Jackson Before Rings

 

 (imdb)

BAD TASTE-1989-Cannibalistic aliens invade a small town in Australia in this bloody gore filled serio-comedy with extreme slapstick. Heads explode, limbs are torn off, entrails pulled out. Four guys from a special agency discover the aliens (who disguise themselves as humans) want humans for their intergalactic fast-food chain. Future Academy Award winner Peter Jackson co-wrote and directed as well as playing the role of Derek.

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Down Under Boar

 

 (moviesrankings.com)

RAZORBACK-1984-In Australia a professional kangaroo shooter is accused of murdering his grandson but is released for lack of evidence. It's actually a giant mutated razorback boar. 2 years later an American reporter (Judy Morris) goes there to investigate the slaughter of kangaroos. Some inbreeding local trash beat her up and almost rape her. She gets away from them but is killed by the wild hog. 

Her husband Carl Winters (US TV actor Gregory Harrison) goes to investigate. After being abandoned in the desert, he wanders around, hallucinates and sees the giant boar. He's rescued by a woman (Arkie McWhiteley; also in ROAD WARRIOR (1981)) who's friends with the grandpa. Eventually after getting revenge on the two assholes, Winters somehow lures the monster piggies on to a conveyor belt where rotating knives slaughter them. 

Director Russell Mulcahy made this weird but mundane horror film while in the midst of directing Elton John music videos.

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Tiny Tim!

 

 (youtube)

STREET OF DREAMS-1988-This grainy slapped together bio/documentary features Tiny Tim attempting to break the non-stop singing record at Luna Park, a famous amusement park in Australia. It throws in all sorts of Tiny Tim clips: myriad interviews, his marriage on "The Tonight Show", talking to strippers in a hotel room, dressing up like Mickey Mouse, even an interview with his aged mother who shows off childhood photos. Actor Ross Martin occasionally appears to narrate. 

Tim pontificates on the Bible, God, life, sex, etc. It's a cacophony of Tiny Tim, a literal overload, which turns very serious toward the end when it reports on the fire that took 7 lives and closed the amusement park down. 

Director Martin Sharp, who had a keen interest in Luna Park as well as Tiny Tim, was also an artist who drew the cover of Cream's albums “Disraeli Gears” and “Wheels of Fire” as well as writing the lyrics to two of their songs, “Tales of Brave Ulysses” and “Anyone for Tennis?”. There is a separate feature that focuses mainly on the marathon concert itself.

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Made For TV Dino

 

GARGANTUA-1998-A dinosaur terrorizes an island where 2 marine biologists Jack (Adam Baldwin) and Ralph (Peter Adams) try to stop it. US troops come but they seem incompetent. A local doctor (Julie Carmen) helps them. A stupid Australian guy wants the dinosaur alive and threatens Jack's son Brandon (Emile Hirsch). The badly made monster also has a baby in this cheesy made for TV Fox movie shot in Australia by director Brandon May who later made a TV movie about Madonna and two “Darkman” sequels.

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Australia

 

DEAD SLEEP-1990-In Australia, Maggie (Linda Blair) goes to work at a clinic called “Elysian Fields” where an idiot named Dr. Heckett (Tony Bonner) is using “deep sleep therapy” on his patients and is obviously mad. She spends most of the movie trying to prove he killed 51 patients. He tries to kill her but she escapes and proves him guilty. He drives his car off a cliff. 

This down under downer was directed by Alec Mills who was a camera operator on many big budgeted films including some with Roger Moore as James Bond.

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AKA 7 GUARDIANS.

7 GUARDIANS OF THE TOMB-2018-The CEO (Kelsey Grammar) of a large pharmaceutical company leads an expedition to find an ancient elixir that extends life. He'd send out two guys earlier but after finding a secret chamber only one came back. His group includes Jia (Bingbing Li; THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM, TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION), a venom expert looking for her missing brother, the survivor of the pair who went first and Jack (Kellan Lutz; THE LEGEND OF HERCULES), a dumb ass macho guy. The group is menaced by poisonous spiders along the way. 

This Chinese Australian co-production has mediocre acting, a bad script and terrible SFX. Director Kimble Rendall also made CUT. My review is here:

 https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2015/09/down-under-murder.html

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Down Under Murder

 

CUT-2000-In Australia, a young film crew decides to finish a “cursed” horror film even though everyone who has tried before was killed (including the original director). They hire the original American actress (Molly Ringworm) to star again and after playing a cruel joke on the director they all head off to shoot the rest of the movie. Of course someone dressed as the movie killer shows up to kill cast and crew. Some of the death are very nasty (fire, head crushing, decapitation) and the ending goes on forever. Stupidest part has a teacher get a pole driven through his neck but he pulls it and saves the day! Pop singer Kylie Minogue is one of the cast.

 

This Australian effort is violent and derivative and director Kimble Rendall ( a second unit director on THE MATRIX movies) obviously hasn't learned anything from watching US horror movies!

 

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Primal

PRIMAL-2010-Somewhere in Australia, 6 people explore some ancient cave paintings. A woman in the party gets bitten by a rabbit with extremely long teeth. Leeches and bugs plague the camp. The woman becomes an animistic cannibal and she kills and eats a kangaroo. Later she terrorizes her remaining live ex-friends until most of them are killed. But one guy she kills comes back to life and joins her in eating and screwing. The climax is stupid and drawn out with a nasty scene featuring a pregnant woman disemboweling herself and the sole survivor violated by some kind of worm blob. Director Josh Reed as of this writing has yet to venture into another feature film production.

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Down Under

DYING BREED-2008-A zoologist and her three friends go to Tasmania to try and find proof of the long extinct Tasmanian tiger. It also has to do with the legend of Alexander Pierce, “The Pie Man”, who was hanged in 1824 for cannibalism. I've read that this isn't exactly true as the film combines the legend of two killers. Anyway, Nina (Mirrah Foulkes) the zoologist is also looking for her sister who disappeared years before while searching for the is extinct tiger. She and her friends (including SAW creator/actor Leigh Whannell) soon make a horrifying discovery: descendants of “the Pie Man” are alive and want to breed to keep the family line going! After this it's just the usual torture nonsense (SAW V was made the same year as this). Jody Dwyer directed this Australian production. Don't know much about him. 

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Un-Something

UNDEAD-2003-This gore horror-comedy from Australia reminded a lot of Peter Jackson's BAD TASTE (and SHAUN OF THE DEAD) with it's extreme violent SFX but I didn't care for it. 

In Queensland, a meteorite shower turns residents into human eating zombies. A woman named Rene (Felicity Mason) takes shelter in the cabin of the local weirdo (Mungo McKay) who seems to know a lot about the zombies. They are joined by a few other people (including a pregnant woman) who yell, curse, cry and act like morons.

This was made by twin brothers Michael and Peter Spierig who really think their unoriginal plot, bad acting and dumb comic situations are very clever. They do thrown in a twist ending involving some aliens but by then it's too late. The 90 mins of your life that you wasted watching this crap is gone forever! 

After this The Spierigs made DAYBREAKERS which featured vampires. 

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PS: Wkipedia list of still living silent screen stars:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_silent_film_actors

Stunt Rock

STUNT ROCK-1980-Real life Australian stuntman Grant Page stars as himself. After doing many high profile, death defying stunts in his native country he comes to America to work on a TV series. Along the way he meets up with an '80's metal hair band called "Sorcery" complete with screeching lead singer and masked keyboardist. They do a weird "good wizard vs. bad wizard" act when they perform and seem more inspired by Spinal Tap than Led Zeppelin. Page also hooks up with actress Monique van de Ven (playing herself) and a reporter (Margret Gerald). Though the reporter and TV series are fictional this is partially a overview of Page's career and includes scenes with some of his work (like MAD DOG MORGAN) while also highlighting the easy to hate band.

Director Brian Trenchard-Smith worked on THE MARTY FELDMAN SHOW before making movies like ESCAPE 2000, BMX BANDITS and DEAD END DRIVE.

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It's A Croc!

ROGUE-2007-A giant crocodile terrorizes some tourists who get shipwrecked in an Australian swamp. Everybody fights and argues and the victims are picked off. Radha Mitchell (SILENT HILL) is the tour guide and Michael Vartan (TV’s ALIAS) is an American reporter. Both whisper a lot. Later on Vartan finds the croc’s lair and loses some fingers fighting it hand to hand! A “been there, seen that” horror film. Sam Worthington (recently seen as Perseus in the CLASH OF THE TITANS remake) is an early victim. Director Glen Mclean had previously made WOLF CREEK. 

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