DVD REVIEWS
Ozploitation debauchery focuses on the bad things that can happen in a big country
Five very Australian films in the gory Ozploitation genre are bound to entertain those who like to be horrified.
‘Is that about Dorothy or Down Under?” That’s the question a friend posted on Facebook in response to my search for horror geeks who would talk to me about the exploitation subgenre Ozploitation. I’ll forgive him for not knowing that the Oz here refers to Australia, not Munchkinland. Ozploitation remains an under-theradar monster, at least in the United States. The IFC Center in New York hopes to change that with To Hell and Outback, an introduction to Ozploitation debauchery that runs until Sept 30. The comprehensive series includes proto-Ozploitation films, like Peter Weir’s disappearance mystery Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), but also modern oddballs like Sean Byrne’s twisted-prom dark comedy The Loved Ones (2009).
What passes for exploitation in Australia? Marauding packs of bullies and car chases shot through a “fetishistic lens”, as director Quentin Tarantino said in the 2008 Ozploitation documentary Not Quite Hollywood.
Another common subject? The menace that is the country’s dangerously rugged terrain. “Australia was a Western culture that was founded by convicts stranded in an incredibly hostile natural environment,” said Colin Geddes, a curator for the horror streaming service Shudder and a former international programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival. “Their cinema embraces this and is filled with death-defying challenges, threat and survival from both man and nature.”
Unlike blaxploitation, a genre that had its heyday in the ‘70s, Ozploitation continues to thrive. There are horror movies, like the mother-protector fable The Babadook and newly released killer-hillbilly thriller Killing Ground, and action films like the Oscar-winning Mad Max: Fury Road, with its throbbing emphasis on survival and tricked-out vehicles. Here are other Ozploitation films to check out.