Australia has always been one of my favourite places to check out films from. The country has some fantastic scenery to chew over and some sumptuous movies have really taken it to heart and made the most of things. Classic films naturally include the likes of Walkabout, The Chant Of Billy Blacksmith and Picnic At Hanging Rock, which really helped pave the way for the industry in the 70’s. However also emerging were another breed of directors who utilised the scenery to sinister ends and developed what is now termed as the Ozploitation movie. This is incredibly documented in the film ‘Not Quite Hollywood’ directed in 2008 by Mark Hartley and should be first up on your shopping list to find out what is out there. Some of the movies mentioned in it obviously have been around for a long time and were favourites in the video age. Who can forget the death defying stunts in the post apocalypse flavoured Mad Max movies? Then there is ecological horror where nature turns bad classic The Lost Weekend, biker movie Stone is another whose tale about the actual making of is almost as interesting as the film itself Sandy Harbutt’s 1974 classic stood up there with Peter Weir’s strange film The Cars That Ate Paris the same year. We had bawdy crass nude flicks like Fantasm vulgar bad taste comedies and ask any native what horror film scared them the most as a kid and they probably will look at you in terror and not mention The Exorcist but whisper the name Patrick and give you a knowing look. I could go on for ages but it is time to talk about Brian Trenchard-Smith’s cult classic Dead End Drive-In, a film that I must admit escaped me until I watched it gob wide open and drooling last night. Weird, different, strange, fun, compelling and as Oz as a warm stubby of Toohey’s, this was a great blast from the past and I loved every second of it.
Despite it being a first viewing Trenchard-Smith was no stranger as the cult following of this British but Australian based director is incredibly well deserved. The list of little films made to look big that he is responsible for as director, producer and writer is massive in both film and TV. I am sure that everyone around at the time remembers BMX Bandits even if they would rather not but it was this directed by Trenchard-Smith that led to the first starring role of Nicole Kidman. It was the film that he directed just beforehand, one that has been around since those glory days of video that I love him for the most though. Turkey Shoot also known as Blood Camp Thatcher is a futuristic dystopian flick where society has broken down and anyone raising a voice of dissent finds themselves in a ruthless concentration camp. Those governing it do so with a fist of iron and they are not adverse to putting the fittest dissenters into their own “most dangerous game” hunting to the kill. Throw in futuristic elements, mutations, gory fights, nudity, inventive gore and all manner of deranged fun and you have one whacked out film.
The reason I mention this is partly due to the fact you MUST see it but also as there are big parallels to Dead End Drive- In. We again find ourselves in an odd society that has broken down completely. The sky is a shade that looks polluted to a Hardware like extent and machinery belches out over the industrial landscape. The natives seem like they are well in the throw of the punk rock era adding to the pollution with mass hairspray consumption and racing about in souped up cars in vogue with the petrol head behaviour of commercial firecracker Mad Max. You know you are in for a slice of retro badassness on the opening credits with its awful new wave pumping iron disco music and unforgivable font work. It is incredibly hard to work out what the hell is going on at first though as we are introduced to anti-hero Crabs who hits the road with (I assume) his brother and gets involved in clean-up operations that seem a cross between Crash and Nekromantik whilst defending from gangs of marauding Clockwork Orange inspired punks.
After this what’s a guy to do to relax? Well take your lady in your brothers borrowed Chevy and go to the drive in of course. That me old cobber was a very bad move.
As a side note one thing that should not be overlooked is the fantastic work Australia did to the coach potato favourite that is the soap opera. Half the fun of these films is watching them and shouting out with glee when you recognise the youthful actors either as they were back then at the dawn of Prisoner Cell Block H or now looking haggard in the current realm. Dead End Drive-In was not going to disappoint and the lead actor Ned Manning alone started in the aforementioned Prisoner, did a one episode blink and miss him in Home And Away in 1990, popped up in A Country Practice and apparently is Eddie Lawson in Neighbours right now. That is a game that you can play whilst you watch the characters come in to play here. Looking through it’s a veritable cast who went on to hit the highlights in everything from Bananas in Pyjamas through to Moulin Rouge!
The Drive In is an odd place full of punks and as the couple get down to the car shaking thang that these crazy kids do at drive in’s (the alternative seems to be watching Turkey Shoot) someone only goes and half inches a couple of their wheels. The bloke in charge Thompson (Peter Whitford) seems unsurprised even though he is told it was none other than the police that stole them and as it transpires, they along with a couple of hundred other punk types are trapped by electric fences and might as well make the most of it. As beer and any drug including smack is available, food tokens for burgers, shakes and pineapple fritters and awesome movies like The Mighty Peking Man this is not a problem for most. Many have even turned their cars into encampments making it all look like a free festival scene and they can entertain themselves with the odd game of cricket too being Australian through and through.
They are very much the dead ends in the drive in and society has incarcerated them there rather than have them sponge off the state. Let s bloody hope David Cameron does not see this and get the idea. Well it is Turkey Shoot pretty much on a different scenario but problems really escalate when the police bring in a load of Asian ‘rice gobblers’ who really get the racist punks backs up and they get militant worried that they may do all sorts like rape their women. We only actually see a smiling, waving group of Asian people being trucked in and the people are just on a day trip to do that rather than appear in the film. This was left to happen later though in much more detail when the Australian film Romper Stomper really looked at the relationship of the way some perceived the invasion of their country from a different continent.
Crabs is not part of their plans though and really stands alone neither bowing into any of their peer pressure or the authorities that imprisoned him with them in the first place. The film follows his battle to get the hell out and back to his life no matter how shit it was in the first place.
The movie is fast paced and has plenty of tension in its compact 84 minute running time and I found it very enjoyable after a confusing first reel. I was reminded heavily of Troma’s early output as the gangs were reminiscent of the likes of Class Of Nuke Em High and Surf Nazis etc, which kind of added to the appeal and gave you plenty to look at. The make-up department must have been busy although many of the extras were probably part of the scene and rebelling from that awful disco soundtrack. It is a shame that the film was not commercially successful enough to spawn a proposed sequel but then again the cars in it had well and truly run out of steam, engines, wheels and pretty much everything else so where they could have taken it after the ending, which you may well have seen even if the film is new to you, who knows? There were no extras with the DVD apart from an original trailer, which is a shame as it would have been nice seeing some of the cast and director reminisce about the film and the making of it but I can completely understand that the low budget film that many will not remember hardly warrants the costs of getting them together again.
Looking around I cannot see any old UK video versions of this only a US and Australian cassette and I cannot remember it being out on UK DVD before so Arrow have unearthed a bit of a rough diamond from down under here. So grab some warm flat Fosters tighten your seatbelts and settle down for a wild ride where the price of admission costs your freedom!
Pete Woods
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