peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2023 04 06 LongWeekend

Long Weekend (1978)

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Some misguided John Hargreaves completism; I've come to realise his efforts in Don's Party were anomalous. Here he and wife Briony Behets (their marriage going sour due to a botched wife swapping) drive a Nissan Patrol 60 (which looks a lot like a classic Land Rover Defender) from their Western Sydney home to Bournda National Park (then a remote and much more relaxed state reserve) for some casual destruction of nature. Nature takes its revenge in classic Ozploitation / Wake in Fright-by-the-beach style. All this is a metaphor for the moral shoals of abortion. It's mostly snoozefest with the odd bit of gore.

Luke Buckmaster in 2014. He completely misses the abortion angle. All the details at Ozmovies: this is apparently now a strong entry in the eco-horror subgenre. (I think Ned Beauman's take is far more inventive.) Written by Everett De Roche (Road Games amongst other genre flicks). Remade by Victorians in 2008; what were Jim Caviezel and Claudia Karvan thinking?