and begins to whistle as he cremates Evan's body]
Top:   (R-L) Kimberley (A.J. Cook), Clear (Ali Later), and Thomas (Michael Landes) search for a way to beat Death's design;
Above:   Their search leads them inevitably back to mortician William Bludworth (Tony Todd) who offers them a cryptic solution


Following the huge success of Final Destination (2000), New Line Cinema's then-President of Production Toby Emmerich approached writer Jeffrey Reddick - who had originally conceived of Final Destination as a spec script for an X-Files episode - to write the sequel. Unfortunately, the first films respective director and producer (and co-writers) James Wong and Glenn Morgan weren't available for production of the sequel, as they had signed to their own individual directorial projects; The One (for Wong) and and the remake Willard (for Morgan). Instead, New Line hired second unit director and stunt coordinator David R. Ellis as director, with writing partners Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber coming onboard to write the later drafts of the screenplay. Warren Zide and Craig Perry also returned and helped on financing/producing the film.

Originally, Devon Sawa was to reprise his role of Alex Browning for the first film, but a dispute concerning his contract with New Line Cinema could not be settled (so in the movie, it is implied by a newspaper clipping that his character Alex was killed off by a falling brick to the head, as the reason for his character not returning). Despite Sawa's absence, Ali Larter returned to reprise her role as Clear Rivers, with Tony Todd also coming back as the devillish mortician William Bludworth. Canadian actress A.J. Cook was cast as heroine Kimberley Corman after impressing Ellis and Perry by her sensitivity and vulnerability in her audition, and was hired instantly. Ellis described her role as "a girl who can have some fun cause they're going on a trip and they're gonna have a good time, yet someone who can stand up to Clear, to come and challenge Clear on a race, and to bother with Clear."

Newcomers to the cast included many television actors; former Living Single star T. C. Carson (as Eugene Dix), Blackwoods actress Keegan Connor Tracy (playing Kat Jennings), Justina Machado from Six Feet Under (as the pregnant Isabelle), and Michael Landes -  who appeared in the TV series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman - as the heroic Deputy Thomas Burke. Rounding out the cast of the "survivors" were Lynda Boyd, James Kirk, and David Paetkau, as Niora and Tim Carpenter and gambler/lottery winner Evan Lewis respectively. Debut actors Sarah Carter, Alejandro Rae, and Shaun Sipos were hired as Kimberly's friends Shaina McKlank, Dano Estevez, and Frankie Whitman correspondingly.


Above:   Tim meets an unexpected and gruesome end!


Like the first Final Destination, the sequel waas filmed on location in and around Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The Plaza of Nations was used as a stand-in for Ellis Medical Complex - and the site of Tim's death - while the farm and lake scenes were filmed in Campbell River and Okanagan Lake respectively, though it is depicted in Greenwood Lake, New York. "We shot part of it at the lake where it was 37° cold, which is beyond an ice cream headache. And the second stuff we shot in a big huge tank where we filmed all the underwater sequence, that was in a 93° pool," Landes later clarified (interestingly, Cook and Landes performed their own stunts in both sequences). For the film's opening sequence, British Columbia Highway 19 was utilized as Route 23.


Montage of Death; In the first image, a wide-angle view of Campbell River is shot for background use in the final result. In the second image, a lifecast of Cherry is positioned against a green screen and severed in pieces. In the third image, the first and second image are composited to be presented among the continuity of the film.

Digital Domains Visual Effects Supervisor Jason Crosby pointed out that their studio was mainly selected for the highway sequence after the crew realized real logs only bounced about an inch off the road when dropped from a logging truck. "They were concerned about how they would make the shot happen, not knowing if CG would work. The timing was great because we had just finished a test shot of our CG logs bouncing on the freeway. We sent a tape to Vancouver and after seeing it the crew was convinced that any of the log shots could be done with CG," Crosby indicated. In spite of this, there are no CG cars incorporated in the actual film.


TRIVIA:   Beginning his career as a stuntman, David R. Ellis was probably most remembered for his stunt work in Brian De Palms's Scarface (1983).
Top:   Director David R. Ellis;
Above:   Ellis on set with Ali Larter and A.J. Cook


Final Destination 2 premiered in 2,834 theaters across the United States and Canada on January 31, 2003, earning $16,017,141 in its opening weekend (placing #2 in the United States box office behind the spy thriller, The Recruit). Ultimately, the movie earned nearly $47 million the US/Canada and another $43 million worldwide, for a total gross over $90 million ($22 million less than it's predecessor).

Analogous to its forerunner, the film received generally mixed reviews from critics, with most negative evaluations condemning the film's plot, acting, and screenplay. Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times groused that "perhaps movies are like history, and repeat themselves, first as tragedy, then as farce." Claudia Puig of USA Today wrote on how that "there is an audience for a movie in which innocent people suffer hideous accidental deaths is troubling enough, but a group of creative people chose to direct their energies on this repulsive spectacle [which] simply provokes disgust." However, A. O. Scott of The New York Times imparted "it's not as cheekily knowing as the Scream movies or as trashily Grand Guignol as the Evil Dead franchise, but like those pictures it recognizes the close relationship between fright and laughter, and dispenses both with a free, unpretentious hand",  whereas Sheila Norman-Culp of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution proclaimed that "what Final Destination did for the fear of flying, Final Destination 2 does for the fear of driving."

Three years later, James Wong and Glenn Morgan would return to the series to write/produce/direct Final Destination 3, this time starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman, and Amanda Crew. Final Destination 3 was another  financially successful film in the franchise with a worldwide gross of nearly $120 million. Although Destination 3 was intended to be filmed in 3-D, it wasn't until Final Destination 4 (with David R. Ellis returning to direct) that technology had advanced to the stage that shooting in 3-D was viable (with most of the equipment and technical crew fresh of James Cameron's 3-D epic Avatar). Even though FD4 was billed as the "final" film the series (hence it's alternate title of The Final Destination), New Line Cinema again brought the series back with 2011's Final Destination 5, this time directed by Avatar's 2nd Unit Director, Steven Quale. While FD5 is the second highest grossing film in the franchise, it was however the most critically acclaimed movie in the series, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 61%.




ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   38%

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Monday 30 January 2017



ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - January 30th
"THE UNINVITED" released in 2009


Anna Ivers (Emily Browning) returns home to her sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel) after a stint in a mental hospital, though her recovery is jeopardized thanks to her cruel stepmother, Rachel (Elizabeth Banks), in The Guard Brothers adaptation of the K-Horror chiller A Tale of Two Sisters - The Uninvited!







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After the death of her ill mother in a fire, the young teenager Anna (Browning)tries to commit suicide and is sent to a mental institution for treatment. Ten months later, Anna still cannot remember what had happened on the night her mother died, but her psychiatric Dr. Silberling (Dean Paul Gibson), however, discharges her telling that she has resolved her issues. Her father and successful writer, Steven (David Strathairn), brings her back home in an isolated mansion nearby the coast. Anna finds that her mother's former nurse, Rachel Summers (Banks), is her stepmother now. Anna meets her beloved sister, Alex (Kebbel), swimming in the sea and later discovers that Steven has not delivered the letters and CDs that Alex had sent to her. As time moves on, Anna is haunted by ghosts and increasingly believes that Rachel killed her mother. Alex and Anna decide to look for evidence to prove that Rachel is the murderer and Anna discovers the truth about the fire in the boat house!


Anna: [going through Rachael's stuff] Geez when are they bringing in the stripper pole.
Alex: I know, she's like a crack-whore without the dignity.
Top:   Anna and Alex's cruel new stepmother, Rachel (Elizabeth Banks);
Above:   Sisters Alex (Arielle Kebbel) and Anna (Emily Browning) slowly become convinced Rachel had something to do with their mother's death


Since first starting the cycle of Asian horror film adaptations, producers Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald searched for a project they felt was as ingeniously conceived and executed as The Ring - which they produced, along with it's sequel The Ring Two in 2005 - and finally found it when producer Roy Lee brought the Korean film A Tale of Two Sisters to their attention. By that time, A Tale of Two Sisters had been playing in US theaters and directors Tom and Charlie Guard had acquired the English language remake rights. By June 2006, DreamWorks announced that a deal had been set up for the US version of A Tale of Two Sisters, with Parkes, MacDonald and Lee producing, The Guard Brothers directing, with a script by Craig Rosenberg, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard.

Emily Browning was hired to portray the lead Anna Ivers, after originally auditioning for the role of Alex (the role of Alex would eventually go to actress Arielle Kebbel, making this her second appearance in an Asian horror remake, after co-starring in The Grudge 2). David Strathairn plays the concerned father of the two girls, while Elizabeth Banks was cast as the cruel stepmother Rachel. Banks reportedly based her character Rachel on Rebecca De Mornay in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, stating, "It was very important to me that every line reading I gave could be interpreted two ways," says Banks of her role, "So that when you go back through the movie you can see that."


TRIVIA:   A variation of clever camera angles and forced perspective helped maintain the illusion that Elizabeth Banks was several inches taller than Emily Browning, who, in reality, is only two inches shorter.
Top and Above:   Anna starts to see horrifying visions of her dead mother (Maya Massar) as the very real body of her ex-boyfriend Matt (Jesse Moss) is found broken in half!


Although the film is set in Maine, it was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia with most of the film being shot at one location; a waterfront property on British Columbia's Bowen Island, a short ferry ride west from mainland Vancouver. Porucer Parkes later remarked on the shooting location, "We were lucky to find in Canada a place that seemed as if it had been built for our movie. It was perfectly evocative and suggestive of a family that is both welcoming and forbidding. The fact that the house was within 30 miles of Vancouver was a greater plus than the minus of having to get everyone on boats to get them over there; water taxis and ferries are a way of life up there. In fact, I don’t remember ever having a more pleasant time on a location. Getting onto a boat and having a cup of coffee and then going up the little pier and the stairs we built, it focused us. We were isolated with one thing on our minds, which was making this movie. It was great."

Released on January 30th, 2009, The Uninvited was a moderate hit, grossing over $40 million at the box office, but reviews were mostly negative. Critic Jason Di Rosso from ABC Radio National's Movietime wrote the film is "punctuated by a crescendo of unoriginal set pieces designed to make you jump in your seat, but more likely to leave you groaning", while Kim Newman from Empire Magazine reviewed it was a "Poor remake of the Korean thriller." There were some who were more positive in the reviews, such as Nigel Floyd of Time Out who wrote, "As in the original, the film slyly manipulates the audience's perspective, and a brilliantly filmed climactic 'reveal' marks this British duo as a pair to watch." and CinePassion's Fernando F. Croce summed up, "As far as PG-13 Americanizations of Asian shockers go, it's about 70 percent passable". Ali Gray (TheShiznit.co.uk) summed up, "It's not original, it's not especially clever and the twist won't make you want to watch it again, but hey - at least it wasn't The Unborn!"




ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   32%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - January 30th
"THE SILENT SCREAM" released in 1980


Four college students - Scotty (Rebecca Balding), Jack (Steve Doubet), Peter (John Widelock) and Doris (Juli Andelman) - who are unable to find on-campus housing, take up residence in Mrs Engels's (Yvonne De Carlo) hilltop mansion, where she lives with her strange son, Mason (Brad Rearden), and her daughter, Victoria (Barbara Steele); whom Mrs Engels secretly keeps hidden in the attic after a botched lobotomy left her mute and homicidal. After one of the students is found dead, a police investigation led by Lt. Sandy McGiver (Cameron Mitchell) uncovers the history of the mansion and its owners, as the remaining students are hunted by an unseen killer, in Denny Harris' debut feature The Silent Scream!






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Filmmaker Denny Harris was already a successful TV commercial director with his own self-named studio before he embarked on making his first feature horror film. Using his own staff, facilities, and money - reportedly Harris spent over $450,000 - the film was shot in the summer of 1977. Starring Rebecca Balding, the actress had originally turned the project down to star in the TV series Lou Grant (1977); however, after the third episode was shot, Balding was "let go" from the series and then accepted the part in the film. Joining the her in the cast were newcomers Juli Andelman, John Widelock, and Steve Doubet (Doubet also recruited his girlfriend -and future wife - Tina Tyler to play the role of the young Victoria).
 
The Engels house location was actually a Highland Park, Los Angeles home called The Smith Estate, and it was previously known as the Merrye house in the cult classic Spider Baby (1967) (in both instances the house was chosen because it stands upon a hill, which made it easier to shoot wide angles and obscure the view of the neighboring homes in order to achieve a sense that the house is very isolated). In order to shoot all the exteriors on the Engels house in a single day, the filmmakers mapped out where scenes would appear in the film and they moved the camera around the house throughout the day, taking full advantage of the sunlight.


TRIVIA:   Steve Doubet did vocal exercises before each take. "It's like he had pneumonia and was coughing up phlegm," recalled co-star Rebecca Balding.
Top and Above:   College students (L-R) Peter (John Widelock), Doris (Juli Andelman), Scotty (Rebecca Balding) and Jack (Steve Doubet) decide to live in the strange hilltop mansion.


Over the course of filming, three different locations were used for the laundry room scene: a real basement, a small basement set and a smaller set for the dark corner next to the furnace and hidden staircase. The hidden staircase from the basement to the attic was a single set. To achieve the illusion that it snaked up multiple stories, the lighting, cobwebs and furnace pipes were switched, with narrower pipes on the upper floors. A scene was scripted in which the killer wraps a rope around Doris's corpse and drags her up the hidden staircase, which explains how she got into the attic. The scene was deemed too technical and time consuming to properly achieve, so it was never filmed. Apparently, Andelman did not like playing background as Doris' corpse in the closet after her character was killed, so she intentionally moved around and ruined takes. Eventually the filmmakers decided to have another character cover her body with a sheet so the actress would not have to be present during the filming of those scenes.

With filming wrapped, Harris began post-production, but soon realized that the first cut of the original version was completely unrelease-able! Harris turned to screenwriters Jim and Ken Wheat to help improve the story, but they had the radical idea to re-shoot the bulk of the film with name-actors to replace certain characters from the original. Yvonne De Carlo, Barbara Steele, Cameron Mitchell, and Avery Schreiber were soon brought in, for an extremely limited schedule. Mitchell and Schreiber were hired to work on the film for two days, with most of their scenes covered with two cameras (unbeknownst to Mitchell's agent, the actor returned for one afternoon to film a few pick-up shots and was paid $500 cash). Barbara Steele completed her scenes in four days. Being her only film appearance in the 80's, Steele stated she accepted the role because it afforded her a rare opportunity to play a mute character.   


TRIVIA:   Reportedly, Rebecca Balding claimed she had never heard of Barbara Steele until the actress was hired for the reshoot.
Top and Above:   Mrs Engels's "odd" children, Mason (Brad Rearden), and Victoria (Barbara Steele).


The actors and actresses who played the college students were brought back for re-shoots in March 1978. Because the name actors had a short shooting schedule and additional coverage was needed, co-writer and producer Ken Wheat appears as a double for both De Carlo and Steele, while his brother, co-writer/producer Jim Wheat, appears as Avery Schreiber's double. Jim's girlfriend/future wife also doubled for De Carlo's character in various shots and Ken's girlfriend/future wife doubled Steele. Shot in the days before video playback, the Wheat brothers had to bring a Moviola to the set to try to match shots that would inter-cut with existing footage which was filmed 8 months earlier. In the end, only 12 minutes of footage from the original version was retained in the final finished film!  

Released theatrically by American Cinema Releasing, The Silent Scream had an extremely limited run in Victor, Texas, before a wider release on January 30th, 1980, beginning in Bismarck, North Dakota. The Silent Scream also screened regionally throughout the 1980 and eventually grossed over $15 million at the box office - making Harris' debut a huge financial success. Due to it's limited exposure, not many reviews have been able to be found. However, in 2012 Jeremy Heilman of MovieMartyr.com wrote, "The Silent Scream is something less than a classic of its genre, but still manages to be worth a look for aficionados of the era's horror films." 




ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   31%

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Thursday 26 January 2017



TOP 50 
AUSTRALIAN HORROR FILMS


Considered Ozploitation films, Australian horror films rose in popularity during the New Wave Movement in the Australian film industry, that lasted from the mid-70's to the late 80's; during which there was an increased support from the government to promote film production in Australia.
To achieve this, the government introduced the Division 10BA (1981) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936, which allowed investors a 150% tax concession on their investment at risk. The previous 10B (1978) applied to a wider selection of project categories, and offered a concession spread over two financial years once the project was generating income. These incentives caused a huge surge of private investment in films - mostly from high income investors looking for a tax shelter - and produced 100's off films over the decade. And while most were high budget fare, like Breaker Morant, The Lighthorsemen, and Crocodile Dundee, more and more investors looked to lower budget films to invest their money.

That meant a huge rise in the production of thriller and horror films that could be shot cheaply and cast international actors (mostly from Britain and the United States) to increase foreign sales. Contemporary Australian filmmakers have continued the tradition of Ozploitation horror films all the way to the present day.

And so, to celebrate this Australia Day, IHdb has compiled a list of the TOP 50 AUSTRALIAN HORROR FILMS covering films over the last 40 years and ranked them according to the aggregated score from Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb and Metacritic.

We hope you enjoy, and have a great Australia Day!


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50    Inn of the Damned (1975)

TRIVIA:  The original film script for this movie was originally planned to be an episode of a 12-part Australian Broadcasting Corporation horror series entitled 'Fright'. Night of Fear (1972), an earlier film by this film's director Terry Bourke, was meant to be the first episode of that series. Both films only became theatrical features after the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) rejected the TV series 'Fright' to which it was going to be a part of. In the case of Night of Fear (1972), principle photography on that film had already been completed, hence its running time of just under an hour. Inn of the Damned (1975) was filmed after the TV series had been canceled, and so when filmed, it was filmed at a feature length running time.


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49   Night of Fear (1972)

TRIVIA:  This movie's initial theatrical release in November 1972 in Australia was delayed because the film had been banned by the Australian Censorship Board. The film was not released until March 1973 where it was released uncut after appeal.


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48   Prey (2009)

TRIVIA:  The film had it's theatrical release on 9 May 2009 in Australia, and grossed just AUD$744 at the box office (one a single screen!).


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47   Road Train (2010)

TRIVIA:  Principal photography for this movie was originally going to be done during 2008 but due to a UK financier withdrawing due to the Global Financial Crisis, production of this movie was delayed a year until 2009 when refinancing had been completed. The movie has been re-titled Road Kill for its American release, because the North American public generally do not know what a "road train" is (FYI, it is a two to three trailer truck).


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46   Nightmares (1980)

TRIVIA:  John D. Lamond came up with the idea to set the story in a theater, and pitched the idea to investors before the script was even written. Shot over four weeks,four different theaters were needed to create one composite theatre in the movie.


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45   Uninhabited (2010)

TRIVIAUninhabited was filmed on location on Masthead Island, Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia.


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44   Lady Stay Dead (1981)

TRIVIA:  One of the only English-language slasher films that was not released in America during the early 80s slasher craze. It wasn't released in America on VHS until 1986 by Video City Productions, and didn't have a theatrical release in it's native Australia! 



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43   Houseboat Horror (1989)

TRIVIAHouseboat Horror is often described by critics and audiences as one of the worst Australian films ever made, citing it as a "typical slasher film". It carries the promotion "See the film that can't get an Academy Award." The movie's ending is left open for a sequel which never eventuated.



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42   Fair Game (1986)

TRIVIA:  The movie was shot in South Australia with the assistance of the Australian Film Commission. Director Mario Andreacchio later said:

    Fair Game came out of a situation where we were wanting to make a movie that was a B-grade video suspense thriller. I wanted to treat it like comic book violence - it was always like a comic book study of violence. What amazed me and the thing I found quite disappointing was that it started to become a cult film in some parts of the world and people were taking it seriously. And that, for me, became a real turning point. I thought, if people are taking this seriously, then I don't think I can make this sort of material.



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41   Howling III: The Marsupials (1987)

TRIVIA:  This film is considered a stand-alone film in the Howling series. Despite director Philippe Mora also directed Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf, he had been unhappy with the story and the fact the producers added some extra shots after he left (such as additional shots of breasts) and wanted to make a third movie himself to make amends and raised the money himself with co-producer Charles Waterstreet.




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40   Dead Sleep (1992)

TRIVIA:  The first of two horror/thriller movies Linda Blair made in Australia, the other being Fatal Bond (1991).


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39   Crawlspace (2012)

TRIVIA:  In an interview with Dread Central, Dix cited John Carpenter, Ridley Scott, and JJ Abrams as inspirations. Production took place at Docklands Studios Melbourne over twenty-three days, and post-production took six months.


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38   Charlie's Farm (2014)

TRIVIA:  The titular character Charlie, is played by horror icon Kane Hodder.


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37   Snapshot (1979)

TRIVIA:  This movie was re-titled as The Day After Halloween for the film's American release in the USA to cash-in on the box-office success of John Carpenter's Halloween (although the film has nothing to do with Halloween, which isn't even celebrated in Australia!). The film has also been released as One More Minute.


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36   Alison's Birthday (1979)

TRIVIA:  Actress Joanne Samuel's second feature film credit after playing Jessie, Max Rockatansky's doomed wife, in the cult action film Mad Max (1979).


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35   Undead (2003)

TRIVIA:  The film was entirely funded by the directors, siblings Michael and Peter Spierig, and their family and friends. There were two months of rehearsals before filming began, with most scenes being shot in only one or two takes due to the budget. The Spierig Brothers rendered most of the special effects on their home computers, taking nine months for post production.


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34   Body Melt (1993)

TRIVIA:  Influenced by "splatstick" Peter Jackson films like Bad Taste and Braindead, among the numerous make-up effects were; liquefying flesh, elongated tongues, exploding stomachs, exploding penises, imploding heads, monstrous births, tentacles growing out of the face, living mucus, sentient placentas, and other gruesome mutations.


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33   Storm Warning (2007)

TRIVIA:  The film pays homage to numerous other films including, but not limited to Spider Baby, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Deliverance, The Hills Have Eyes, The Last House on the Left, Straw Dogs and Wrong Turn


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32   Needle (2010)

TRIVIA:  Although the film contains incredibly gory scenes (including one unlucky characters gruesome dismemberment!), Needle is structured as a murder mystery, with six distinct clues pointing to one of ten suspects; the trailer is intentionally misleading.


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31   Dark Age (1987)

TRIVIA:  This film was not released in its country of origin, Australia, for over 14 years (it was finally released in October 2011). This is apparently due to Avco Embassy owning the Australian distribution rights but they went bust just prior to the films release. 


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30   Scare Campaign (2016)

TRIVIA:  Andrew L. Urban at UrbanCinefile.com gave a positive review, writing "Propelled by an ever-inventive screenplay, Scare Campaign revels in surprising us while scaring us. To its credit, we don't see the twists coming, and the Russian Doll-type structure gives the film a rich texture." 


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29   Thirst (1979)

TRIVIA:  Actor David Hemmings once said of this film during filming: "This crew is the best I've worked with in five years. What is happening out here in Australia is very exciting and I plan to become involved...I thought the script for 'Thirst ' was very commercial and had the potential for international success". 


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28   Bloodmoon (1990)

TRIVIA:  When this film was released theatrically in Australia, it included a William Castle-like "Fright Break", a short intermission which gave audiences a chance to walk a yellow line to the cinema's exit if the film was too frightening for them, giving those who took the so-called "Chicken Walk" to the exits their money back. The "Fright Break" sequence is included on the Australian video release. 


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27   The Wicked (1987)

TRIVIA:  Originally screened as part of a series of tele-movies called "Tomorrow's News", the movie was released as Outback Vampires in the US.


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26   Bait (2012)

TRIVIA:  Despite only earning approximately $775,000 in its home country of Australia, Bait was a sizable success overseas, making over $20 million China alone. It also made $2 Million in Italy. As a result of its international success, Arclight Films announced plans for a sequel called Deep Water; about a plane en route from China to Australia crashing in the Pacific Ocean. However, production was suspended in March 2014 due to "uncomfortable similarities" to the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.


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25   Harlequin (1980)

TRIVIA:  The Rast mansion seen in this movie was actually the home of Western Australian millionaire entrepreneur Alan Bond. The house was mainly only used for exteriors. Most interiors of the home were filmed at a Perth studio though one room in the mansion was used for interiors due to its panoramic seascape lookout.  The sequence where Alex Rast (Mark Spain) is seen being dangled off the side of a cliff by Gregory Wolfe (Robert Powell) did not use trick photography or deceiving camera angles. Spain was hung over the side of a cliff-face but was wearing a safety-harness which was not visible to the audience as it was attached through the underneath of Powell's white cloak. 


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24   Patrick (1978)

TRIVIA:  The film had an unauthorized sequel entitled Patrick Vive Ancora (released in English as Patrick Still Lives) and a remake in 2013, starring Sharni Vinson and Jackson Gallagher as Patrick.


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23   Dying Breed (2008)

TRIVIA:  During the first seconds of the end credits just 1 or 2 frames show what Pieman's Pie really is made of!


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22   Razorback (1984)

TRIVIA:  Russell Mulcahy originally considered Jeff Bridges for the role of Carl, but producer Hal McElroy thought he had too little international appeal! 


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21   Turkey Shoot (1982)

TRIVIA:  Olivia Hussey, apparently a shy girl on set, almost accidentally cut off Roger Ward's hands in one scene. When the director yelled cut, she took the order the wrong way during the scene and Ward just pulled his hands out of the way in the nick of time. 


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20   Wolf Creek (2005)

TRIVIA:  John Jarratt is a method actor and spent weeks living in the Australian desert preparing for the role of Mick Taylor. In addition he also avoided bathing before shooting so he would have a much more rugged appearance. Furthermore, the idea for Mick to have a creepy laugh was Jarratt's own (he says it took him four months to get it just right), and he also created a detailed biography for the character (although he wouldn't reveal the details to anyone). 


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19   Rogue (2007)

TRIVIA:  In the scene where Sam Worthington fell out of the boat, the shoot was delayed as there were reports of a five metre long crocodile being spotted in the area. After several hours of Worthington being terrified to enter the water and ruining the takes, Greg McLean decided to jump into the water and have a swim to convince him to do it properly. It was only after the scene was shot that they found out the crocodile had been relocated several weeks earlier.


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18   Innocent Prey (1988)

TRIVIA:  The film was shot in Sydney under the title of Voyeur.


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17   Roadgames (1981)

TRIVIA:  Jamie Lee Curtis said she felt a certain amount of hostility and prejudice while on set, being one of the two "token Americans". One of the crew members even approached her and asked, "What is it like putting Australians out of work?"


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16   Next of Kin (1982)

TRIVIA:  The famous final scene was serendipity for the film. The camera was supposed to track into the back of the truck, which would then depart. After panning around to look back at the diner, it was going to explode. However, the special effects man activated the explosion too soon, while the camera was still panning, reflecting it onto a highway sign. At the release, many of the audience members commented that not showing the explosion fully was the strongest part of the scene.


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15   Daybreakers (2009)

TRIVIA:  The Spierig brothers wanted the vampires in the film to have a classical aesthetic to them while feeling like a more contemporary interpretation. After experimenting with complex makeup designs, they decided that a more minimalistic approach to makeup had a more powerful effect.


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14   Strange Behavior (1981)

TRIVIA:  The mask that the killer wears in the film is of wrestler/B-actor Tor Johnson.


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13   Primal (2010)

TRIVIA:  Josh Reed made the 12,000 year time-lapse sequence at the beginning of the film by individually photoshopping almost 300 frames. If you go through frame by frame you can see Josh buried to his neck in one frame towards the end, and his daughter, Ch'aska, peeking out from behind a tree in another frame. 


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12   The Reef (2010)

TRIVIA:  The sharks in this film were real and all the footage of the sharks was filmed at Port Lincoln, South Australia. 


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11   Black Water (2007)

TRIVIA:  The crocodile was real and practical effects were used. Director Andrew Traucki used the same approach when filming his follow up, The Reef (2010) - both films were also based on true events.


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10   Wyrmwood (2014)

TRIVIA:  The film took 4 years to complete as they only worked weekends. During filming, a serious accident occurred that nearly caused the death of Bianca Bradey's stunt double, she undershot her jump from the back of the lab truck onto the bonnet of the zombie truck and was nearly run over, fortunately she was unharmed. 


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09   Long Weekend (1978)

TRIVIA:  The decision to have rainy weather in the early driving scenes was an effort to hide the fact that the interior scenes in Peter's jeep were filmed inside a darkened garage. During the shooting grips would run past carrying flashlights to make it appear like they were lights from passing cars.


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08   Van Diemen's Land (2009)

TRIVIA:  Based on the story of Alexander Pearce, Australia's most notorious convict, who, in 1822, escaped from Macquarie Harbour with seven fellow convicts. When the escapees realized they were lost in the harsh Australian bush (and not knowing how to hunt or fish) the group turned to cannibalism to survive.


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07   Dead Calm (1989)

TRIVIA:  The film originally ended with Rae bashing Hughie's head in with the spear gun and throwing him into the ocean on the inflatable mattress to float into the distance, before turning the boat around and saving John from his makeshift raft. The last shot of the movie was Rae hugging John and telling him she loved him and that she hadn't given up hope, giving her character closure from her hopeless outlook at the film's bleak opening. Audiences, however, weren't satisfied with Hughie's ambiguous fate (although the implication was that Rae had killed him with the blows to the head), and the ending was re-shot at the behest of studio heads, who were afraid audiences would spread bad word-of-mouth. 


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06   100 Bloody Acres (2012)

TRIVIA:  Producer Julie Ryan met the Cairnes brothers at the Australian Film Commission's IndiVision Lab in 2008, and her company Cyan Films, became attached to the project just prior to the Cairnes brothers winning the Horror-Thriller category for scriptwriting at the 2010 Slamdance Writing Competition.


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05   The Last Wave (1977)

TRIVIA:  The city of Adelaide doubled for the city of Sydney a lot in this movie. During production, Sydney experienced harsh weather conditions with constant heavy rain. Such weather, ironically, had to be recreated in Adelaide, which was sunny and pleasant during filming. 


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04   Lake Mungo (2008)

TRIVIA:  Director Joel Anderson was finding it difficult to acquire funding for another script he had written - which required a much larger budget - and after discussions with what would be future collaborators on Lake Mungo, the decision was made to write something that could be filmed on a low budget.


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03   The Loved Ones (2009)

TRIVIA:  Under the instructions of director Sean Byrne, Robin McLeavy prepared for the role of Lola by researching the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, as well as watching Misery (1990), Natural Born Killers (1994) and the works of Quentin Tarantino. 


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02   The Babadook (2014)

TRIVIA:  The movie had a campaign where you could buy a copy of 'The Babadook Popup Book' for $80.00. The first 2000 copies are numbered and signed by the director, Jennifer Kent. The book contains pop-up pictures as well as additional pages not seen in the movie. (The campaign was only open for a limited amount of time and is no longer available). 


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01   The Tunnel (2011)

TRIVIA:  The film was funded using a crowd-funded financing model, as part of the 135k Project, where the film's writer-producers Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey sold individual digital frames of the film for A$1, to try and raise the film's A$135,000 target budget. However this method only managed to raise approximately A$36,000, so the filmmakers exerted a certain "creativity" to complete the film with this limited budget. The Tunnel is the first Australian film to be distributed and promoted legally through the BitTorrent internet downloading platform, a release strategy which could potentially expose the film to tens of millions of people, for free.