Australia lends itself to the road movie, reflects the author of a forthcoming new book on Aussie/Kiwi cult and genre movies. The cities and the outback are so sparsely populated. The road-movie scenery is so much more iconic than any country I can think of. He might have added that the particular road movies the Antipodeans produced have often carried violent overtones whether the brooding menace of murder committed in the desolate outback, or the post-apocalyptic pile-ups of the MAD MAX series. As Australias Road Warrior returns to the screen (in May 2015), and Tom Hardy hits FURY ROAD, lets take a historical trip down those brooding byways that belie the laidback nature of our ocker cousins... Long-time contributor to THE DARK SIDE horror mag and co-producer of THE DEVILS BUSINESS, Sean Hogans modest-but-macabre 2012 indie feature, Jay Slater has set himself a mission down under. Hes writing a book reviewing every single horror, cult and softcore sex movie from the very first commercial Australian films to the present day, principally because no ones taken such a completist approach before. But theres also a degree of personal obsession: When I was young I started watching Australian horror movies, aged ten, and they all had their own unique template: PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, MAD MAX, they really drew me in, their individual sensibilities. So hes one of two writers joining us on our uneasy cinematic road trip to the outback though hes unsure how much of a subgenre this really is. How many road movies have the Australians made? Not that many. Youve got MAD MAX, youve got STONE, MIDNITE SPARES, Im really hard pressed to think of any others. Our jovial disagreement is fuelled by the definition of a road movie itself. Is it a film focusing on car journeys, or is it an action movie crammed with car chases? From this viewers point of view, the uniqueness of the Australian road movie is that it takes you somewhere remote, desolate and picturesque. Whether you follow the protagonists physical journey all the way is a moot point, but its taking you to territories you may never visit in your own life. And that applies psychologically too for in what well glibly label the road rage movie, the rage is as integral as the road...
Writer/editor/ghost-writer transfixed by crime, cinema and the serrated edges of popular culture. Those similarly afflicted are invited to make contact.
