This film is one of the pillars of the Australian 'new wave' of films. It's based on a Thomas Keneally novel, which I tried to read back when I was a teenager but I couldn't get into for whatever reason. When I saw the film was going off Netflix instant next week I decided to watch it yesterday. Boy, am I glad I did.The film is about a half white/half aborigine man named Jimmie Blacksmith. He's raised by a white minister and his wife and he wants nothing more to fit in the white world of turn of the century Australia. However, there one huge problem, turn of the century white Australia wanted nothing to do with him. He managed to scrape by on some odd jobs and to even marry a white woman after it was obvious she was pregnant, possibly with his child. After indignity after indignity and being given the shaft by employer after employer, Blacksmith goes on a rampage with first his uncle and then his brother. They murder, steal, and loot their way across the country. Driven by blind rage the white authorities throw all their resources after Blacksmith and his kin. Finally they catch and kill them all.
This is a tough film to watch because of the violence and the racism. But it's an important film to watch because of those reasons. I imagine that this film helped Australia come to grips with it's treatment of it's native population like many films of this nature did for the USA. Tommy Lewis shines as the put upon Jimmie Blacksmith who's main crimes were to want to be like whites and marrying a white woman. There are many fine performances in this film and it's definitely worth your time.
Highly recommended.
A couple loses their child to a horrific dog mauling accident. Afterwards they move to a small creepy little close knit town. One night the wife stumbles upon a secret ritual where the dead are being brought back to life. Sick with grief over the death of her daughter she pleads and begs until her husband relents and allows the locals to raise their kid from the ground. Told they have only three days with their risen child they enjoy their time with her but then on the third day, things start to go wrong. Very wrong. Very, very, wrong.I loved this creepy atmospheric horror film. It's full of eerie locals, misty rainy nights, skullduggery, secrets, buried secrets, unburied bodies, and chilling effects. Eva Birthistle, one of my adopted actors, shines as the grief stricken, yet still super hot mother and Aidan Gillen is very good as her father. Timothy Spall is creepy good as the head local in charge of the resurrections.
I loved this film from start to finish. It never tries to be anything more than an entertaining little horror film. It sucked me right in and it held me right up through it's shocker surprise ending. I loved the use of children as objects of horror and terror and the use of animals in the story as well. It's all very creepy and eerie and very very entertaining. This one should become a cult classic in my opinion. I know I'll see it again sometime, I liked it that much.
Very highly recommended. And I'd say that even if the film didn't contain a lovemaking scene with Ms. Birthistle, hubba hubba.
