![]() The audience are kept on edge through brilliantly utilised sound effects and the power of suggestion through unusual shot-choices. There’s very little gore or violence on screen. Even in this last half hour, the tension and horror are achieved through largely quite subtle means. It’s an absolute masterclass in suspense, with tension slowly cranked from the start, right the way through to the intense final act. However, Eggleston does a superb job of pulling it off. It sounds like a ridiculous concept and, yes, I imagine people would find the whole thing a bit daft, particularly when the animals fighting back are largely ones viewed as harmless. So, in several unusual sequences, eagles, possums and other creatures attack them as punishment. As the film’s tagline puts it “their crime was against nature… and nature found them guilty”. On their trip, among other things, they run over a kangaroo, chop up a tree and most notably shoot an endangered dugong. This will soon be the least of their troubles though, as their continued disregard for the animals and plant life around them comes back to haunt them. We also gradually learn hints about what caused the chasm between them. The pair continue to bicker whilst out in their secluded spot by the beach, but display a few brief flashes of love for each other. ![]() The holiday is unlikely to make a difference though as Marcia would rather be in a hotel and Peter stubbornly insists, even sneaking his beloved dog Cricket into the truck despite Marcia’s desire to leave him home. Long Weekend sees a city-dwelling couple, Peter (John Hargreaves) and Marcia (Briony Behets), head off on a camping trip for the weekend, in a vain effort to patch up their fractured marriage. I never got around to buying Long Weekend on DVD, despite its high placing on my ozploitation wish list, but luckily Second Sight have come to my rescue several years later and allowed me to check out their forthcoming Blu-Ray. In particular, it swept up a number of major awards at Sitges in 1978. ![]() It wasn’t highly regarded in Australia when it was first released though and might have died a death if its producers hadn’t taken the film to European festivals where it was a great success. Pretty high up the list was Long Weekend, Colin Eggleston’s 1978 ecological horror movie, which was highly regarded in the documentary. The 2008 documentary Not Quite Hollywood did a great job of celebrating the movement and, being the avid collector that I am, it had me compiling a long list of fun-looking films for me to buy. This is the name given to the exciting, generally quite low budget, genre movies that came out of Australia. A ‘wave within a wave’ coming from this was the start of what is now referred to as ‘ozploitation’. The Australian New Wave of the 70s and 80s saw a sudden flood of original and varied cinema come out of the country to reasonable success and acclaim around the world. Starring: John Hargreaves, Briony Behets, Mike McEwen
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