A dark new world:
Anatomy of Australian horror films
Mark David Ryan
Faculty of Creative Industries,
Queensland University of Technology
A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the degree Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), December 2008
The Films (from top left to right): Undead (2003); Cut (2000); Wolf Creek (2005); Rogue (2007); Storm Warning (2006); Black Water (2007); Demons Among Us (2006); Gabriel (2007); Feed (2005).
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KEY WORDS
Australian horror films; horror films; horror genre; movie genres; globalisation of
film production; internationalisation; Australian film industry; independent film; fan
culture
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ABSTRACT
After experimental beginnings in the 1970s, a commercial push in the 1980s, and an
underground existence in the 1990s, from 2000 to 2007 contemporary Australian
horror production has experienced a period of strong growth and relative commercial
success unequalled throughout the past three decades of Australian film history. This
study explores the rise of contemporary Australian horror production: emerging
production and distribution models; the films produced; and the industrial, market and
technological forces driving production.
Australian horror production is a vibrant production sector comprising mainstream
and underground spheres of production. Mainstream horror production is an
independent, internationally oriented production sector on the margins of the
Australian film industry producing titles such as Wolf Creek (2005) and Rogue
(2007), while underground production is a fan-based, indie filmmaking subculture,
producing credit-card films such as I know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer
(2006) and The Killbillies (2002). Overlap between these spheres of production,
results in ‘high-end indie’ films such as Undead (2003) and Gabriel (2007) emerging
from the underground but crossing over into the mainstream. Contemporary horror
production has been driven by numerous forces, including a strong worldwide market
demand for horror films and the increasing international integration of the Australian
film industry; the lowering of production barriers with the rise of digital video; the
growth of niche markets and online distribution models; an inflow of international
finance; and the rise of international partnerships.
In light of this study, a ‘national cinema’ as an approach to cinema studies needs
reconsideration – real growth is occurring across national boundaries due to
globalisation and at the level of genre production rather than within national
boundaries through pure cultural production. Australian cinema studies – tending to
marginalise genre films – needs to be more aware of genre production. Global forces
and emerging distribution models, among others, are challenging the ‘narrowness’ of
cultural policy in Australia – mandating a particular film culture, circumscribing
certain notions of value and limiting the variety of films produced domestically.
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CONTENTS Page
Key words iii Abstract iv List of tables and figures vii Statement of originality viii Acknowledgements ix Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Australian horror films – no longer a ‘curious beast’ 1 Research questions 4 The Australian film industry in transition and two tiers of horror production 5 Horror films and Australian cinema studies 9 Methodology 16 Chapter breakdown 21 Chapter 2: Globalising film production and the renaissance of the horror genre 23 Horror as a genre 23 Horror sub-genres 26 The globalisation of audiovisual production and distribution 31 Global horror markets 36 The renaissance of the horror genre in global markets 38 Fan cultures, the expansion of DVD markets and the long-tail 41 The worldwide spread of horror production 45 Independents and the horror genre 49 Conclusion 50 Chapter 3: A history of Australian horror films 52 Horror films and Australian cinema 52 Australian cinema discourse, genre and internationalisation 56 The 1970s: Experimental beginnings 63 The 1980s commercial horror push 68 The 1990s: An underground existence 73 Conclusion 78 Chapter 4: Contemporary Australian horror production 80 The boom in contemporary horror production 80 Horror production budget ranges and average Australian film budgets 83 The films: Aesthetic groupings, themes and characteristics 86 The 2000s: The national and global mainstream breakout 94 Two phases of development 100 The first phase: Australian horror production in the early 2000s 100 The second phase: Post-Saw and Wolf Creek 106 Enterprise characteristics 111 Commercial film practices and exploitation 114 Conclusion 116
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Chapter 5: Financing, production and distribution models 117 Mainstream production 118 High-end indie production: Overlap between mainstream and underground production 122 Underground horror production 124 Co-productions and internationalisation 130 The crossover between mainstream and underground horror production 136 Mainstream distribution 139 Underground distribution models 140 Horror films and public funding structures in transition 146 Conclusion 154 Chapter 6: Returns, markets and fan/subcultures 155 The ‘success’ of contemporary Australian horror production 155 Returns and release patterns 158 The new economic model for horror producers 164 Evaluating the commercial performance and viability of contemporary horror production 166 The significance of horror subcultures and fan cultures 170 Fan-based production 177 Conclusion 178 Chapter 7: The future of Australian horror production – sustainability and policy 180 Forces driving contemporary horror production 180 The sustainability of production and distribution models 181 The limitations of cultural policy 186 Policy and industry development 190 The horror films of Australian cinema 192 Conclusion 196 Appendix 1: Australian horror films by decade – a chronological breakdown 201 Appendix 2: Budget expenditure on Australian horror production: 2000-2008 204 Appendix 3: Australian horror films by budget range 205 REFERENCES 206
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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Tables
Page
1 Interviews and correspondence with filmmakers involved in horror production 20 2 Major horror sub-genres: international and national examples 30 3 Films released by majors and their subsidiaries 33 4 Lion’s Gate top 10 grossing movies of all time 35 5 Genre trend analysis: the % of Top 20 movies in US markets, five-year
averages, 1967–2004 36 6 Top-grossing genres in the US market, 1995–2007 37 7 Horror’s year-by-year market share of the US box office 39 8 Examples of commercially successful international horror titles 46 9 The growth and decline of Australian horror production by decade 80 10 International comparison of local box office share and production Rates in selected countries 82 11 Average Australian film budgets and Australian horror films budgets 83 12 Proportion of feature films in various budget ranges: 2000/01–2006/07 84 13 Investment in Australian feature film production and co-productions 85 14 A typology of contemporary Australian horror films 86 15 The top 10 Australian movies on video in 2007 (total retail sales) 97 16 Budget ranges for credit-card horror productions 125 17 Australian horror film co-productions 130 18 Village Roadshow horror co-productions 132 19 The box office records of Australian directors behind successful
international horror films 135 20 2005 Australian feature film production budgets and
local box office returns 149 21 FFC investment in Australian horror films 150 22 Examples of non-FFC publicly funded horror films 152 23 AFC Script development funding 2004–06 153 24 The performance of horror films at the Australian box office, 2007 157 25 Returns from cinema markets 158 26 Returns in home-video markets and international sales 159 27 Australian horror film releases 2003–08 161 28 A breakdown of Australian horror film release patterns: 2000–07 162 29 Australian horror films securing international video release only 163 30 Total profits for contemporary Australian horror films 167 Figures 1 The tier structure of Australian horror production 6 2 The long-tail 44 3 Production models and horror production’s tier structure 117 4 The long-tail and market segments for horror films 140
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STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY
I, Mark David Ryan, certify that the ideas, findings, analysis and conclusions
presented in this thesis are entirely my own work, except where otherwise
acknowledged. I also certify that the work is original and has not been previously
submitted for any other award.
Signature: ________________________
Date: ________________________
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing a thesis on Australian horror films, I received numerous responses when
explaining to someone for the first time the nature of my study. The horror fans
usually smiled and said something to the effect of ‘that’s cool’. Some people laughed.
There were those who were slightly puzzled, perhaps wondering how someone could
write about such ‘vile’ subject-matter, and others who explained they couldn’t watch
horror films because ‘they’re too scary’. Then there were those who looked at me
blankly and said they didn’t know Australia made horror films. But overall, many
were highly supportive of this project, and there is a long list of people who offered
valuable assistance. To anyone who is not named here, my sincerest apologies, and
my thanks.
Stuart Glover provided invaluable advice, supervision and guidance during this
study’s infancy; Harvey May was a good friend and source of encouragement; and
Sharn Treloar was a horror film encyclopedia always on hand. I must thank the
Australian Film Commission’s statistics team for their help with innumerable
inquiries and data requests, and the Film Finance Corporation’s Karen Dess for
providing various FFC statistics. Thanks also to the filmmakers who offered their
time and valuable insight into this study; they are individually named in the
methodology section of Chapter 1. Brisbane’s Trash Video owned by Andrew
Leavold has been a fantastic source of Australian horror films, containing many of the
most obscure titles. So I owe much of my knowledge about these films to his store
alone.
Many thanks must go to my supervisors. Michael Keane provided the hands-off but
supportive role. Terry Flew helped develop a clear research direction, gave
enthusiastic feedback, and never let me give up. A thousand thanks go to Stuart
Cunningham. His ruthless intellectualism and critical precision bludgeoned many of
my careless qualities out of existence as he guided me through this extremely
challenging phase of my life.
On a personal note, I must thank my family, Gordon, Lyn, Kelly and Isaac ‘Toba’
Ryan and Kate Moreton for their unwavering love and support. Also thanks to my
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mates Shannon Papworth, Sebastian Schichtel, Ryadan Jeavons, Simon and Jules
O’Brien and Matty C. (Matt Spann) for keeping me partially sane through music,
travel and poker. Finally, thanks to Terry Reid’s songs ‘Seed of Memory’ and ‘To Be
Treated Rite’, for rekindling a passion I thought I had lost forever.
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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Australian horror films – no longer a ‘curious beast’
One of the more curious things about Australian cinema is that it has produced
so little horror. After all, the genre is primed towards low-budget filmmaking
with minimal sets and isolated locations. However, bar the occasional film …
the genre has made virtually made no inroads in Australian film (Gelder
2003).
[It’s] hard to pick a favourite Australian horror film because from Body Melt
to Wolf Creek, it’s just something that we do darned well (Heller-Nicholas
2006).
Until quite recently, with the exception of aficionados, most Australian cinema-goers
would have been hard pressed to name a handful of Australian horror films. While
Razorback (1984), Body Melt (1993) or Patrick (1978), may have come to mind,
horror films are rarely associated with Australian cinema. Over the last three and half
decades, Australian cinema has been best known for uniquely Australian ‘ocker’
comedies and quirky offbeat dramas characterised by distinct representations of
Australian culture, society and national identity. However, worlds apart from
Crocodile Dundee (1986), The Man from Snowy River (1982), The Adventures of
Pricilla Queen of the Desert (1994) and Strictly Ballroom (1992), Australian horror
films have lurked among the shadows of Australian cinema. Hereafter, to account for
historical titles increasingly discussed by other authors as ‘Australian horror films’
and to capture hybrid ‘horror’ titles in the 1970s and 1980s (discussed below along
with a definition of contemporary horror films), this study uses a broad definition,
including horror films (defined in Chapter 2) but also horror-related films – dark
thrillers, suspenseful eerie films and genre films displaying tinges of the horror genre.
By the early 1990s, the Australian horror film, in the words of one international
commentator, was ‘a curious beast’ (Eofftv.com 2006: 1). On the one hand,
Australian horror films have origins in the silent era of film (Hood 1994), and since
the 1970s industry renaissance Australian horror films have always occupied a niche
1
in Australian cinema. By 1994, Australian horror and horror-related films had been
estimated as a filmmaking tradition producing a total of 80 films (Hood 1994: 1).
Building upon these findings, this study identifies a total of 70 new Australian horror
productions released from 1993 to 2007 not captured in previous surveys.1 To set the
record straight, from the silent era of film to present, Australian cinema has produced
a horror tradition of over 150 films (see Appendix 1).
Films such as Dead Calm (1989), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), The Last Wave
(1977), and The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) – the first three films increasingly
understood as horror-related films although Picnic in particular is celebrated by many
as a ‘quality’ art-house film – have all achieved varying levels of national and
international commercial and critical success. In the words of Hood (1994: 1), they
are ‘among the most well-regarded and influential films produced in the country’.
However, production has tended to be ‘isolated with little specific on-going influence’
(Hood 1994: 1). Without studios or production companies specialising in the genre –
like RKO and Universal in the United States (1940s); Hammer in Britain (1950s and
1960s) and more recently the US mini-studio Lion’s Gate (1997 to present) –
Australian horror production has been small in scale and driven primarily by
independent producers who, according to Hood, ‘manage to dabble in horror from
time to time’ (1994: 10). With limited production scale, ‘a “brand” … or a particular
sub-genre that one might identify as particularly Australian’ failed to emerge within
the marketplace (Eofftv.com 2006: 1). Since the 1970s, the majority of Australian
horror films, although sometimes receiving respectable commercial returns, have
operated on the edges of mainstream Australian cinema.
However, after experimental beginnings in the 1970s, a commercial push in the 1980s
and an underground existence in the 1990s, in the early twenty-first century
contemporary Australian horror production has experienced a period of strong growth
and relative commercial success. Wolf Creek (2005), the Australian ‘runaway’ horror
film Saw (2004), Rogue (2007), Dying Breed (2008), Undead (2003), and Storm
Warning (2006), have experienced varying degrees of popularity, mainstream
visibility, cult success, and commercial returns in national and international markets.
1 Many recent titles are yet to be released.
2
As one commentator puts it, Australian filmmakers are ‘making a killing out of
horror; the horror genre is booming and a spate of local filmmakers are hoping to cash
in on the phenomenon’ (Shore 2007). The terms ‘boom’, ‘the revival’ and ‘riding a
crest of a wave’ (Shore 2007; Hopkins 2007; Appleyard 2007) are being used in the
media and industry literature to describe Australian horror production’s resurgence –
even though, as Gibson (2007) remarks, until recently, ‘most of us didn’t even know
we [Australia] made horror films’. Like the undead from beyond the grave, Australian
horror films are on the rise. However, with little to no previous research into
production dynamics and the nature of the Australian horror tradition more broadly,
there is limited understanding of the ‘industry’ of Australian horror production and
the thematic and stylistic characteristics of local horror films.
This study explores the rise of contemporary Australian horror production: emerging
production and distribution models; the films produced; and the industrial, market and
technological forces driving production. It constitutes the most in-depth historical
analysis to date of the Australian horror tradition, and is the first major exploration of
the industry of contemporary horror production. This study, consequently, is also a
project of substantial empirical data exploring budget ranges and expenditure,
productivity by decade, release patterns and many other issues. Three key themes
underpin this research: economic, cultural and developmental value. First, this study
attempts to understand the commercial dynamics and profitability of Australian horror
films, including economic models, markets and returns, the impact of international
market cycles upon domestic production, and key production companies.
Second, the study examines the cultural specificity of Australian horror films and how
this impacts upon an individual title’s reception. It considers questions of Australian
content, the stigma of the horror genre within Australian cinema and domestic
criticism, and the tensions that arise for cultural policy. Despite commonly held views
within the Australian film industry, this study suggests culture retains a place within a
commercial, genre-based and internationally oriented and integrated production
sector. Third, this study examines developmental issues, in terms of forces affecting
horror production’s development – including internationalisation’s impact on talent
flows across national boundaries and talent drain – but also the developmental
function of horror films for the broader industry. Although horror films cause tensions
3
for cultural policy, they also play a role as a training ground for filmmakers, and are a
growth strategy for independent producers. In so doing, this project considers cinema
studies, Australian cinema studies and the practice of cultural policy in light of these
issues.
Research questions
Several questions guide this research:
• From 2000–07, what is the nature of contemporary Australian horror production?
Are Australian horror films forging a nationally and internationally recognisable
horror ‘brand’?
• How has the growth in contemporary Australian horror production occurred since
2000 within the broader Australian film industry and what are the industrial,
market and technological forces driving production?
• What are the modes of production and distribution and what wider implications do
they have for understanding broader Australian filmmaking practice?
• What are the primary characteristics and themes of contemporary Australian
horror films and how does this relate to Australian horror films since the 1970s?
• What are the implications of this research for cinema studies, Australian cinema
studies and cultural policy?
4
The Australian film industry in transition and two tiers of horror production
Feature film production throughout the world has been undergoing significant
change in recent years as traditional production and financing models become
unviable. New technologies in production, distribution and exhibition have
prompted a necessary re-imagining of the film industry. There is no doubt that
those holding on to an antiquated notion of what cinema is and how it is
exploited will struggle in this new landscape. In recent years production of
Australian cinema has fallen to a dangerous low. Some believe that levels are
already slipping beneath a sustainable critical mass (Connolly 2008: 2).
From the revival in the 1970s, an era characterised by largely parochial ocker
comedies and government-backed cultural films of ‘quality and worth’; a commercial
push in the 1980s marking an era of ‘industry’, Aussie blockbusters and
predominantly privately financed films; to an era of culturally diverse quirky films
within an industry undergoing increasing internationalisation in the 1990s, the
Australian film industry has experienced considerable change since its renaissance
(O’Regan 1996: 196). This study, highlighting the impacts of globalising film
production and digital technologies upon a specific genre within the broader
Australian film industry – issues alluded to by Connolly (2008) above – illuminates
fundamental change occurring within the industry throughout the 2000s.
Inputs into production are becoming increasingly international, as are business
relations and partnerships. Digital technologies are influencing production and
distribution models, and in some cases transforming filmmaking economics. Cinema
is becoming a less important market for some filmmakers while the internet is
emerging as a distribution platform for underground filmmakers. Once-despised
popular movie genres such as horror are becoming more accepted within Australian
cinema, as a production strategy for filmmakers and a genre for popular consumption.
Local filmmakers are also increasingly targeting younger audiences, long neglected
by the Australian film industry.
An important finding of this study, which frames ensuing discussion around these
issues, is that contemporary Australian horror production is a vibrant production
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sector comprised of mainstream and underground spheres of production (illustrated in
Figure 1). Mainstream horror production is an independent, internationally oriented
production sector on the margins of the Australian film industry producing titles such
as Wolf Creek (2005) and Rogue (2007), while underground production is a fan-based,
indie filmmaking subculture, producing credit-card films such as I know How Many
Runs You Scored Last Summer (2006) and The Killbillies (2002). Overlap between
these spheres of production, results in ‘high-end indie’ films such as Undead (2003)
and Gabriel (2007) emerging from the underground but crossing over into the
mainstream.
Figure 1: The tier structure of Australian horror production
Spheres of production
Mainstream horror production
High-end indie production
Rogue Daybreakers
Wolf Creek
Undead Gabriel
I Know How Many Runs …
Killbillies
$30 mil
$1 mil
$100, 000
$1, 000
Reign in Darkness
Low-end
High-end
Underground horror production
Budget ranges
Though these spheres of production are explored in Chapter 5, it is important from the
outset to highlight their definitional intricacies. This study is not fundamentally a
genre study though genre is a central concept, and referring to Figure 1, the terms
‘mainstream production’, ‘underground production’ and ‘high-end indie films’ are
industrial categories or industrial differentials. I acknowledge that with few
exceptions, namely Wolf Creek, Rogue, Dying Breed and several others, mainstream
production may be a misleading term in that few ‘mainstream’ Australian horror films
receive cinema exhibition. I believe this term can be justified by other criteria which
are budget ranges, professional filmmaking practices, wages are not deferred, films
6
receive greater visibility in terms of critical appraisal and audience awareness and
production is generally driven by market-attachments. Mainstream horror production
(characterised by budgets between A$1 million and A$ 30 million) is firmly
embedded within the broader Australian film industry, drawing upon talent and crews
from professional and unionised associations, subject to mainstream criticism and
appraisal, with linkages to mainstream financial/funding institutions.
Underground horror production is driven by very different dynamics, and
‘underground’, ‘indie’, and ‘credit-card’ films are terms used synonymously and
interchangeably to describe films emerging from this sphere of production. Beneath
the surface of the Australian film industry and largely independent from mainstream
horror production, underground production is a subculture of micro-budget indie
filmmaking (budgets fall between A$1, 000 and A$100,000) driven by horror film
aficionados and fan-based pro-am2 film producers producing an increasing number of
Australian horror films, most of which fly beneath the radar of mainstream audiences,
commentary, policy development and industry discussion. While many underground
productions secure national and international distribution deals – underground films
do not generally receive cinema release – not all achieve similar levels of success.
Many are professional calling cards, advancing careers; some are experiments in
filmmaking; and some are rebellious political statements against the broader
Australian film establishment. Though high-end indie films draw upon indie
filmmaking practices, they have budgets ranges between A$100, 000 and A$1
million, and can receive cinema release.
For Reid (1999), ‘indie production’, an emerging filmmaking practice in Australia by
the mid- to late 1990s, is micro-to-low-budget privately financed production without
distribution guarantees, utilising deferred-payment schemes (deferred cast and crew
payments dependent upon whether a film goes into profit), and low-cost digital
production/editing equipment. Indie films or credit-card films often have a low-grade
or amateur visual look and feel. Indie filmmaking is an independent ethos and
attitude, or do-it-yourself filmmaking – for Reid (1999: 34), it is driven by the motto
2Pro-am (professional amateurs), a term popularised by Charles Leadbeater and Paul Miller (2004), describes the blurring of the distinction between professionals and amateurs, and in this context relates to professional and amateur filmmakers producing audiovisual production.
7
‘“don’t stand around thinking about it – do it”’. This also relates to form and subject-
matter. While not all indie films vary from plot-driven classical Hollywood formulas,
many do. Much of indie filmmaking is inherently innovative and subversive, breaking
with accepted norms.
Though an indie film is easy enough to identify from a viewer’s perspective due to an
indie visual style and often drawing upon amateur actors, the definition of indie films
is by no means straightforward, leading to vexed discussion around the definition of
the term ‘indie filmmaking’. While most commentators agree indie filmmaking is
low-budget, there is no consensus on what budget ranges constitute indie filmmaking,
exacerbated by the fact that notions of low-budget production are cultural specific,
varying dramatically for different national production systems. In the United States,
for instance, indie or independent production is largely understood as all non-
Hollywood studio films (sometimes regarded as art-house films but such production
occurs across popular genres) with production budgets less than $US 15 million.
Moreover, the term independent production is used generically by this study to refer
to international producers without the financial backing of Hollywood studios or
large-scale transnational distributors.
In Australia, most mainstream Australian production with budgets above A$1 million
(for this study) is regarded as ‘independent’ production as it is not financed by
studios. Yet public finance administered by government funding agencies is a major
source of production finance for the Australian film industry often bringing with it the
tenets of cultural policy. Consequently, within the context of horror film production,
there is a distinction to make between mainstream films financed predominantly by
public finance (or large-scale distributors) and independent production financed by
other sources of finance (as many horror films do not receive public investment). This
study calls horror films produced independently of public finance, but differentiated
from indie production, independent production – remembering that ‘indie’ production
was not used as a popular term until the mid-1990s. Indie production in Australia
commonly refers to films adhering to the aforementioned characteristics of indie
filmmaking produced for less than $AU 300, 000 (Lopez 1997: 18), and independent
of public funding, television network investment, or large-scale market-attachments
or investment.
8
Horror films and Australian cinema studies
While discussion of individual titles identifiable as horror films can be found in
various Australian cinema studies, from critical studies and histories (Reade 1979;
Dermody & Jacka 1987, 1988a & 1988b; Murray 1994a; Rayner 2000 & 2005) to
guides and film indexes (Pike & Cooper 1981; Hall 1992; Murray 1995b), there is
little in-depth research into Australian horror films as a distinct filmmaking tradition
within Australian cinema. This is, in part, a direct result of the Australian horror
tradition’s size and lack of visibility within the mainstream filmmaking milieu. As
Alan McKee (1997a: 197) has observed, ‘first it is necessary to ask: is there an
Australian horror-film tradition? Certainly there is not a visible one in the way that is
true of Australian art-films.’ While this has undoubtedly affected critical treatment,
there are also other major reasons for the exclusion of the Australian horror tradition
from film and cinema studies:
• Australian horror films fall into gaps between constructed Australian genres.
• They have been disconnected from discussion of the horror genre and
examined under other forms of critical reference.
• Or they have been excluded from Australian film and cinema studies
altogether.
To date, the vast majority of Australia film and cinema studies have focused
predominantly on ‘peculiarly Australian genres’ (Routt 1999), or the
‘Australianisation’ of international genres through transmutation (Rayner 2000).
Australian genres such as the ‘ocker comedy’, the ‘period film’, the ‘AFC genre’, the
‘Australian gothic’, the ‘male ensemble film’, ‘new glamour’ (Rayner 2000; Dermody
& Jacka 1988a) and others have become synonymous with Australian film, while the
‘horror genre’, and popular ‘Hollywood’ movie genres more generally, are very rarely
discussed within the context of Australian cinema. This preoccupation with
indigenous genres has largely arisen from Australian cinema’s refusal to ‘recognize
… generic status’ and in an attempt to differentiate ‘itself from Hollywood, which has
9
always been interested in refining and developing specific film genres’ (Mayer 1999:
178).
Australian gothic has been the indigenous genre most commonly used in the
occasional discussion of Australian horror films (Dermody & Jacka 1987; Rayner
2000, 2005; McKee 1997a). Jonathan Rayner’s (2005: 112) essay ‘Terror Australis’,
for example, examines ‘areas of horror’ in Australian gothic films such as The Last
Wave and The Cars That Ate Paris, arguing that ‘the Australian gothic encapsulates a
specific deployment of horror, in application and interpretation, attuned to post-
colonial experience’. However, while Australian gothic provides a useful framework
for understanding early Australian horror films, as this study suggests – with
Australian gothic emerging from discussion of weird quirky films from the 1970s and
1980s (see Rayner 2000) – the further we move away from the 1970s, the more
Australian horror films conform to international generic conventions rather than the
Australian gothic style. Thus, Australian gothic is becoming a less relevant conceptual
framework for understanding contemporary Australian horror films.
Until quite recently, horror films have largely been ignored, or viewed with contempt
within mainstream Australian film criticism and scholarship. For Mark Hartley
(2008), director of the documentary, Not Quite Hollywood, about the struggles of
Australia’s pioneer genre filmmakers, Australian genre films trading ‘in sex, violence,
action, horror and suspense were … largely written out of history of Australian
feature film’ (Mark Hartley, paraphrased in Galvin 2008). The broad catch-all term
‘Ozploitation’, coined by Hartley, accounts for the largely forgotten history of 1970s
and 1980s Australian horror, action, road movies, and sexploitation films; denoting
commercial, genre-based films.
As Tom O’Regan (1996: 27–28) has argued, ‘Australian cinema is discursively
produced,’ and consequently, ‘it is shaped by the diverse ways in which the public
come to know about it by means of agents concerned with it’ with critics important
gatekeepers to this discursive production and dissemination. As mainstream criticism
is fundamental to the promotion and reception of films, Australian horror films –
particularly throughout the 1980s – have suffered at the hands of hostile critics
10
championing quality Australian cinema, and were ‘overlooked, under-rated and often
openly derided by critics’ (Galvin 2008).
The films of the commercial director Richard Franklin are a prime example. In an
interview after Franklin’s recent death, collaborator and screenwriter Everett De
Roche reflected that Franklin’s films were not so much savaged by critics as
completely ignored (Blundell 2007), and as the adage goes, ‘any criticism is better
than no criticism at all’. While Franklin was effectively ostracised domestically, his
films have impacted upon, and been celebrated by, leading international filmmakers.
Before Franklin’s death, Quentin Tarantino lauded Road Games (1981) ‘as his all
time favourite Australian film’, and Franklin ‘as one of his favourite Australian
directors’ (www.popcorntaxi.com 2003)3 and as having an influence on his directing
style (Galvin 2007). Tarantino even pays homage to Franklin’s Road Games in the
road movie Death Proof (2007) and Patrick in the highly successful martial arts epic
Kill Bill (2003) (Galvin 2007). Consequently, for a man heavily criticised within
Australian film circles in the 1980s, Tarantino’s championing of Franklin is
significant and exposes the prevailing short-sighted parochial views hampering the
development of commercial filmmaking emerging from Australian cinema.
The low-culture status of the horror film and its marginalisation within mainstream
criticism, however, is a widespread phenomenon. As we will see, horror films are a
highly ‘disreputable’ cultural form, and are dismissed or ignored by most mainstream
critics (Wood 2002: 29-30). There has, however, been a marked shift in the ‘status of
horror as a critical object’ over the past three and half decades, from an unworthy
artform in the 1970s and much of the 1980s to superseding the western as the most
written about genre by film critics (Langford 2005: 159). Critics during the 1970s and
1980s often removed horror films ‘deemed worthy of critical attention … to a
different, non-generic frame of critical reference – ‘a critical site in which the film’s
affective [i.e. sensational and horrific] properties tend to be divorced from its
“artistic” and “poetic” ones’ [bracketed clarification original emphasis] (Hawkins
2000: 66, quoted in Langford 2005: 160).
3 See http://www.popcorntaxi.com.au/event.php?event_id=273 [Accessed 27 May 2008].
11
Films such as The Cars That Ate Paris and The Last Wave, ‘deemed worthy of critical
attention’, have been examined in terms of their contributions to the aforementioned
indigenous genres and prevalent historical aesthetic and stylistic trends. Scott
Murray’s (1994b: 97–142) examination of 1970s and 1980s movie genres, for
example, discusses action-adventure films, comedies, period films, sexuality and
relationship films, social realist films, and thrillers including (horror films) Razorback
and Patrick without reference to the horror genre. More respectable borderline
thriller-horror films are shoehorned into the ‘thriller’ category while less respectable
horror titles are omitted. Otherwise, the vast majority of ‘unworthy’ Australian horror
films have been lumped under catch-all categories – with other forms of genre-
filmmaking – such as ‘an aesthetic of commercialism’ (Dermody & Jacka 1988a: 43–
49), placing an emphasis on the fact that these films are commercially, internationally
and generically oriented in contrast to films that are more Australian in their
approach. This, however, ignores or deflects attention away from the thematic,
aesthetic and stylistic characteristics of Australian horror films and the nature of the
genre they comprise.
Since the recent commercial success of Australian horror production, after almost
three and half decades of neglect, research is emerging into Australian horror films –
albeit not at a formal level in terms of production and business dynamics. Moran &
Vieth’s (2006) Film in Australia: An Introduction is one of the few comprehensive
studies to explore the output of Australian cinema by popular movie genres (including
debased popular genres) – action, adventure, horror, science fiction, crime, the
musical, and so on. However, in terms of the horror genre specifically, this study is
only an overview of some titles and the financing challenges they faced. Moreover,
the horror genre was allocated a section in the Pocket Essential Guide to Australian
Film (Vanderbent 2006), illustrating that the horror genre may be gaining acceptance
within research into Australian film. In addition to media articles and industry
literature outlined previously, there are also a growing number of unpublished
tertiary-level studies exploring various facets of Australian horror films.4
4 The masters theses ‘Not Welcome: Writing Horror in Australia’ (Krause 2005) and ‘Best Sellers: The Necessary Evils of Paratexts in the Development and Marketing of the Horror-thriller Screenplay’ (Armstrong 2005), and the Honours thesis ‘Account for the Position of Genre Filmmaking, Specifically Horror, Within Australian Cinema’ (McAllister 2004) are indicative.
12
Definitional issues
Nevertheless, what constitutes the Australian horror tradition, particularly in terms of
a corpus of films and how these films should be defined, is poorly understood. One of
the few, and by far the most comprehensive, explorations of Australian horror films to
date is a history written by Australian fiction writer and horror film aficionado Robert
Hood in 1994. Ironically, the only other historical analysis of the local horror tradition
is by the UK’s online Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film and Television (Eofftv). Hood’s
study has become an important point of orientation for studies into Australian horror
films, with its compilation of an annotated list of all horror-related films produced
since the silent era of cinema and its discussion of key titles from the 1970s to the
early 1990s.
However, this study highlights existing problems in understanding just what
constitutes an Australian horror film. While all genre studies are confronted with
‘grey areas’ (definitional and classification complications) (Langford 2005; Stam
2000), this is exacerbated in the case of Australian horror. Hood’s (1994) history was
inductive rather than deductive in its approach (his list of horror films is inclusive
rather than exclusive), with his survey including all ‘horror, dark suspense or horror-
related’ Australian films (Hood 1994: 1). Subsequently, from a generic viewpoint, the
study includes dubious entries such as Mad Max II (1981), Mad Max: Beyond
Thunderdome (1985) and several others (see 1970s and 1980s in Appendix 1).
Mad Max (1979), displaying elements of the horror genre – foreboding music scores,
stalk scenes, violence and low-level gore, and even a Saw-esque hack-saw scene at
the end of the film – is arguably a ‘horrific’ film within the context of Australian
cinema. The sequels, however, display few qualities of the most loosely defined
horror film, something Hood (1994) acknowledges. Picnic at Hanging Rock and
Wake in Fright (1971), now celebrated by writers and fan cultures as prominent
examples of early ‘horror’ or ‘horrific’ films, have few conventions relating to the
broader horror genre, and were not considered horror films upon their release.
Therefore, the proviso attached to 1970s and 1980s Australian horror films (Appendix
1) is that many titles currently understood to be early horror films within Australian
cinema are ‘horror-related’ films or suspenseful thrillers on the edge of the horror
13
genre. It is important to stress that many Australian cinema studies regard Picnic at
Hanging Rock as a quality art-house film, often framed in opposition to debased local
genre films. Whether or not Picnic is an early example of a local art-house horror
film, this film has become critical to emerging discussion around an Australian horror
tradition, particularly for its establishment of tropes explored obsessively by local
horror titles (see Chapters 3 and 4).
While a broad definition of ‘Australian horror films’ is used to account for such
existing discussion, contemporary horror films defined for this study derive from a
generic stance, classifying those films which are promoted as horror and those films
which display generic conventions and themes falling under the rubric of what is
currently understood as a horror film (see Chapter 2). Continuing discussion of an
Australian horror film tradition, this study also includes discussion of hybrid ‘genre’
films comprised of multiple popular genres but displaying strong elements of the
horror genre. While Gabriel is variously promoted as an action, gothic, fantasy and
horror film, the core thematic concerns of the film – the fear of death; the fight
between good and evil personified through angels and demons; and the struggle
against ‘demonic monsters’ (albeit in human form) – have been fundamental to the
horror genre’s concerns throughout cinema history.
In terms of what constitutes the nature of Australian content, this study regards all
films with Australian creative control and shot in Australia (or mostly shot in
Australia) as Australian horror films. The following analysis also delineates
Australian horror films achieving ‘classic’ and ‘cult’ status. Classic horror films are
historical titles influencing ‘the entire history of horror movies’ or with ‘lasting
effects on the genre’ (Everman 1993: 2), with international examples including
Psycho (1960) and Halloween (1978). Cult horror films are titles highly popular with
horror aficionados or a small group of ‘cult’ audiences without necessarily achieving
wide mainstream popularity (Everman 1993: 1-2). While cult films are niche films,
the term ‘niche hit’ in this study refers to popular titles in online ‘long-tail markets’,
small niche markets opened up by the internet as an emerging distribution platform
for audiovisual content (Chapter 2).
14
It is important from the outset to delineate the interrelations between a national horror
tradition and the horror genre. In the first instance, national cinemas are capable of
producing their own unique and culturally-specific horror traditions. For Ward (1995:
1), ‘every self-respecting nation has monsters. They are as much a matter of national
identity and pride as heroes – conceivably more.’ Such monsters provide a wellspring
for local horror films. Yet the broader horror genre transcends cultural boundaries:
Although an individual genre movie must stand on its own, it draws much of
its meaning, effects, and inferences from its relation to other stories of its type.
Good or bad, complex or simplistic, a genre movie simultaneously participates
in an ongoing tradition and creates precedents for the future … Genre movies
communicate with each other as much as with their audiences (Worland 2007:
16).
In other words, ‘the operations of the horror genre are not restricted to any one
country or culture but rather are spread across much of the filmmaking world’
(Hutchings 2002). Therefore, as Hutchings (2002) argues, to understand relations
between culturally unique horror traditions and a universal horror genre ‘is to see it as
at any one time comprising a set of aesthetic conventions or norms (with these
relating both to stylistic and thematic factors and narrative structure), the actual
interplay and development of which takes place within particular national contexts’
(2002: 119). Hutchings provides a good example of this through his analysis of
British horror films:
In the case of Hammer (and for that matter British horror in general) … in its
construction of horror within the context of 1950s Britain, it was negotiating
with pre-existing generic norms, engaging in a process of product
differentiation which necessarily involved ‘common-sense’ definitions of what
a horror film actually was. The motivation for this differentiation can be found
in the company’s search for a new, expanded market. This approach helps us
in locating British horror as part of a specifically national cinema. The relation
of British horror films to non-British horror, rather than arising from a shared
generic identity, is instead constituted through a series of negotiations and
15
differentiations, in effect through different interpretations of what horror
actually is (Hutchings 2002: 120).
Australian horror films similarly engage with and negotiate established horror
conventions within the context of Australian cinema. This study is an attempt to
excavate the specific national characteristics of this tradition and the domestic and
international forces influencing this engagement.
Methodology
Methodologies employed in this project are industry analysis, statistics and analysis
drawn from a primary data sample, and interviews.
Industry analysis
Since the 1970s, there has been a strong tradition of research within Australian film
and cinema studies exploring the Australian film industry’s development and output
through the lens of industry analysis, employed in seminal studies such as Dermody
and Jacka’s (1987, 1988a) analysis of the market, industrial, political and financial
forces giving rise to the Australian film industry, and Tom O’Regan’s (1996)
exploration of Australian cinema’s social, cultural, industrial and political
composition. This study also draws upon this tradition, but is unique in that it is
sectoral analysis – the analysis of a specific genre’s industry dynamics within the
broader Australian film industry – whereas the majority of previous studies have
focused predominantly on a canon of films across the spectrum of peculiarly
Australian genres, sometimes including more respectable popular genres. With an
emphasis on industry analysis, this study is not concerned with psycho-analytics and
the psychological impact of horror films upon viewers; nor does it attempt detailed
textual readings of the films.
Primary data sample
This study has attempted to capture every Australian horror film produced from 1993
to 2007–08 to create a primary data sample for analysis. Consequently, this study
16
grafts on to Hood’s (1994) survey of ‘horror films’ produced from the silent era of
film until the early 1990s, creating a complete list of Australian horror and horror-
related films throughout Australian cinema’s history (see Appendix 1). However, the
sheer volume of underground productions emerging in recent years makes it possible
that some indie horror films may not have been captured by this study.
Mainstream horror films are identified from analysis of the Australian Film
Commission’s (AFC) annual production surveys, the AFC’s national online film
database, and ‘production listings’ in industry magazines such as Encore and IF
Magazine. Due to the underground nature of many films, the majority of which are
not captured in AFC industry analysis and statistics, a snowballing technique was
utilised to identify underground titles occurring produced across the country (from
2000–07). For example, each interviewee was asked to outline their filmmaking
networks and to recommend other filmmakers to interview. Online underground
horror filmmaking networks on www.myspace.com were also followed over the
course of this study.
A major limitation is that while many filmmakers are part of various filmmaking
networks across geographical locations (i.e. Melbourne and Sydney), and even online
networks, states such as Queensland and Western Australia, with less vibrant film
cultures, are to an extent disconnected from these networks. Therefore, this snowball
technique may identify most underground horror filmmakers in Melbourne and
Sydney, but fail to identify filmmakers in other states. Consequently, I have attempted
to locate and contact horror filmmakers outside of these sampling limitations through
correspondence with key informants.
From this sample – where available – data were collected for production budgets,
earnings and returns, international sales figures, distribution data (i.e. cinema, video,
pay-per-download release, etc.) and shooting gauges for films produced from 2000 to
2007. Data were collected from the following sources. Production budgets and
shooting-gauges were acquired from the government agencies the Film Finance
Corporation (FFC) and the AFC; published industry literature; IMDBPro.com (the
premiere online database cataloguing worldwide annual feature film production); Box
officemojo.com (an online resource for box office data and budgets); and
17
correspondence with filmmakers. Earnings and international sales figures were
sourced from IMDBPro.com and Box officemojo.com; published industry literature;
and interviews with filmmakers. Release and distribution data were acquired through
IMDB.com and interviews. Where possible, I have attempted to confirm figures with
producers, but where this has not been possible, figures from published secondary
sources were used.
Interviews
A considerable amount of primary data is also drawn from interviews with
filmmakers involved in Australian horror production: emerging and established
screenwriters, directors, producers and key figures involved in organising festivals
and other horror-specific industry events. Overall, interviews were conducted with 24
filmmakers behind 26 horror films (from a total of 62) produced or in development
from 2000 to 2007 – across most budget ranges – and four films produced in previous
decades for a historical perspective. This involved face-to-face interviews and
correspondence via email, telephone, and www.myspace.com, with follow-up
correspondence to clarify and update information. Rather than referencing every
source drawn upon for background information, the filmmakers, their positions and
production company affiliations are listed current at the time of the interview. Only
filmmakers directly quoted are referenced. The filmmakers listed in Table 1 offered
valuable inputs into this study.
Challenges in exploring the nature of Australian horror films
Three primary problems arise when studying contemporary Australian horror films:
1. Tracking down and identifying indie underground production is difficult.
2. Official national data collected by the AFC do not capture all indie production.
3. There is considerable variance in the classification of Australian horror films.
A key problem for any study of Australian horror films is the task of identifying and
classifying which films are horror films. In terms of genre, this has become easier to
achieve as the lion’s share of 2000s horror films are distinct horror films, whereas in
the 1970s, and to a lesser extent the 1980s, many films were experimental – and thus
18
more difficult to classify through specific generic categories. However, the problems
facing this study have not so much been ascertaining whether or not films are horror
films, but locating all horror production occurring due to the underground nature of
much of horror production.
Many horror credit-card films are produced with budgets of less than A$50,000. Most
of them never receive theatrical release in Australia. In many cases, unless a viewer
recognises an Australian actor, the accent or a distinctive Australian location, many of
these films are genre films, barely recognisable as Australian. Interestingly, as this
study progressed it became exceedingly difficult to ‘close off’ the film sample. Each
month would bring the announcement of new titles in development or production, and
filmmakers I contacted would point me in the direction of another underground horror
film, with only a select few knowing of its existence.
Second, the AFC (incorporated into Screen Australia in July 2008), the peak body for
maintaining comprehensive data on Australian productions and tracking feature
production by financial year, only captures horror production above a certain budget
threshold. At the time of writing, each financial year the AFC publishes an annual
production survey, the qualifying criteria for Australian feature films captured in these
surveys are budgets of over A$500,000. Films under this level are only included if
they secure cinematic release or a festival screening (AFC 2006b). While some micro-
budget underground horror films achieve independent screenings, and are screened at
‘alternative’ festivals, many fail to meet these criteria. The AFC’s Australian feature
film database captures Australian feature films from the 1990s onwards. Therefore,
official knowledge of Australian horror films during the 1970s and 1980s is heavily
dependent upon Hood’s (1994) annotated bibliography of Australian horror films.
19
Table 1: Interviews and correspondence with filmmakers involved in horror production Filmmaker Horror Film involvement Position/Company/location Greg Mclean Writer/Director/Producer
Wolf Creek (2005) Rogue (2007)
Director, Emu Creek Pictures (Victoria)
David Lightfoot Producer Line-Producer
Wolf Creek (2005), Rogue (2007) Moloch (2000), Scratch (2000)
CEO, Ultra Films (Victoria)
Pete Ford Producer
Storm Warning (2006) Director, Resolution Independent (Victoria)
Jon Hewitt Director/Writer
Acolytes (2007) Bloodlust (1992)
Independent filmmaker (New South Wales)
Richard Wolstencroft Director/Writer
Bloodlust (1992) Independent filmmaker and Director of MUFF (Victoria)
Elizabeth Howatt-Jackman Producer
Prey (2008) Co-Director, Top Cat Films (Victoria)
Todd Fellman Producer
Daybreakers (2008)
Director, Paradise Production Services (Queensland)
Michael Robertson Producer
Black Water (2008) Executive Producer, Prodigy Movies (New South Wales)
Kieran Galvin Screenwriter
Feed (2005) Head of Development, All at Once (New South Wales)
Rod Hay Producer
Night of Fear (1972) Inn of the Damned (1975)
Co-Director, Terryrod Productions (New South Wales)
Shayne Armstrong and Shane Krause Screenwriters
Acolytes (2007) Partners, Shayne Armstrong and Shane Krause Screenwriting Partnership (Queensland and Singapore respectively)
Clint Morris Producer
Howl (2008), Condition Dead (2008) Rampage (2008), Dead Country (2008)
Co-director, Shorris Films (Victoria/Los Angeles)
Daniel Scharf Producer
Body Melt (1993) Director, Daniel Scharf Productions (Victoria)
Stuart Simpson Writer/Director/Producer
Demons Among Us (2006) Director, Lost Art Films (Victoria)
Doug Turner Writer/Director/ Producer
I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer (2006)
Co-Director, Media 42 (New South Wales)
Alix Jackson Producer/Co-Director
When Evil Reigns (2006) Director, Mr Grim Productions (Victoria)
Luke C. Jackson Screenwriter Co-Director
When Evil Reigns (2006) Writer, Mr Grim Productions (Victoria)
Duke Hendrix Director/Producer Leon Fish Writer/Producer
The Killbillies (2002) Bloodspit (2004)
Directors, Liquid Monkey Productions (New South Wales)
Aaron Cassidy Co-writer/Co-director
The Horror of Cornhole Cove (2006) Independent filmmaker (Queensland)
Matthew Scott Producer/Director
In Blood (2002), Questions (2005) The Subject (2006), Bring Her Home: Dead or Alive (2008)
Independent filmmaker (New South Wales)
Efisia Fele Producer/Director
Lost Not Found (In development)
Independent filmmaker (Victoria)
Ben Warner Writer/Director/Producer
Parallels (2006) Director, Digicosm (South Australia)
Finally, there are major variances in the definitions affixed to ‘Australian horror
films’ as they are reviewed by critics and the media, catalogued by the AFC, archived
on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB.com) and shelved at local video stores. As
20
these films circulate through funding bodies, critics and the media, films are often
attached with several varying and conflicting genres. How a film is defined in
IMDB.com may differ from how the AFC categorises it and how critics and film
writers label it, until there is a mishmash of conflicting generic categories, each of
which may tell part of the truth. This problem is more prevalent for hybrid films with
multiple natural genres. The film Feed (2005) is variously labelled as a crime film, a
psychological thriller or a psychological horror film. This in itself is not a problem, as
it is a common problem inherent to genre analysis (Langford 2005).
However, it becomes problematic when a physical copy of a film cannot be located,
and a researcher must rely upon reviews to determine whether or not a film is actually
horror. This is complicated further when the film in question had such a narrow
release that there are no reviews. Many underground films, especially those that fail to
obtain cult or classic status, disappear quickly from public circulation, and become
exceedingly difficult to acquire. As a representative of the AFC told me during this
study, I should ‘be prepared to search dark rooms to find these films’.
Chapter breakdown
The remainder of this study is organised as follows:
Chapter 2 explores the nature of the horror genre and broad international forces
impinging upon the development of Australian horror production, such as the
globalisation of feature film production, long-tail-markets and changing distribution
environments, and emerging relations between globally dispersed independent
producers and major studios. This discussion is framed within an analysis of the
renaissance of horror as a popular movie genre since the late 1990s.
Chapter 3 canvasses the overarching characteristics (rather than an exhaustive
analysis) of the Australian horror tradition by decade, focusing on the nature of
production and the main characteristics and themes of key films. An outline of this
decade-by-decade history is as follows: ‘the 1970s’ – the beginnings of Australian
horror production: experimentation and the Australian gothic; ‘the 1980s’ – The
21
10BA and a push towards commercial and international oriented genre films; and ‘the
1990s’ – horror films after the 10BA: an underground existence.
Chapter 4 builds upon this analysis and explores the national and global breakout of
Aussie horror in the 2000s, and the factors driving production. In particular, it
highlights the importance of Saw and Wolf Creek in contemporary horror’s growth
and development.
Chapter 5 explores the sector’s structure, and production, distribution and financing
models for mainstream and underground horror titles. It also illustrates the overlap
and interdependencies between the two spheres of production, and looks at how
underground titles cross over into the mainstream. It then turns towards the transition
in public funding models, the relations between horror films and public funding, and
the increasing propensity of funding agencies to finance horror films.
Chapter 6 examines the returns and release patterns of 2000s titles and an emerging
economic model for mainstream producers. Finally, this chapter delves into
contemporary horror film’s subculture and fan cultures.
Chapter 7 discusses key issues arising in previous chapters, and more specifically
explores the sustainability of Australian horror production, synthesises the limitations
of cultural policy and discusses the introduction and potential impact of new
government financial incentives designed to boost industry productivity. This is
followed by the study’s conclusion.
22
CHAPTER 2: GLOBALISING FILM PRODUCTION AND THE RENAISSANCE OF THE HORROR GENRE
Before we can explore the dynamics of contemporary Australian horror production,
we must first understand the nature of horror as a genre and market segment. With
globalisation transforming ‘a collection of comparatively self-contained [national
production] systems into one of increasingly international patterns of ownership and
increasingly global flows’ of audiovisual products (Cunningham & Jacka 1996: 3; and
see Miller et al. 2005), ‘international dynamics have transformed the global media
sector’, and as such ‘there is no escaping the international marketplace’ (Maher 1999:
51). Moreover, as this chapter illustrates, the horror genre and horror markets are
inherently international, thus analysis of domestic horror film practices cannot be
disconnected from their international context. The following analysis frames the
broad nature of horror markets, trends in globalising film production, changing
distribution environments, and the implications for independent producers.
Horror as a genre
The horror genre has many continuities with other movie genres, and alongside
action-adventure, comedy, detective, film noir, musical, social problem, teen pic, war,
biographical, crime-gangster, epic, science fiction, suspense-thriller, women’s film-
melodrama, and the western, is one of the major Hollywood and popular movie
genres (Neale 2000: 51–151). Consequently, horror is a naturalised part of the global
audiovisual sector as a blueprint for industry production, a marketplace label for
advertising and distribution, a viewing contract which informs audience consumption
(Altman 1999: 14) and a label for video store cataloguing and a category for critical
review (Langford 2005). The horror genre is also characterised by specific visual and
normative generic conventions, including ‘particular settings, characters, themes and
narrative conflicts’ (Worland 2007: 15). For example, typical settings include gloomy
moors, isolated locales and graveyards; character types include mad scientists, the
masked slasher and ‘the final girl’; the fear of death is a pervasive theme, and good
versus evil is a classical narrative conflict. Similarly, like any other movie genre,
‘horror resonates with social and cultural meanings’ and conveys ‘ideological and
social messages that are part of a certain period or historical moment’ (Prince 2004:
23
2). ‘The Exorcist (1973) and The Omen (1976)’, for example, ‘pointed towards
sociological conflict within prevailing gender roles and the institution of the family’
(Prince 2004: 2). The following section on sub-genres examines typical horror plots
and narrative tropes in further detail.
However, the horror genre has major disjunctions with other major movie genres. As
Robin Wood (2002: 29-30) famously wrote:
The horror film has consistently been one of the most popular and, at the same
time, the most disreputable of Hollywood genres. The popularity in itself has a
peculiar characteristic that sets the horror film apart from other genres: it is
restricted to aficionados and complemented by total rejection, people tending
to go to horror films either obsessively or not at all. They are dismissed with
contempt by the majority of reviewer critics, or simply ignored (Wood 2002:
29-30).
The horror film has also been closely aligned with exploitative cinema (Langford
2005). An important term used throughout this study, an ‘exploitation film’ is
generally regarded as a film that (implicitly and explicitly) appeals to the primal urges
of an audience through the display of gratuitous nudity, sex, violence, monsters and
mayhem, and relies on sensational marketing – usually focusing upon the shocking
nature of its content – rather than intrinsic artistic quality or notions of cinema as art.
The term ‘exploitation’ can also refer to the use of particular production elements,
often many of the above and sensationalist marketing, but also the use of popular
actors or television personalities, ‘hot’ casts and so on in an attempt to lure audiences,
and for product differentiation in the marketplace.
A pertinent issue at the core of any genre study is that genre, as a concept, is
complicated. As Langford (2005: vii) outlines:
Genre remains a perplexingly evasive, and philosophically speaking, idealistic
entity. On the one hand, no individual genre can ever embody the full range of
attributes said to typify its genre; by the same token – as volumes of frustrated
critical effort attest – no definition of genre, however flexible, can account
24
equally well for every genre film … Such problems notwithstanding, genre
remains an essential critical tool for understanding the ways that films are
produced and consumed, as well as their broader relations to culture and
society.
As Langford (2005: 7) argues, further:
Genre, in other words, is a tool that must be used wisely but not too well:
defining the individual artifact in generic terms can be helpful but shouldn’t be
pursued at all costs. Not every aspect of the genre text is necessarily or purely
attributable to its generic identity, hence there is no need to invent absurd
refinements of generic denomination, or to make the mesh of the classificatory
or definitional net so fine as to allow no light through.
Films can naturally fall between specific genres, films can display generic elements of
a certain genre without being fundamentally from that genre, and filmmakers can
resist and mix generic conventions. As previously outlined, this study discusses films
both at the core of an Australian horror tradition and films that exist on the edges of
the genre.
Furthermore, at any one time, a particular genre experiences constant evolution and
though comprised of a set of established conventions is a moveable concept. For
Neale (1990: 56 quoted in Hartley 2002: 97), “‘each new genre film tends to extend
[its] repertoire, either by adding a new element or by transgressing one of the old
ones’”. For example, as Hartley (2002: 97) argues, ‘although classified as a horror
film, Scream (1997) was by no means typical of the conventions, as its use of comedy
at the expense of the rule of genre demonstrated. Films such as these confirm that
genres can be progressive, dynamic and subject to re-invention: but then fall back into
formula (See Scream 3 (2000))’.
Defining the beast
While notoriously difficult to define, with generic boundaries uncertain and naturally
overlapping with science fiction, thriller and fantasy genres, there are several
25
principal characteristics at the horror genre’s core. Regarded as the ‘dark genre’,
horror films transgress ‘the boundaries of sanity and madness, of the conscious and
unconscious minds, of the external surfaces of the body and the flesh and organs
within, pre-eminently the boundaries of life and death’ (Langford 2005: 158). They
explore and evoke our most primal fears (Wells 2000; Prince 2004): ‘our nightmares,
our vulnerability, our alienation, our revulsions, our terror of the unknown, our fear of
death and dismemberment, loss of identity, or fear of sexuality’ (www.filmsite.org).5
Just as a comedy film is designed to make an audience laugh, horror films are
‘unsettling’ films designed to ‘scare’ an audience – to evoke the emotional responses
of fear, fright, anxiety, repulsion, terror and horror from viewers (Tamborini &
Weaver 1996; Worland 2007). The monster is a central constitutive element shared by
all horror films. For Isabel Pinedo (2004: 90-91), horror films constitute ‘a violent
disruption of the everyday world’, the agent of which is the monster. ‘The horror
narrative’ is thus ‘propelled’ by the monster’s violence and protagonists’ violent
attempts to destroy it (91).
Horror sub-genres
With the Australian horror production sector producing horror films across most
popular horror sub-genres, as illustrated in Table 2, it is necessary here to outline the
nature of the major sub-genres falling under the rubric of horror and the primary
differences between these horror films. Most popular movie genres comprise multiple
sub-genres: ‘specific traditions or groupings within these genres’ (Neale 2000: 9). The
comedy genre, for example, contains the ‘fish-out-of-water’, ‘screwball’, ‘romantic’,
and ‘black comedy’ sub-genres, among myriad others. Sub-genres generally
experience cyclical popularity in the marketplace. While 1970s zombie films were
highly popular, in the 1980s and 1990s mainstream demand waned, before the zombie
film re-emerged as a prominent sub-genre in the 2000s (Church 2006). Sub-genre
labels within a major genre are not always mutually exclusive. Sleepy Hollow (1999),
for example, is a ‘supernatural’ and ‘gothic horror’ film, while Wolf Creek can be
labelled a ‘slasher’, ‘thriller’ and ‘torture porn’ film, indicating that both of these
films display generic elements of all of these subgenres (outlined below).
5 http://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms.html. Accessed 28 November 2007.
26
As the monster is central to a horror film, horror sub-genres are built around specific
monsters – the slasher, the zombie, the vampire and so forth (Worland 2007). With
entire studies dedicated to individual sub-genres, particularly slasher films (Clover
1992) and gothic horror (Morgan 2002), the following discussion is not exhaustive,
outlining primary thematic and narrative elements of major horror sub-genres.
However, it provides sufficient detail to frame ensuing discussion of individual films
and market-cycles, as the ‘horror genre’ is only a very broad term describing diverse
horror traditions, and various sub-genres garner different acceptance within film-
culture and ultimately (public) funding environments (i.e. a realistic psychological
horror is more likely to gain public acceptance and thus funding support than a gore-
soaked splatter film).
The vampire film explores human struggles against vampires living off the blood of
victims (often infecting those they bite), or the inner-worlds, struggles and wars of
vampires. The icons of classical vampire films (Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1965)
and Brides of Dracula (1960)) – deeply rooted in gothic and Victorian literary
traditions and heavily influenced by Bram Stoker’s 1987 novel Dracula – have been
forged into popular consciousness: caped vampires, dark crypts, castles in faraway
lands, bats, graveyards and so on. While the basic premise of the vampire film
persists, conventions are evolving: unlike their classical predecessors many
contemporary vampires now move around in daylight; the crucifix is an archaic
means of thwarting a vampire; and different vampire species and new mythology
about their origins, hierarchies and family structures are emerging (for example,
Blade (1998) and Underworld (2003)).
The zombie film revolves around the survival of human protagonists, generally
outnumbered against highly contagious flesh-eating zombies, transforming those they
infect into one of the Undead – creatures neither dead nor alive, driven by the sole
purpose of feeding. While George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968)
developed the archetypal zombie movie, ‘with staggering, moaning zombies in
various stages of decomposition, eating human flesh’,6 there are many zombie
6 http://www.answers.com/topic/zombie.
27
variants: some extremely agile, some able to perform basic functions including
weapon usage, some sensitive to light, and so on.
Werewolf films depict stories about werewolves (a wolf/human hybrid), lycanthropy –
‘either a heredity condition or … transmitted like disease by the bite of another
werewolf’ – and the inner worlds, struggles and wars of werewolves as a ‘separate
race or species (either science fictional or magical) or as persons using magic in order
to deliberately transform into wolves at will’, as depicted in Underworld I & II (2003;
2006).7
The slasher film typically focuses upon a masked, psychotic killer stalking and
graphically murdering ‘a series of victims in a random, unprovoked fashion, usually
teenagers or young adults away from adult supervision involved in illicit activity’
(sex, drug and alcohol use, etc.), and involving a back-story explaining how the killer
developed their ‘violent mental state and why they focus on a particular type of
victim’.8 Psychological horror films use ‘mood to create tension’, playing on ‘the
psyche of the audience’ rather than evoking ‘instinctual reactions to gore’:
By confusing and/or reaching the subconscious of the viewer, psychological
horror is able to have a deeper effect that is more socially acceptable than a
gory film, yet is also nearly universal in impact. Although similar to the
psychological thriller, the psychology in a thriller is often applied to a
character rather than the viewer. The primary effect of psychological horror is
to play upon the anticipation of a perceived threat, or to confuse the viewer
regarding the nature, or existence, of the threat.9
Conversely, splatter, gore and body horror films deliberately concentrate on excessive
and graphic portrayals of gore and violence, generally displaying a morbid fascination
with ‘the vulnerability of the human body’.10 Sometimes confused with slasher films,
while the slasher Halloween has a high onscreen body count, violence does not occur
with a visceral ‘splatter’ of blood and gore characteristic of Blood Feast (1963) and 7 Wikipedia 2008, ‘Werewolf fiction’, www.wikipedia.com. 8 Wikipedia n.d. ‘Slasher film’, www.wikipedia.com. 9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_horror. 10 Wikipedia n.d. ‘Splatter film’, www.wikipedia.com.
28
Dawn of the Dead (1978). Following the global success of Saw (2004), torture porn
has emerged as an offshoot of the body horror sub-genre, revolving around the
sadistic torture and mutilation of helpless victims. Torture porn, however, is a crude
and highly problematic term. A portmanteau of ‘torture’ and ‘porn’, as outlined above
the torture segment is self-explanatory, the reference to porn attempts to capture the
notion of viewers gaining sensual stimulation (an adrenaline rush induced by fear)
from watching torture – the primary purpose of the film’s content – in a similar way
to viewers watching porn. The term is a misnomer in that it does not refer to horror
films containing pornographic material. Rather, torture porn is a media term referring
to the cycle of ultra violent horror films post- Saw and Hostel (2005) containing
torture, though numerous horror films concerned with torture are identifiable well
before this term’s popularisation, and the purpose of a horror film is to elicit
emotional responses from viewers through depictions of the abject. A gore/splatter
film, within the context of this study, would become a torture porn film were it to
center around depictions of torture during this market cycle (beginning in 2004 and
winding down mid-2008).
Gothic horror films are generally characterised by the supernatural, dangerous secrets,
dreams, period settings and gloomy iconography. While gothic narratives with period
settings such as Sleepy Hollow are becoming less prevalent, gothic sensibilities and
aesthetics remain a popular stylistic trend for contemporary horror films across sub-
genres. Sci-fi horror films explore ‘speculative, science-based depictions of imaginary
phenomena such as extra-terrestrial life-forms, alien worlds and time travel’,
combined with technological elements, and the horrors arising from this confluence:
‘i.e. a race of aliens using humans as hosts to multiply’ (Aliens (1986)) and ‘a
technologically sophisticated alien hunter arriving on earth to hunt humans (Predator
(1987))’.11 In contrast to other horror films, sci-fi horrors typically rely on scientific
or technological rather than supernatural or magical rationales for the monster’s
existence (Worland 2007).
11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction_film.
29
Table 2: Major horror sub-genres: international and national examples Horror sub-genres
International examples Australian examples
Zombie films Dawn of the Dead (1978; 2004) 28 Days Later (2002) Resident Evil (2002)
Undead (2003) Dead Country (2008)
Vampire films Under World (2003) Blade (1998) Dracula (1992)
Daybreakers (2008) Bloodlust (1992) Bloodspit (2004)
Werewolf films The Howling (1981) Dog Soldiers (2002)
The Marsupials: Howling 3 (1987)
Slasher films Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) Halloween (1978) Friday the 13th (1980) Scream (1996)
Wolf Creek (2005) Safety in Numbers (2005) Cut (2000) Bloodmoon (1990)
Teen horror Scream I (1996), Scream II (1997), Scream III (2000) I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) Final Destination (2000)
Cut (2000) Gone (2007)
Satanic/ Demonic possession
End of Days (1999) The Omen (1976; 2006) The Exorcist (1973)
Cubbyhouse (2001) Devil’s Gateway (2007)
Psychological horror
Silence of the Lambs (1991) The Blair Witch Project (1999) The Sixth Sense (1999)
Lost Things (2003
Gothic horror Sleepy Hollow (1999) Nosferatu (1979) The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1962)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
Supernatural horror
The Haunting (1999) The Sixth Sense (1999)
Visitors (2003) Lake Mungo (2007)
Sci-fi horror Alien (1979), Alien II (1986), Alien III (1992), Alien IV (1997) Predator I (1987), Predator II (1990) Event Horizon (1997)
Subterano (2003) Parallels (2006)
Creature feature Eco-horror
The Birds (1963) Jaws (1975) Anaconda (1997) The Thing (1982)
Rogue (2007) Razorback (1984) Black Water (2007) Long Weekend (1978; 2008)
Body horror Splatter/gore films
Blood Feast (1963) Dawn of the Dead (1978; 2004)
Body Melt (1993) Demons Among Us (2006)
Torture porn Saw I (2004), Saw II (2005), Saw III (2006), Saw IV (2007) Hostel I (2005), Hostel II (2007)
Storm Warning (2006) Defenseless: A Blood Symphony (2004)
Epidemic horror 28 Days Later (2002) When Evil Reigns (2006)
Supernatural horror films depict the supernatural, spirits, ghosts and the spirit world,
exemplified in The Haunting (1999). Epidemic horror films involve the outbreak of a
horrific disease, virus or another deadly outbreak usually causing a violent
transformation in an individual(s) (into a beast or creature), bodily decay, or a
gruesome death (Resident Evil (2002) and Ravenous (1999)). Featuring teen
protagonists and exploring ‘teen-themes’ – the coming of age, teen angst, sex and
30
relationships, substance experimentation and crime – teen horror films generally
involve teens’ struggle against a serial killer or madman, typified in Scream (1997)
and I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). The creature feature is the struggle
of humans against a ‘creature’, which can take the form of a creature from the natural
world such as a shark (Jaws (1975)), an alien invader (The Thing (1982)), or a
monstrosity as the result of scientific, technological or ecological disaster (The Host
(2007)). Eco horror tends to revolve thematically around the ‘revenge of nature’,
exemplified by the world’s population of birds’ deadly assault on humanity in The
Birds (1963). Satanic or demonic possession horror films are concerned with the
occult, satanic ritual, witchcraft, encounters with demons or the devil and demonic
possession (The Exorcist (1973)).
We now turn towards the broad trends of globalising film production and its impacts
upon independent horror production.
The globalisation of audiovisual production and distribution
As Cunningham and Jacka (1996) outlined at the beginning of this chapter, national
production systems are being integrated into a global audiovisual sector. While the
increasing influence of international forces upon national film industries’ production
processes has antecedents in the 1980s, the globalisation of film production has
gathered pace dramatically since the 1990s. Domestic production previously protected
by barriers such as local content regulation and quotas, restrictions on foreign direct
investment and many others has been opened up to international forces through neo-
liberal deregulation policies (Flew 2007; Miller et al 2005; Maher 1999). International
partnerships and collaborations through co-productions are on the rise. The inflow of
foreign investment has risen steeply as a proportion of local production investment
(see Table 13 below). Two-way talent flows across cultural boundaries, particularly
between Hollywood and other nation-states, have become a given.
The majors, independents and the New International Division of Cultural Labour
A major trend of globalising film production has been the decentralisation of
Hollywood production away from North America. In other words, Hollywood films
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are increasingly being produced offshore in diverse countries around the globe. One
explanation for this has been the theory of the New International Division of Cultural
Labour (NICL), a term coined by Miller et al. (2005). The basic thrust of the NICL is
that, while India, France, Japan and other national film industries are major producers
of feature films each year, few of these titles reach global audiences compared with
the Hollywood ‘majors’ – a term referring to the six largest Hollywood film studios12
– controlling distribution channels, and thus mainstream global markets, and
capturing between 40 and 90 per cent of domestic box offices around the globe. Since
the 1990s, production budgets and marketing costs for Hollywood films have risen
dramatically (averaging a combined budget of US$100 million per film), and
international revenue streams once providing Hollywood with its cream are now
critical to ensuring blockbusters recover investment costs and go into profit.
According to Miller et al. (2005), in order to strategically control international
revenue streams, Hollywood has engineered a New International Division of Cultural
Labour to gain greater control over global production and distribution systems.
Redistributing production processes around the globe to cash in on comparatively
lower labour costs and tax incentives (breaks, offsets, concessions, etc.) and to utilise
skilled labour in production locations, the majors have also taken direct control of
distribution from subcontracted affiliates and merged with or acquired distribution
rivals in national markets (Maher 1999). However, while the NICL is the most
prominent explanation for globalising film production, it predominantly accounts for
large-scale ‘runaway’ and ‘co-productions’, and fails to explain relations between
large international distributors, many of whom are subsidiaries of the majors, and
independent producers.
For Allen J. Scott (2002: 957), Hollywood production is ‘bifurcated into two
segments’: the majors and their affiliates (both subsidiaries and contracted distributors
and production companies) and ‘independent production companies’. Even though
Scott’s emphasis is economic geography in the United States – the location and
spatial organisation of audiovisual companies and their economics – his analysis
12 Walt Disney Pictures/Touchstone Pictures (Walt Disney Company); Columbia Pictures (Sony Corporation); Warner Bros Pictures (Time-Warner); 20th Century Fox (News Corporation); Paramount Pictures (Viacom); and Universal Studios (General Electric).
32
nonetheless provides an important conceptual model for understanding the relations
between Hollywood production systems and geographically dispersed independents
around the globe. While Hollywood majors have never fully given up the capacity for
in-house production since the breakdown of the classical studio system by the end of
the 1960s,13 the majors’ business models now focus upon distribution while allowing
independents to ‘assume primary responsibility for organizing overall production
tasks’14 (Scott 2002: 961-962).
Table 3: Films released by majors and their subsidiaries Year Releases by majors
less releases by subsidiaries
Releases by majors’ subsidiaries
Subsidiaries as a percentage of majors
1980 94 0 0 1985 103 12 11.7 1990 109 27 24.8 1995 127 85 66.9 2000 104 75 72.1 Source: Scott (2002 957–75).
The number of films released directly by the majors has stagnated over the last two
decades (as illustrated Table 3); however, the number of releases through subsidiaries
has risen sharply (Scott 2002: 961). As Scott notes, the majors ‘rely more and more
on smaller subsidiaries and independent production companies in order to spread
risks, to diversify their market offerings and to sound out emerging market
opportunities’ (963).
With globalising Hollywood production, genre remains a major commercial blueprint
for production (Miller et al. 2005). Moreover, outsourcing production and genre film
acquisition are becoming important strategies for distributors in a decentralised global
production system (Chaffin 2006). As Gomery (1996: 54) explains further:
Certain types of film (e.g. horror films) form a logical extension for a profit-
seeking motion picture industry needing predictable fare, presold to a mass
audience. The familiar expectations of genre films accomplish this task. But
money-making moviemakers also need a continual string of ‘new’ products. 13 With the ‘classical studio system’ controlling production, distribution and exhibition processes. 14 Typical business relations between majors/subsidiaries and independents, include: ‘finance, production and distribution deals, co-production pacts, joint ventures, split rights agreements, “first-look” contracts’, combinations of these agreements, and negative pick-up deals (Scott 2002: 963).
33
Consequently, international distributors hungry for new horror products are
increasingly developing partnerships with independents around the globe, sourcing
and acquiring low-budget horror films with the potential to yield high returns. The
brief case study that follows, exemplifies acquisition strategies employed by an
international distributor.
Lion’s Gate: Acquisition and business models
Mini-studios such as Lion’s Gate15 and The Weinstein Company16 have experienced
a strong demand for horror films in recent years, and the former in particular is an
important specialist in horror production and distribution. Without the financial
muscle of Hollywood majors, the scale to compete directly against Hollywood ‘tent-
pole’ blockbusters or the ability to engage in expensive bidding wars for A-list talent
or scripts, Lion’s Gate focuses on comparatively low-budget films with strong
potential for blue-sky returns. It targets niche audiences, and specialises in films
perceived as ‘too edgy’ for the majors to distribute (Chaffin 2006). As Lion’s Gate’s
Head of Acquisitions, Peter Block, commented in relation to Saw, ‘Nobody else
wanted it’ (Chaffin 2006).
In recent years, low- to mid-budget horror films have become a key genre-based
strategy for Lion’s Gate, financing or acquiring the distribution rights for some of the
most popular and profitable global horror titles in the 2000s, thus making it a major
player in the horror genre. Cabin Fever (2002), produced for US$1.5 million, grossed
US$30 million at the worldwide box office; Open Water (2003), produced for just
US$130,000, grossed $54 million; House of 1000 Corpses (2003), produced for
US$7 million, grossed US$16 million; and The Devil’s Rejects (2005), produced for
$7 million, grossed US$19 million. Most importantly, films from the Saw franchise
15 A subsidiary of Lion’s Gate Entertainment, Lion’s Gate Films is the largest independent production-distribution company in North America specialising in controversial, foreign and genre films. 16 The Weinstein Company is an independent mini-studio – which includes the Dimension Films label specialising in genre film production-distribution – founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in October 2005, after leaving Disney-owned Miramax Films which they founded in 1979. Films released by Dimension Films before 1 October 2005 remain the property of The Walt Disney Company.
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(see Table 4) rank among Lion’s Gate’s most profitable films of all time, clearly
illustrating horror’s commercial value to the company.
Table 4: Lion’s Gate top 10 grossing movies of all time Rank Film Prod. budget
US$ Worldwide box office*
1 Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) $6 mil $119,194,771 2 Saw II (2005) $4.8 mil $87,039,965 3 Saw III (2006) $10 mil $80,238,724 4 Saw IV (2007) n/a $63,300,095 5 Tyler Perry’s Madea’s
Family Reunion (2006) $6 mil $63,257,940
6 Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married (2007)
n/a $55,204,525
7 Saw (2004) $1 mil $55,185,045 8 Crash (2004) $6.5 mil $54,580,300 9 3:10 to Yuma (2007) $50 mil $53,606,916 10 Diary of a Mad Black
Woman (2005) $ 5.5 mil $50,633,099
Source: www.box officemojo.com [Accessed 14 April 2008].
* Lion’s Gate proportion of returns.
In recent years, however, Lion’s Gate has only invested in a few select horror
productions – the Australian-produced Daybreakers (2008) and Saw sequels are
among the exceptions. Yet acquisition is central to the company’s corporate strategy,
and the studio will generally ‘only acquire finished’ product ‘because of the higher
risk of execution’ (Chaffin 2006). To maintain its brand and presence in horror
markets, Lion’s Gate constantly requires new horror products, products it acquires
from independent producers worldwide. Production companies with proven track
records, such as the US-based Twisted Pictures, have developed ongoing partnerships
with Lion’s Gate, producing more than seven horror films for the company (including
the Saw franchise, Catacombs (2007) and Dead Silence (2007)).
But to better understand market factors driving independent production, discussion
now turns towards horror as a market segment.
35
Global horror markets
The horror film ranks certainly as one of the most popular and profitable of
film genres. Hollywood has long exploited interest in monsters and mayhem to
make money. Indeed, through the production, distribution and exhibition of
motion pictures … entrepreneurs have regularly utilized the profit-maximizing
possibilities of horror movies (Gomery 1996: 49).
While market demand for horror films has been cyclical throughout cinema history,
experiencing natural peaks and troughs, the horror genre has become a small to
medium-sized market segment in global audiovisual markets (represented in Tables 5
and 6). From research into the predictability of box office revenue by movie genre,
the horror genre ranks among the most profitable global film genres, alongside action-
adventure, animated children’s and science-fiction genres, producing ‘noticeably
higher’ revenues than other popular genres (Simonoff & Sparrow 2000: 5). Ironically,
the most frequently produced genres, drama and comedy, are the most likely to fail at
the box office (2000: 5).
Table 5: Genre trend analysis: the % of Top 20 movies in US markets, five-year averages, 1967–2004 Genre Total
No. 1967-71
1972-76
1977-81
1982-86
1987-91
1992-96
1997-01
2002-04
Overall Average
Action 239 16 19 24 33 36 40 42 48 31Adventure 163 14 15 18 25 16 20 30 42 21Comedy 328 35 26 51 47 54 41 47 45 43Crime 93 11 18 7 12 22 9 9 8 12Drama 285 50 53 26 33 36 44 27 27 38Family 121 12 16 10 14 18 15 21 25 16Fantasy 91 2 3 13 11 15 12 17 30 12Horror 54 3 6 9 5 10 5 13 5 7Musical 47 9 11 8 7 4 6 2 0 6Romance 110 12 6 16 15 18 18 17 13 14Sci-fi 94 6 6 15 14 13 10 14 27 12Thriller 175 10 19 17 14 29 37 28 35 23Mystery 46 5 4 4 4 3 8 12 10 6Animation 46 4 3 3 1 5 7 11 12 5Western 32 12 9 1 1 4 3 2 0 4War 31 9 2 4 2 5 3 3 5 4Source: Lu et al. (2005).
While adventure and action genres gross the highest box office revenues per title, as
illustrated in Table 6, horror is highly profitable relative to returns on investment. In
36
recent years, many of the highest grossing horror titles at the US box office were
produced for budgets of less than US$10 million. Saw (2004) was produced for
US$1 million and returned US$103 million at the box office; Hostel (2005), produced
for US$4.8 million, grossed US$80 million; Saw II (2005), produced for
US$4 million, made US$147 million; and The Grudge (2004), produced for
US$10 million, earned US$187 million at the box office. Consequently, considering
total box office returns per horror title alone belies horror films’ true value as a
market segment for producers and distributors.
A comparison between the action film Spider Man 3 (2007) and B-grade horror movie
The Blair Witch Project (1999) is an example. Spider Man 3, produced for
US$258 million, returned over $890 million at the box office. However, with
marketing budgets for Hollywood blockbusters approximately US$40 million
(Simonoff & Sparrow 2000: 5) and exhibitors taking large percentages of box office
earnings, this film had to return in excess of approximately US$350 million before
turning a profit. On the other hand, The Blair Witch Project, produced for a miniscule
budget of US$60,000, earned almost US$250 million at the worldwide box office.
Therefore, in the case of horror production, the threshold for success is lower, the
potential for returns much higher, and ‘horror movies – long considered Hollywood’s
bastard child – are now No.1 for return on investment’ (Harvey 2007).
Table 6: Top-grossing genres in the US market, 1995–2007
No. Genres Movies Total Gross US$
Average Gross US$
Market Share (%)
1 Comedy 1,206 $28,330,477,851 $23,491,275 24.372 Adventure 352 $23,083,680,018 $65,578,636 19.853 Drama 2,055 $22,868,269,160 $11,128,112 19.674 Action 369 $18,614,261,462 $50,445,153 16.015 Thriller/suspense 297 $7,687,878,419 $25,885,113 6.616 Romantic comedy 247 $6,610,130,461 $26,761,662 5.697 Horror 223 $5,585,774,520 $25,048,316 4.808 Musical 88 $1,194,719,967 $13,576,363 1.039 Documentary 519 $1,102,208,062 $2,123,715 0.95
10 Black comedy 54 $516,246,320 $9,560,117 0.4411 Western 24 $348,995,849 $14,541,494 0.3012 Concert 20 $78,863,847 $3,943,192 0.0713 Genre unknown 5 $1,401,418 $280,284 0.0014 Multiple genres 7 $875,519 $125,074 0.00
Source: www.the-numbers.com Available: http://www.the-numbers.com/market/Genres/ [Accessed:
Wednesday, June 27, 2007].
37
Horror is also a global genre, along with action, animation and children’s films,
transcending cultural boundaries and consistently achieving high levels of success and
popularity in global markets. In recent audience research, horror ranked among the
most ‘foreign friendly’ movie genres, along with action films – while comedy films
had the highest propensity to fail in international markets, often due to the parochial
nature of comedy – earning the highest levels of revenues in foreign markets (Lu,
Waterman & Yan 2005).
Indicative of the cyclical nature of the horror genre, demand for horror films has
experienced a major renaissance throughout the 2000s.
The renaissance of the horror genre in global markets
By the late 1990s, following a decade of downturn and the virtual disappearance of
horror films in global cinema markets, the horror genre became once more a ‘“sure-
sell” for youth-oriented films, television programs and video games’ (Castle 2007: 1).
However, before this resurgence during the mid-1980s, with markets saturated by an
oversupply of clichéd slasher films – offering little new to the genre or horror
audiences by mimicking convention with little generic invention – the horror genre
had exhausted itself with mainstream audiences. Consequently, consumption reverted
‘back to niche consumption by its cultish fan-base, no longer enjoying the wider
audiences it had garnered during the 1970s and early 1980s’ (Church 2006: 1). During
this period of downturn, independent producers ‘couldn’t sell horror movies’ beyond
home-video and cult niche markets (Artist View Entertainment’s Scott J. Jones quoted
in Lawless 2007). However, Wes Craven’s Scream (1997), combining self-reflexive
humour with standard slasher tropes (an inventive development for the time), revived
mainstream demand for horror films (Church 2006; Worland 2007). This triggered a
self-reflexive, postmodern teen-horror cycle, and marked the beginning of the horror
genre’s renaissance. This market cycle, in conjunction with the rise of torture porn
following the commercial success of Saw (2004), has seen the growth of horror
consumption over the last decade.
In 1995, as illustrated in Table 7, the horror genre accounted for just 2.8 per cent of
the US box office (the largest global market for horror films), dipping to 1.95 per cent
38
in 1996. However, following the renaissance, the horror genre has grown strongly in
recent years, earning over US$460 million per annum in 2004 (5.01 per cent market
share); US$510 million in 2005 (5.78 per cent) and over US$680 by 2007 (7.09 per
cent) (www.the-numbers.com 2007). The horror genre has experienced similar growth
in video markets, becoming one of the most successful genres in the US video market
in 2001, returning an ‘average rental income of US$38 million per title, nearly double
the per-titles earnings of 2000’ and capturing 8.7 per cent market share (Screen Digest
2002: 158)17.
Table 7: Horror’s year-by-year market share of the US box office
Year Movies
in Release
Market Share
Gross US$
Inflation- Adjusted
Gross US$
Top-Grossing
Movie Gross that Year US$
1995 14 2.85% $151,853,368 $217,132,848 Demon Knight $21,089,146 1996 8 1.95% $112,765,676 $158,688,353 Scream $39,084,452 1997 10 6.55% $407,732,973 $552,527,035 Scream 2 $85,492,042
1998 16 4.72% $318,151,658 $421,941,002 Halloween: H2O $55,041,738
1999 16 6.49% $477,746,379 $587,269,268 The Blair Witch Project $140,539,099
2000 12 4.47% $332,969,478 $384,243,075 Scream 3 $89,138,076 2001 13 4.81% $390,815,057 $430,242,420 Hannibal $165,092,266 2002 11 3.18% $297,478,878 $319,020,441 The Ring $127,230,430
2003 17 5.46% $505,051,037 $520,964,771 Freddy vs. Jason $82,490,748
2004 20 5.01% $464,817,596 $464,817,608 The Grudge $110,175,871 2005 29 5.78% $512,308,262 $497,122,833 Saw II $87,025,093 2006 28 5.96% $553,225,088 $525,352,676 Saw III $80,238,724 2007 30 7.09% $680,994,021 $680,993,993 I am Legend $194,489,704
Source: www.the-numbers.com/market/Genres/Horror [Accessed Wednesday, June 27, 2007].
Production and aesthetic trends of the horror renaissance
The global renaissance of the horror genre has been characterised by three primary
production and aesthetic trends. First, although not a strict aesthetic trend in its own
right, for some commentators the status of the once-disreputable genre is changing as
it becomes a more ‘mainstream’ genre (Lawless 2007). As Langford explains,
outlining several issues explored below:
Horror’s status within the film industry has changed significantly … clearly,
horror is no longer quite so marginal in industry terms as it mostly was … in
the early 1940s until the late 1960s. The massively magnified commercial
17 Many of these titles, however, were hybrid genres, including action/horror and horror/thriller.
39
importance of the college and high-school audience as well as the explosion –
intensified since the advent of the Internet established fan cultures with a
global and instantaneous reach – in the popularity, visibility and hence market
potential of ‘cult’ film … have ensured that these former ‘pulp’ (or worse)
genres are now taken very seriously by studios and film-makers (Langford
2005: 164–65).
Consequently, the divide between independent niche and mainstream distributors
supplying schlock and B-grade and high-quality horror films is breaking down. The
2007 Cannes Film Festival, for example, was saturated by schlock horror titles
supplied by both niche and mainstream distributors (Lawless 2007). According to
Lawless, in recent years ‘everyone seems to have a horror movie or two on offer’.
The resurgence of ultra-violence and the rise of Asian-influenced horror films have
also had a discernible influence on aesthetics and audience preferences. The
exhaustion of the 1980s slasher cycle, characterised by graphic ultra-violence,
resulted in the emergence of more subtle ‘chillers’ by the late 1990s, such as The
Blair Witch Project and The Sixth Sense (1999), emphasising suspense and
suggestion. However, following Saw and Hostel, the global marketplace has returned
to a preference for extreme violence. Torture-porn in particular has gone further down
the violent path of the 1970s, setting new standards for the ‘shock quotient’ of horror
films. With audiences becoming desensitised to high-levels of violence, producers
have pushed existing shock quotas in an attempt to frighten audiences, perpetuating a
vicious cycle with audiences becoming accustomed to these new levels of horror and
requiring more to be frightened (Creed 2004).
During the 2000s, Asian horror films have influenced the aesthetic, stylistic and
thematic sensibilities of Western and international horror films. Throughout the
1990s, horror films were largely characterised by human as opposed to supernatural
and transgressive monsters (e.g. aliens from Mars and giant mutants) (Pinedo 2004),
with plotlines generally grounded in social realism. The increasing popularity of J-
Horror (Japanese Horror) and A-Horror (Asian horror denoting primarily Japanese,
South-Korean, Thai and Hong Kong horror) has triggered a major resurgence in
supernatural horror films. The most prominent examples, becoming major global
40
horror titles and receiving worldwide popularity, include the Japanese-inspired
Hollywood remakes The Ring (2002) and The Grudge (2004) (see Whitty 2007).
Fan cultures, the expansion of DVD markets and the long-tail
In recent years, several technological and social developments have made horror an
increasingly attractive production strategy for independent producers. These are the
rise of online fan cultures, the growth of home-video markets, and the opening up of
long-tail markets. First, as Langford (2005) outlined previously, the rise of online fan
cultures is intensifying the importance of horror’s cult audience. While horror films
can experience periods of downturn in cinema markets, with ‘a small group of loyal
fans … that will literally watch anything as long as it’s a horror flick’ (Everman 1993:
1–2), horror films continue to connect with audiences, particularly in video and trash
markets through specialist video stores, websites and mail-order catalogues.
Moreover, as Liu (2006: 74) has found, pre-release word-of-mouth information can
have a significant impact upon ‘aggregate and weekly box office revenue, especially
in the early weeks after a movie opens’. Consequently, with an active audience base,
word-of-mouth activity can act as a de facto marketing campaign for a horror release.
In an online world, viral marketing has become a major advertising strategy, targeting
horror audiences participating in fan cultures clustered around online fanzines. Viral
marketing, in this instance, is a marketing method utilising individual agents and
popular culture mavens to promote a respective title like a ‘virus’ through word-of-
mouth promotion, with the message passing from agent to agent and circulating
through interconnected (particularly online) social networks. Through this strategy,
both low- and high budget titles can receive highly targeted marketing via the internet
without large-scale advertising campaigns. As Michael Radiloff, the executive vice
president for Genius Products, contends, ‘horror is a unique genre in that the fan-base
for it is very passionate and informed, and they’re the best evangelists for the
product’, they ‘know what’s coming up, who’s involved, if it’s any good or not – the
viral marketing for horror is probably more important than for any other genre’
(Radiloff, quoted in McClain 2006). For Matthew McCombs, president of Spotlight
Pictures, ‘they [horror films] don’t have to be great films … sometimes people are
41
looking for a certain kind of effect rather than for a great story’ (McCombs, quoted in
Lyman 2006).
Second, the rise of DVD video has resulted in an expansion of global video markets,
opening up new revenue streams for producers. Two important video markets are
‘rental’ and ‘sell-through’ markets: the rental of video titles through independent
video-stores and rental chains (e.g. Blockbuster and Video Ezy), and the sale of video
titles through specialist video and generalist retail stores (e.g. Ezy-DVD and K-Mart).
Before the emergence of DVD, VHS video markets were constrained by revenue
ceilings, ultimately limiting video revenue streams and placing greater importance on
a film’s performance in cinema markets to earn profits. As the managing director of
Roadshow Entertainment, Chris Chard, observes, ‘while there was a sales market’ for
video, ‘most of the turnover was through rentals’ and ‘revenue from wholesale never
seemed to get beyond A$400 million [in Australia]’ (AFC 2004: 27).
However, following the 1997 release of Evita, the first DVD title released in
Australia, ‘DVD, in a fairly short period of time, has taken the figures to … A$978.6
million’ (2004: 27). Throughout the 2000s, the wholesale of DVDs to rental stores has
climbed steeply, from 2.9 million units in 2000 to 38.3 million units in 2003, while
VHS units experienced a dramatic parallel decline (AFC 2004: 27). Consequently,
DVD players and the DVD format have replaced the VCR and VHS video as the
medium de jour for home viewing. Closely associated with impulse purchases and the
gift market, DVD has turned renters (of videotapes) into buyers; it has become a
dominant revenue stream for producers with 50 up to 80 per cent of a respective title’s
revenue now flowing from home-video markets (AFC 2004: 27; Schembri 2007).
DVD has also tapped into different audience demographics, with distributors able to
release inexpensive and more expensive titles with added features.
For cinema release, horror films – like most movie genres – benefit from specific
seasonal release, with Halloween generally the most profitable time of year for a
horror release. They tend to struggle to compete for ticket sales against summer
blockbusters. The success of horror films at the box office generally responds most
positively to typical Hollywood ‘marketability’ strategies – ‘the technique of opening
a film in as many venues as possible simultaneously, with a barrage of high-impact
42
print and spot TV advertising … over “playability”’, the ability of a film to grow its
audience slowly ‘week-on-week through favourable critical reception and word-of-
mouth’ (Langford 2005: 165). Released widely across as many cinemas as possible,
horror films tend to perform ‘strongly’ in their opening week before dropping ‘sharply
in subsequent weeks’ and disappearing ‘from theatres after a relatively short release’
(Langford 2005: 165).
However, while ‘scary movies with big box office grosses do well on DVD’, with a
highly knowledgeable fan-base, ‘a wide theatrical release isn’t a prerequisite for
success in the horror genre’ (McClain 2006). Although some genres can struggle to
find video audiences without theatrical release, horror films can still return profits
from a straight-to-DVD release. This is because ‘retailers who provide the right horror
titles for their customer base can do well by supplementing the box office hits with
scary movies that had limited or no theatrical release’. As Larry Brahms, president
and CEO of MTI Home Video, outlines, ‘the average horror film we put out for rental
will do about 40, 000 [units]’. So, while ‘rarely leading to huge numbers, direct to
video horror films can be a steady, profitable business’ (Larry Brahms, quoted in
McClain 2006).
While globalising film production is creating opportunities for globally dispersed
independent producers to achieve distribution through major international distributors,
the rise of the internet and online consumption are expanding market opportunities
through the ‘long-tail’ of the market. The long-tail takes the shape illustrated in Figure
2: the ‘head’ of the market is dominated by a small proportion of ‘blockbusters’
before flattening out into a ‘long-tail’ of niche markets. A term coined by Chris
Anderson (2006), the theory of the long-tail revolves around several key issues. While
traditional distribution models and mainstream markets dominate the lion’s share of
audiences and market share, traditional mass-distribution channels are limited by
‘scarcity’ (i.e. physical self-space, intangible broadcast timeslots and exhibition
screening windows) and dominated by ‘hits’, with 20 per cent of annual audiovisual
production dominating 80 per cent of market share (2006: 73–78). With bottlenecks
emerging in mass markets, distributors attempt to optimise limited ‘space’ through the
distribution of blockbuster hits, appealing to mass audiences. Therefore, the
remaining 80 per cent of annual audiovisual products are squeezed out of mainstream
43
markets, not necessarily because there are no audiences for these products, but
directly because of scarcity limitations.
Figure 2: The long-tail
Source: Adapted from Anderson (2006).
However, online niche markets are challenging traditional distribution paradigms. For
Anderson (2006: 52), the rise of low-cost, high-quality digital video (DV) and video-
editing equipment is lowering production costs. The emergence of niche online
markets such as mail-order (www.sinistercinema.com), pay-per-download
(www.netflix.com) and do-it-yourself distribution (www.bittorent.com) websites are
creating alternative distribution models for filmmakers. Audiences are also emerging,
as social networking sites such as Myspace.com and online fan culture websites and
fanzines – for example, www.fangoria.com in the case of horror films – connect
audiences to niche products. Consequently, as Anderson (2006: 52) argues:
Our culture and economy are increasingly shifting away from a focus on a
relatively small number of hits (mainstream products and markets) at the head
of the demand curve, moving towards a huge number of niches in the tail. In
an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of
distribution, narrowly targeted goods and services can be as economically
attractive as mainstream fare.
44
Five key themes define the long-tail:
1. As production barriers lower, the supply of niche goods far outweighs the
number of successful niche ‘hits’ – films that become popular or commercially
successful in their respective niche along the long-tail.
2. The costs of niche distribution are dropping dramatically, resulting in a
‘massively expanded variety of products’ as a result of ‘digital distribution;
powerful search technologies, and a critical mass of broadband penetration,
online markets are resetting the economics of retail’.
3. Increasing product variety does not increase demand in itself; online ‘filters’
(‘from recommendations to rankings’ produced by Internet search engines)
must direct demand to niche products.
4. ‘Once there’s massively expanded variety and the filters sort through it, the
demand curve flattens. There are still hits and niches, but the hits are relatively
less popular and the niches relatively more so.’
5. While niche markets do not sell ‘huge numbers’ in their own right, ‘there are
so many niche products that collectively they can comprise a market rivaling
the hits’ (Anderson 2006: 53).
Therefore, independent filmmakers around the globe – albeit largely low-budget or
indie producers – can now target niche audiences such as horror fans through the
long-tail, effectively bypassing distribution barriers.
The worldwide spread of horror production
Throughout cinema history, US, British and to lesser extent Italian horror films have
tended to dominate mainstream cinema markets (Schneider & Williams 2005), while
non-Western titles have generally dominated cult and video markets (Everman 1993).
However, over the last decade, mainstream markets have experienced a sharp increase
in the circulation of horror titles from national cinemas around the globe. As the
Hollywood Reporter’s Eric Lyman (2006) puts it, ‘there is a new worldwide spread of
the horror genre’. Consequently, the boom in contemporary Australian horror
production, characterised by burgeoning productivity within an industry largely
45
unknown for horror production, is not a unique phenomenon, but rather part of an
international trend.
For the first time in cinema’s history, Japan, Korea, Germany, South Africa and even
minnow New Zealand are producing a stream of horror films that are achieving
varying levels of commercial success in global mainstream markets. The 2006 Cannes
Film Festival, the premiere annual audiovisual festival and marketplace, saw a sharp
increase in horror film offerings from Ireland, Sweden, Italy, Spain, France and
Russia (Lyman 2006). The 2007 Cannes festival was the year of Asian horror films,
with increases in horror titles sold from Thailand, Japan and South Korea (Agence
France-Presse 2007). One commentator, in an article titled ‘Top 10 Horror Films of
2003’, argued that ‘the U.S. no longer has a monopoly on the production of high
quality horror films. As a matter of fact, half of the films listed [in the top ten films of
2003] are from United Kingdom, Australia, Chile, Japan, and Hong Kong’
(Lanzagorta 2004). Several international titles (see Table 8) have performed relatively
strongly across domestic and international box offices in recent years.
Table 8: Examples of commercially successful international horror titles Film Country* Worldwide Box office
returns $US** 28 Days Later (2002) UK $82 million The Descent (2006) UK $57 million Boogeyman (2005) Germany/US/New Zealand $67 million The Host (2007) Korea $89 million The Ringu (1998) Japan $137.7 million (Japanese
domestic box office figures)18
The Grudge (2004) Japan/US/Germany $187 million Wolf Creek (2005) Australia $27 million Source: http://www.boxofficemojo.com.
*IMDB.com country listings.
** As of 20 May 2008. Moreover, as well as becoming horror producers, countries worldwide are also
increasingly becoming horror markets. The United States, Asia and Europe are
already large horror markets – with Japan the largest Asian and Germany the largest
European market. However, in recent years, ‘Eastern Europe, particularly Russia’,
Latin America, Singapore and even India (Agence France Presse 2007), all previously
closed to the inflow of international horror films, are becoming markets. With the
18 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_%28film%29.
46
current Indian population in excess of 1 billion people, Latin America 548 million,
and the Russian population 141 million, securing even small percentages of these
markets represents significant growth potential for the horror genre. These countries
also represent emerging market opportunities for both domestic and international
producers. As such, a ‘two-way flow between East and West’ is emerging (Agence
France-Presse 2007). But why?
As Schneider and Williams (2005: 3) argue in the first detailed study of non-Western
and small Western horror traditions,19 while horror traditions have tended to be
marginal within national cinemas, ‘the situation over the last ten or so years has
changed drastically due to the effects of the new global economy, the decline of rigid
national boundaries, and the trans-cultural phenomenon affecting virtually all sectors
of cinema’. The rise of the internet as a global communication network, the increase
in the number of online mail-order companies, the breaking down of Western critical
biases towards non-Western horror titles and increasing consumption of trash
products have also played a significant role in increasing the visibility, consumption
and circulation of ‘international’ horror titles (Schneider & Williams 2005: 1–3).
Moreover, as Allen Scott (2002: 972) suggests, responding to increasing competition
in the global marketplace – in part driven by the oligopolistic activities of the majors
– ‘policy makers in other countries [outside the United States] are now turning their
attention to the tasks of building indigenous cultural-products industries with much
greater capacities for market contestation’. Many such policy programs are attempting
to encourage commercial production practices, rather than fostering purely cultural
production without commercial imperatives. Therefore, with the breaking down of
distribution barriers, the erosion of ‘rigid national boundaries’ and national film
industries moving towards more commercial production practices, independent
producers are arguably increasingly exploiting the commercial potential of the horror
genre, particularly with strong global demand.
Another important issue is the parallel decline of independent American horror
production. David Church’s (2006) analysis of US horror films from 1991 to 2006, in 19 In terms of Australia, however, this discussion deals with Australian gothic films from the 1970s and 1980s displaying elements of the horror genre rather than analysis of a broader tradition of Australian horror films (See Rayner 2005).
47
his essay ‘Scream and Scream Again’, provides important insight into factors
impacting upon US horror production, historically dominating global markets. For
Church, following the exhaustion of slasher sub-genre in the mid-1980s, a ‘creative
void’ in independent American horror production has emerged, with a large portion of
American horror films in recent years comprising sequels or franchise films,20
cashing in on proven formulas and remakes of classic horror films from pervious
decades, such as The Hills Have Eyes (1977 & 2006); Halloween (1978 & 2007); and
The Omen (1976 & 2006) (2006: 6). With growing audience despondency towards
trite formulaic franchise films, ‘American horror has seen Hollywood embracing a
greater willingness to repeat past formulas through updated remakes instead of simply
more sequels of franchise films’ (2006: 6).
As one commentator has observed, Hollywood studios are trying ‘to remake every
single horror movie from the 70s, 80s and even 90s in a desperate attempt to find new
ideas’ (Douglas 2005). Most importantly within this study’s context, as a result of this
creative void, ‘American horror now looks to take aboard proven profit makers like
foreign horror successes and remakes of its own pioneering back catalogue … rather
than drawing upon the same independent, low-budget tradition that spawned that back
catalogue’ (Church 2006: 3). The corollary is that international sources for ‘new
ideas’ are becoming an important wellspring for American horror products. Moreover,
this environment is creating greater demand for horror imports – with audiences
increasingly aware of international titles through online fan cultures – and, as
previously discussed, the acquisition of ‘foreign’ independent horror production by
US distributors. This is not to imply that franchise films have no role to play in global
consumption; rather, when franchise films dominate product flows, mainstream
audiences tire of overly formulaic films.
20 The Halloween franchise has a total of nine films: 1978; 1981; 1982; 1988; 1989; 1995; 1998; 2002; 2009. The Friday the 13th franchise has nine films: 1980; 1981; 1982; 1984; 1985; 1986; 1993; 2001; 2003. The A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise has a total of eight films: 1984; 1985; 1987; 1988; 1989; 1991; 1994; 2003.
48
Independents and the horror genre
Moving away from distribution and markets, we now turn towards the relations
between independents and the horror genre. What are the economics of the horror film
in comparison with other genres, and how does this relate to the modus operandi of
independents?
The average Hollywood film has a production and marketing budget of approximately
US$100 million, draws upon ‘star’ above-line talent (actors, directors and producers),
in some cases accesses sophisticated special effects and high-quality production
values, and is marketed around the world by multi-million dollar marketing
campaigns (Langford 2005; Liu 2006: 78). On the other hand, horror films compete
for box office share in different ways. The lion’s share of horror production is low
budget. With the exception of the occasional high-end Hollywood horror movie,
economic success for many horror films is not driven by production values, A-list
stars (as a horror film is ‘concept-driven’) and expensive marketing campaigns.
With the evocation of fear more important than high production values, the style of
guerrilla filmmaking popular in the 1970s led by George Romero (Dawn of the Dead
(1978)) among others, has experienced a renaissance (Church 2006), shifting
production towards cheaper physical over more expensive special effects (although
special effects are experiencing a comeback), bringing production budgets even
lower. Moreover, horror films are produced with minimal sets and mise-en-scene as
most titles are shot on location. Highly complex characters, and to a lesser extent
character development, is less important than is the case for character-driven popular
movie genres such as drama and comedy – with protagonists in the horror narrative
often serving as prey for the monster and endangering the lives of other characters
(Crane 1994: 137). Consequently, the ‘stars’ of the horror film are the monster
(Worland 2007) and director (Hulse 2007).
As horror films are designed to frighten an audience, the monster – the agent that
elicits emotional responses from viewers – is the drawcard that lures audiences to
cinemas (Worland 2007). With the exception of Dracula’s vampire hunter Van
Helsing and Silence of the Lambs’ (1991) FBI agent Clarice Starling, among a handful
49
of other examples, monsters are the popular icons of horror films, not their
protagonists. Even with these exceptions, the ‘monsters’ Dracula and Dr Hannibal
Lecter respectively have been far more popular than their iconic heroes, with enduring
legacies and spawning their own filmmaking franchises. In terms of directors, for
Hulse (2007), horror fans are ‘known to seek out certain directors’, such as Dario
Argento, Wes Craven and John Carpenter, ‘almost as much as films themselves
knowing that a good director can be like a trusted brand’ and often ‘collect movies by
international filmmakers who’ve specialised in it’. In the commercial practice of
horror production, both monsters and directors can develop lucrative franchises and
cult audiences.
The horror genre is, and has always been, the province of independent producers and
production companies. While the horror genre ranks among the most profitable of all
film genres alongside action films, animated children’s features and science fiction
films, large production budgets generally prohibit independents from entering this
market. However, barriers to horror production are significantly lower. Thus,
commercially focused independents with inherently limited enterprise structures and
financial scale have access to a highly profitable popular movie genre, almost-
guaranteed returns and considerably lower risk.
Conclusion
This chapter has shown that global forces are influencing supply and demand factors
for low-budget horror films around the globe. International distributors are
increasingly outsourcing and acquiring production from geographically dispersed
independent producers worldwide. The renaissance of horror as a popular mainstream
movie genre after a decade of downturn by the late 1990s has seen rising levels of
global demand for low-budget horror films, with an increasing proportion of horror
titles circulating in mainstream markets emerging from non-Western and marginal-
Western film industries unrenowned for horror production. Moreover, the long-tail is
creating opportunities for low-budget filmmakers to directly target niche audiences.
As a production strategy for independent producers with limited scale and access to
finance, the horror genre offers the potential of high returns from low-budgets and a
product with worldwide appeal. The following chapter moves from the broad horror
50
genre into the history of Australian horror production from the 1970s to the late
1990s. This exploration also includes a discussion of the Australian horror tradition’s
position within Australian cinema, examining why horror films have been a marginal
form of production.
51
CHAPTER 3: A HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN HORROR FILMS Horror films and Australian cinema
While Australian horror production represents a relatively small filmmaking tradition,
it is a missing, but still important, chapter of Australian film history. Over the last
three and half decades, the Australian horror tradition has consistently produced films
achieving national and international popularity, relative commercial success and at
times critical acclaim. As one international commentator has remarked, while
Australian horror film production has been fragmented and disparate, many
Australian horror films are ‘highly regarded both at home and around the world’
(Eofftv.com 2006: 1). These views were recently supported in Scott Hocking’s (2006)
pictorial history, 100 Greatest Films of Australian Cinema – criticised by some
commentators as the 100 most ‘popular’ rather than ‘greatest’ films of Australian
cinema (Hemingway 2006) – with Wolf Creek (2005), Dead Calm (1989), Razorback
(1984), Road Games (1981), The Cars That Ate Paris (1974), The Last Wave (1977),
Patrick (1978) and Long Weekend (1978) regarded as among the greatest (or most
popular) Australian films ever produced.
Picnic at Hanging Rock, the ‘horror and art-house film’, in the words of Tom
O’Regan (1996: 29), has had ‘such an impact overseas that it’s still impossible … to
hold a credible discussion about Australian cinema without repeated references to it’
(Eofftv.com 2006: 2). Wake in Fright, the film credited as the first Australian ‘horror-
related’ film since the renaissance (Hood 1994), has also become critical to Australian
film history. It is credited as one of the pioneer films ‘marking the re-emergence of
Australian filmmaking’, ‘inspiring further production’ during the revival and laying
the foundations for Australian gothic throughout the 1970s (Rayner 2000: 25). Peter
Weir’s early horror-related Australian gothic films The Cars That Ate Paris and The
Last Wave have also become critical to histories of the renaissance of Australian film.
More recently, Dead Calm (1989) has been lauded ‘one of the most suspenseful
Australian thrillers ever made’ (Vanderbent 2006: 44-45) and the film that propelled
Nicole Kidman to international stardom. Along with Wolf Creek (2005), riding the
back of national and international acclaim and commercial success, it has entered
Australian box office records and film history.
52
An important distinction to make is that between national and international success.
Considering the commercial and critical success of locally produced horror films in
Australian markets alone discounts the greater success many titles have achieved
abroad. While films such as Wolf Creek and Dead Calm have received relative
degrees of critical and commercial success in Australia, many Australian horror films
– particularly films to emerge during the 1980s – have achieved far greater success
overseas, particularly in video and cable markets.
Road Games (1981) and Patrick (1978) for example, received poor, often hostile
critical reception and meagre box office returns in domestic markets, to become
popular cult films in international markets, particularly the United States. As many
contemporary reviewers concede in hindsight, Richard Franklin’s Road Games and
Patrick are much better than given credit for upon release, and ‘his films have been
obdurately underrated, dismissed as Transpacific, as being patently commercial – as if
either of those epithets (if true) precluded quality’ (McFarlane 1995: 22). Such was its
international success, Patrick earned impressive worldwide sales of in excess of
A$500, 000 and inspired the unauthorised Italian sequel Patrick Viva Ancore (1979)
(Harris 2008: 29). Moreover, the film won the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival’s
Grand Prize ‘in competition against’ high-profile international horror films Halloween
(1978) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) (Harris 2008: 29) – an award
achieved by no less than Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead (1992) in 1993, George Miller’s
Mad Max 2 (1981) in 1982, and Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976) in 1977.
As well as the commercial success and popularity of numerous titles, Australian
horror films are important for two other primary reasons: horror is one of Australian
cinema’s oldest filmmaking traditions, and horror production has provided the
training ground and launching pad for the careers of some of Australia’s most
prominent directors. As we have learnt from Hood (1994), Australian horror films
have antecedents in the silent era of Australian film, with the production of the ‘horror
tinged thrillers’ (Eofftv.com 2006: 1) The Bells (1911), The Strangler’s Grip (1912)
and The Face at the Window (1919). Therefore, themes of horror specific to
Australian culture have been explored on screen since the beginnings of Australian
cinema. Moreover, the most celebrated ‘Australian genres’ or ‘film cycles’ – the
53
‘bushranger film’ (in the silent era of film), the ‘ocker comedy’, the ‘male ensemble
film’ and the ‘period film’, and so on (Rayner 2000; Dermody & Jacka 1988a) – have
experienced relatively limited life-cycles before exhausting themselves (or being
banned by the government in the case of the bushranger film), though elements of
these cycles have been reinvented or utilised in occasional contemporary films. The
Australian horror tradition, on the other hand, evolving and progressively expanding
over the last 30 years, arguably represents one of the longer running filmmaking
traditions in Australian cinema – albeit largely an undercurrent.21
In addition to the tradition’s longevity, several of Australia’s most prominent directors
have launched distinguished Hollywood careers after beginning or galvanising careers
in Australian horror and horror-related films. Peter Weir, a true pioneer of Australian
gothic and early Australian horror, directed Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Cars That
Ate Paris, The Last Wave and The Plumber (1979) before achieving Hollywood
success with Dead Poets Society (1989) and The Truman Show (1998). Using the
classic Aussie horror Razorback as his Hollywood calling card, Russell Mulcahy went
on to direct the first two films of the international hit series Highlander (1986 &
1991). After beginning a career in the social conscience films Newsfront (1978) and
Heatwave (1982), Philip Noyce directed the suspenseful Dead Calm before moving
on to big-budget Hollywood films Clear and Present Danger (1994) and Patriot
Games (1992). Jim Sharman, directed Shirley Thompson Versus the Aliens (1972), a
strange comedy, science-fiction film, before moving on to the US and UK worldwide
cult-classic horror comedy musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), and later
directed the Australian horror-related film The Night, the Prowler (1978). Therefore,
horror production has a function to play within the Australian film industry as a
training ground of international standing (and continues to do so for contemporary
production), but also as an important outlet for talented filmmakers to explore the
dark side of Australian society and culture.
21 Other long-running Australian ‘genres’ or traditions include the ocker comedy, iterations of which, although undergoing significant transformation since early Australian cinema, are still produced today including The Castle (1997) and Take Away (2003). Moreover, although the ‘bushranger film’ is largely extinct as a recognisable Australian genre, contemporary examples such as Reckless Kelly (1993) and the remake of Ned Kelly (2003) still emerge.
54
Throughout the history of cinema, the developmental role of horror production as a
training-ground for emerging filmmakers is well known (Marriott 2004). An
interesting example is the New Zealand film industry, a small English-language
national cinema facing similar challenges to Australian cinema. As Mark Harris
(2007: 2) has observed:
The late ’80s and early ’90s witnessed the rise of Kiwi director Peter Jackson,
whose Lord of the Rings films would later turn him into one of the biggest
filmmakers in the world. Jackson made a name for himself in the horror genre
with the graphic, campy ‘splatter’ fare Bad Taste (1988), Meet the Feebles
(1989) and Dead Alive [released domestically as Brain Dead] (1992). His first
American co-production, 1996’s The Frighteners, remained in the horror-
comedy vein … Jackson’s success no doubt opened the door for a new
generation of Kiwi genre filmmakers.
Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings (2001; 2002; 2003) has had a major impact upon the
New Zealand film industry’s growth and, as this excerpt illustrates, schlock horror
films played a significant role in Jackson’s development as a filmmaker.
Consequently, ‘the cultivation of cinematic expertise, the development of
infrastructure, the influx of capital and the international attention Jackson has brought
to New Zealand … will by all accounts power the engine of the … New Zealand film
industry for decades to come. Whatever is in store for the unwritten future of New
Zealand cinema, it is built on … horrific bad taste [referring to Jackson’s origins as a
horror filmmaker]’ (Wu 2003: 104–05).
Australian ‘horror’ films have arguably made a relatively important contribution to
Australian cinema. Therefore, why are horror films rarely acknowledged within
Australian cinema – other than horror’s exclusion from scholarship and criticism –
and what are the relations between horror films and Australian cinema?
55
Australian cinema discourse, genre and internationalisation
Like all national cinemas, the Australian cinema contends with Hollywood
dominance, it is simultaneously a local and international form, it is a producer
of festival cinema, it has a significant relation with the nation and the state …
national cinemas are simultaneously an aesthetic and production movement, a
critical technology, a civic project of the state, an industrial strategy and an
international project formed in response to dominant international cinemas
(particularly but not exclusively Hollywood cinema). (O’Regan 1996: 45)
The Australian film industry, created in the 1970s through government policy and
public funding to build a sustained feature film industry after the virtual collapse of
commercial feature film production by the 1960s, emerged from ‘a moment of desire
for a “national culture” in opposition to British and American cultural dominance’ and
the commercial ambitions of film producers (Dermody & Jacka 1988a: 11–12).
Consequently, the industry’s development was immediately confounded by ‘the
contradiction inherent in government assistance to commercial interests on cultural
grounds’ (1988a: 11–12).
As Stuart Cunningham (1985: 235) argues, since the establishment of a national film
industry in the 1970s, discussion and aspirations for how a national cinema should
function have revolved around the opposition of culture and industry, pervading
‘discussions of funding policy, and in public relations as much as in reviewing and
criticism’. According to Cunningham, this discussion has resulted in two ‘either/or’
oppositional arguments: that the Australian film industry should produce ‘either
culturally specific films, dealing in recognisable Australian realisms, which
authenticate and affirm Australian concerns, and succeed or fail in overseas markets
… or else internationalised films, geared to a culturally undifferentiated market’
(1985: 235). While ‘commercial films’ experienced a strong push in the 1980s, genre
filmmaking has struggled in Australia, and has been by far the lesser of the two
oppositional arguments. However, with the industry revival bringing with it
aspirations to become an internationally competitive cinema (Hood 1994: 4), horror
films emerged as a production strategy for an undercurrent of commercial filmmakers.
56
Such preoccupation with the development of a cultural vis-à-vis a commercial
industry partly emanates from relations between Australian cinema and Hollywood.
With Hollywood dominating global audiovisual markets, for Rayner (2000: 3), ‘the
history of filmmaking in Australia … epitomises the difficult relationships smaller
film industries enjoy with Hollywood, which inspires and competes with them,
providing a norm which they can differentiate themselves or which they can (usually
unsuccessfully) seek to emulate’. For Reid (1999: 11):
Australia is not … home to a dominant film culture. It is perched, in
commercial and creative terms, on the risky fringe surrounding mainstream
global film production. This is a tenuous position but potentially a viable one,
given that the global environment is signaling to Australia and other minority
players that diversity, or difference, has an inherent economic value which can
work as a natural armour against the dominant culture.
As Australian cinema is a small to medium-sized English-language cinema in the
shadow of Hollywood’s dominance, driven by public subsidy and thus social/cultural
objectives and production oscillating between cultural and commercial production,
these dynamics have ‘tended to limit the types of films … made in Australia’
(Dermody & Jacka 1988a: 12). For example, throughout the first two decades of
Australian cinema, the AFC-genre – characterised by representations of nationalism,
strong literary, historical and nostalgic sentiments, period settings and distinct
landscape dominated mise-en-scene – emerged as ‘a tacit genre with considerable
representative authority, to the point where outsiders could mistake its films with
Australian cinema itself’ (1987: 47). AFC-genre films are typified by My Brilliant
Career (1979), Breaker Morant (1980) and Gallipoli (1981).
Public subsidies put in place to foster the ‘representation and preservation of
Australian culture, character and identity’ (Maher 1999: 13) have fuelled much of
Australian film production since the 1970s, and have been a dominant source of
production finance. As a direct result, the Australian film industry’s output has tended
to emphasise ‘Australianness’ with a faithfulness to social realism (Dermody & Jacka
1987 & 1988a; O’Regan 1996; Routt 1999; Mayer 1999; Moran & Vieth 2006). Often
valuing ‘quality’ and ‘cultural content’ over ‘entertainment’ and ‘commercialism’,
57
films have tended to be art-house vis-à-vis genre-based films. Therefore, inherently
commercial, generic, non-culturally specific and international in their appeal, horror
films – not to mention their low-culture status – have predominantly been antithetical
to these aspirations, particularly ‘the AFC genre’s project of positively projecting a
middlebrow cultural worthiness to the world’ (Dermody & Jacka 1988a: 32).
As Moran and Vieth (2007: 107) argue, ‘the emergence and viability of film genres is
just as much a product of the Commonwealth and state funding agencies as it is of the
availability of screenplays and directors’. Marginalised by public funding bodies and
heavily reliant upon historically limited and relatively low levels of private finance
(with the exception of the 1980s), horror production has been handicapped severely.
As Wolf Creek’s Greg Mclean has argued, referring to the early 2000s before the
recent boom in local horror titles, Australian horror production is ‘not in a very good
state at all. Movies in Australia are state-funded so the government doesn’t want to
finance a film that might cast negativity on the country or affect the tourist industry’
(Mclean, quoted in Lamkin 2005). For Moran and Vieth (2007: 107):
The general lack of support that these funding agencies gave to horror films
engendered a different set of priorities for filmmakers. Thus the production of
films without government backing was often hamstrung in attracting other
funding from, for example, private investors; films were made on low or
limited budgets … and … the only return came from box office receipts,
meaning that each film had to attract an audience.
As such, since the industry’s revival, horror films (as well as commercially oriented
films more generally) have had to ‘compete at both home and abroad’ (Dermody &
Jacka 1988a: 13) and ‘destined for derogatory classification’ as debased production
(Rayner 2005: 98). For The Cars That Ate Paris, after receiving mixed domestic
critical reception upon release, ‘attempts were made to salvage the film commercially
by changing distributors … and by changing the advertising campaign from horror
movie to art film … but neither succeeded’ (Pike & Cooper 1981: 354). As O’Regan
(1996: 118) observes, key filmmakers producing horror films were ostracised within
film culture:
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Richard Franklin … was even asked to leave the country in an editorial in the
Sydney Morning Herald … and Actors Equity ran a strident campaign against
his film Road Games for its use of two American Actors in the lead parts.
Franklin, Simon Wincer (Harlequin 1980) and Tony Ginnane … were targeted
by playwright and scriptwriter David Williamson, in his capacity as
spokesperson for the Australian Writers Guild, as producing ‘concocted and
contrived products made to crack the American market’.
If horror is Hollywood’s bastard child, then before the 2000s horror was the
Australian film industry’s badly deformed child, to be hidden from sight or run out of
town.
The marginalisation of Australian horror production within Australian cinema, as
alluded to above, has not been without justification, however. For O’Regan (1996:
26), ‘by virtue of its dependence on the state and, by implication, politics, politicians,
critics and their publics, Australian cinema’s future relies on its continuing to secure
policy and public attention’. As O’Regan puts it, ‘public interest in Australian cinema
must not flag: without it there would be no Australian cinema beyond a trivial level’
(1996: 26). Consequently, so long as public subsidy and policy settings sustain the
Australian film industry, ‘the local cinema has to be worthy of public and hence
governmental attention’ (26). Until recently, few producers and commentators have
successfully argued that films portraying negative representations of Australianness
are worthy of public funding – but some have tried and succeeded.
High-brow film culture and exploitation cinema
For Melbourne theorist and filmmaker Philip Brophy (1987a & 1987b), in a two-part
article, ‘That’s Exploitation: Snobs’ and ‘Turkeys’, central to the horror genre’s
marginalisation is ‘the narrowing highbrow nature of the Australian film culture, and
its resistance towards a broader concept of Australian cinema’ (Whiting 2005: 3).
According to Brophy (1987a: 29), ‘in the early seventies, some people seemed to
decide that the only way our industry could grow was if we also developed a sense of
“film culture”’. What he alludes to, as discussed above, was the inception of various
government bodies who sought to foster films cultural enough to subsidise, limiting
59
the types of films produced domestically: films ‘desperate to tell us (and the overseas
markets) how Australian we are, how Australian we must be, how Australian we have
always been’ (1987a: 29). Richard Franklin, for example, ‘was always battling with
government film bodies about how many gum trees should be in a scene to make it
Australian’ (Blundell 2007).
However, Brophy suggests that ‘film culture’s mandates to the industry to produce the
professional, refined, sophisticated, nationalistic, sensitive, thought-provoking,
personal and socially aware crap’ is what ‘makes Australian cinema so predictable
and unappealing’ (1987a: 29). To ‘develop and build the commercial, viable and
diverse’ industry lacking in Australia (Whiting 2005: 1), Brophy argues for the
development of a local exploitation tradition:
The only real way a total Australian cinema can develop is through a
breakdown of the tacky pseudo-highbrow tone it fosters – a tone that only
serves to maintain a narrow and outmoded strategy of fusing industry growth
with cultural development. In other words … we need more sex gags, thrills
and gore (Brophy 1987a: 29).
Directing the exploitation film, Body Melt (1993), in a ‘direct reaction and challenge
to the Australian film industry and film culture’, Brophy successfully lobbied the
AFC for development and production finance, arguing that ‘to broaden Australian
film culture then you’ve got to deal with exploitation films … I felt that the AFC
should broaden their perspective instead of me as a filmmaker narrowing mine’
(Brophy, quoted in Whiting 2005: 3). Ironically, Body Melt became the first splatter
film – considered one of the most debased horror sub-genres – ever financed by
public finance (Daly 1994), and proved to be the last for many years.
The internationalization of the Australian film industry
However, the globalisation of film production is transforming the structure of the
Australian film industry, with positive implications for horror films. Throughout the
1970s and 1980s, domestic feature film production, from creative inputs to the nature
of the final output, was by and large ‘Australian’. Most feature films were ‘Australian
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stories’, produced and post-produced domestically. They featured Australian casts,
drew upon local crew and were financed largely by domestic investment (O’Regan
1995). However, as O’Regan (1995) observes, entering the 1990s ‘none of these
conditions held’ (1995: 1). With major multinational Hollywood studios tightening
their grip on domestic markets around the globe (Maher 1999), and domestic industry
conditions becoming more difficult (with a drying up of private finance), Australian
producers increasingly drew upon international partnerships, finance and creative
inputs in an attempt to compete in an era of globalising film production.
Consequently, many Australian feature films are no longer clear-cut Australian
stories, featuring Australian locations, with at times mixed local and international cast
and crews, and foreign finance superseding public and private finance as the largest
proportion of finance for local production (see AFC 2006c).
The Australian film industry, now integrated into the global audiovisual sector with
increasing relations between international production entities, distributors and finance
agencies, is increasingly driven by commercial and market-driven forces. Nowhere
are the influences of internationalisation more evident than in the nature of Australian
content. With the exception of an undercurrent of non-cultural specific, commercially
oriented films, before the internationalisation of the industry most Australian films
were dominated by representations of Australia, particularly iconic landscapes, flora
and fauna; portrayals of Australians, a predominantly masculine and Anglo-spheric
centric view centering upon working class ‘battlers’ and rural stereotypes; and the
Australian way of life, including constructs of hard-working, gregarious but ‘roughly
hewn’ larrikins (Gardner 2006), among many other stereotypes. However, boundaries
previously defining Australian content are blurring. Happy Feet (2006), directed by
George Kennedy Miller, is a high-budget animated children’s feature produced in
Australia, financed largely by international finance, drawing upon a predominantly
Australian crew. The film features Hollywood stars (Robin Williams and Elijah
Wood), complemented by A-list Australian stars (Hugh Jackman and Nicole
Kidman), and other than a token lion-seal scene featuring the late Steve Irwin’s voice
and a barrage of Aussie slang, is not an Australian story.
Does Happy Feet contribute to a sense of cultural and national identity? The answer is
clearly no. However, Happy Feet has produced significant value-adding multiplier
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effects for the broader Australian film industry. Following the worldwide commercial
success of Happy Feet, which grossed over US$300 million at the box office,
Australia now has a workforce of highly skilled world-class animators; it has
increased the production capacity of Kennedy Miller Productions, one of Australia’s
larger specialist television and film production companies; and the post-production
house Animal Logic has become a major Australian animated feature film production
house, signing a three-picture deal with Hollywood major Warner Bros (Time Warner
2007).
Therefore, purely cultural considerations and support mechanisms – although still
with an important role to play within a more commercial and internationally focused
industry – are increasingly out of alignment with the structural realities of the
industry. Such arguments have led film scholar Ben Goldsmith (2007) to question a
national cinema’s continuing relevance to scholarship, industry and policy debate. For
Goldsmith (2007: 6), with the aforementioned boundaries once defining a national
cinema breaking down, a national cinema has become a redundant term, and therefore
current thinking should move towards considering ‘Australian cinema as an
international rather than a national cinema.’ For Goldsmith, ‘this would enable us to
conceive of Australian cinema and … Australian cultural identity not as a fixed thing
not as a possession, but as an evolving, changing, set of relations with international
cinema and with the rest of the world’ (2007: 6).
With the increasing internationalisation of the Australian film industry, barriers
previously stymieing Australian horror production’s growth and development are
eroding. Barriers to finance are being removed as international finance flows into the
sector, fuelling production that public finance, by its very nature, could not. Most
importantly, increasingly opened up to transcultural flows, and with notions of
Australian content blurring and an increasing focus on international partnerships,
high-brow snobbery barriers strangling domestic genre-production are becoming
untenable as the industry begins to adopt more commercial film practices.
It is against this backdrop that the history of Australian horror films begins.
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The 1970s: Experimental beginnings
In retrospect it can be seen that in the first phase of the industry most of the
prototypes that were later to circumscribe the aesthetic range of the cinema
emerged. However, the start was made in a virtual vacuum. There was no
immediate body of work to provide a context, no patterns of successes and
failures to allow a glimpse of an audience (Dermody & Jacka 1988a: 77).
The first Australian horror films emerged during an era of industry renewal. As
previously discussed, with the Australian film industry brought into existence by
government policy, early Australian horror production was emerging within a
vacuum. Without normative financial and generic models or production strategies,
films were innovative and experimental, often drawing upon overseas influences,
particularly European art-house films (Dermody and Jacka 1988a; Rayner 2000;
Rayner 2005). Moreover, within a policy environment seeding filmmakers rather than
films per se – albeit with varying degrees of influence over and input into production
– many horror or horror-related films were partly financed by public funding. Ian
Coughlan’s Alison’s Birthday (1979) was co-funded by the AFC and the Seven
Television Network; and Rod Hardy’s Thirst (1979), with a budget of A$750,000,
was funded in part by the New South Wales Film Corporation and the Victorian Film
Corporation. Peter Weir’s The Cars That Ate Paris was the first film funded by the
AFDC, ‘the aim of which was to encourage both quality cinema and innovation’
(Hood 1994: 3). Picnic at Hanging Rock was publicly funded by the AFDC/AFC and
the South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC), and The Last Wave (1977) was also
funded by SAFC and United Artists finance (Moran & Veith 2006).
However, locally produced ‘horror films were an alien genre in Australia back then:
the only previous film near to the genre was 1968’s Wake in Fright … which was far
more respectable’ (Rod Hay paraphrased in Couzens 2005). A Night of Fear (1972),
the first pure horror film to emerge during the revival with a budget of A$21,000, was
financed by the AFDC and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
However, as Rod Hay (2007), producer of both A Night of Fear and Inn of the
Damned (1975), reveals, tensions between producers and the ABC soon arose over A
Night of Fear – originally produced as a telefilm:
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The ABC offered us facilities in return for local television rights and an equity
in the actual theatrical release as and when it happened, but I don’t think the
ABC and their straight-laced manner of the time realized just exactly what a
horror film entertained. And when they saw the finished product, they were
suitably horrified and said we need to distance ourselves from this.
While the R-rating’s 1971 introduction created a market for local sexploitation films
(The Naked Bunyip (1970); Australia After Dark (1975); and Fantasm (1976) among
many other examples), the rating was originally biased towards ‘disreputable’ local
horrors films. A Night of Fear (1972) about a woman terrorised by a mute hermit sex-
predator was initially banned by the Commonwealth Film Censorship Board ‘on
grounds of “indecency and obscenity”’ (Couzens 2005) though innocuous compared
to the egregious international import The Devils (1971) receiving classification.
However, after an appeal and a successful public campaign elevating the film to
notoriety, through entrepreneurialism, self-financed marketing campaigns and
distribution models, the film eventually received cinema release, and is now available
on a single DVD with Inn of the Damned. Similarly, for this film, ‘production was
beset by open conflict between the producers and their principal backers (the
Australian Film Development Corporation)’ (Pike & Cooper 1981: 373), representing
the beginnings of a difficult relationship between government funding agencies and
horror films.
The films and generic models
Without established generic models and stylistic traditions, the lion’s share of horror
and horror-related films often borrowed tropes and elements from various genres,
including ‘westerns and road movies as well as horror and science fiction films’
(Rayner 2005: 99). Terry Bourke’s Inn of the Damned set in Gippsland, Victoria, in
the 1890s, is a story about the elderly owners of an inn – mentally disturbed after the
death of their children – murdering whoever stays the night before an American
bounty-hunter ends their grisly practice. The film contains generic elements of the
western (stage coaches and gun-slinging ‘cowboys’), the gothic film (haunting ghosts
and a mysterious isolated inn), and the horror film (victims are crushed to death in
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their sleep by a – medieval torture device inspired – bed). Jim Sharman’s Shirley
Thompson Versus the Aliens (1972) is a bizarre psychological thriller cum science
fiction fantasy about a young woman unsuccessfully attempting to convince people of
the existence of aliens intent on invading earth, and The Cars That Ate Paris
(examined in more depth below) draws upon gothic, road movie and horror film
conventions.
As Rod Hay concedes, ‘for an Australian horror film to get up [in the early 1970s]
there was really no precedent’, so Australian filmmakers engaging with genre (and
some Australian filmmakers more generally) ‘were trying to play off an American
precedent over here’ (Hay 2007). Becoming a naturalised stylistic mode within
Australian cinema through ‘the hybridisation and subversion of film genres imported
from America’ (Rayner 2005: 99), many of the earliest Australian horror films
emerged more so from the tradition of Australian gothic than the horror genre proper:
Instead of a genre, Australian gothic represents a mode, a stance and an
atmosphere, after the fashion of American film noir, with the appellation
suggesting the inclusion of horrific and fantastic materials comparable to those
of gothic literature … three thematic concerns which permeate all the films
related to the Gothic Sensibility … are: a questioning of established authority;
a disillusionment with the social reality that that authority maintains; and the
protagonists search for a valid and tenable identity once the true nature of the
human environment has been revealed (Rayner 2000: 25).
An early example of a ‘horrific’ film to emerge from an Australian gothic sensibility,
was Wake in Fright (1971). Directed by Canadian Ted Kotcheff with a degree of
international commercial success and national critical acclaim, Wake in Fright would
lay the thematic foundations explored excessively by Australian films (including
horror films) over the next three decades. Some of these key themes include the
following:
Sexual segregation, antagonism towards the ‘outsider’, bizarre mateship rituals
(including an almost surreal kangaroo hunt), and an oppressive air of lethargy
combine to present a grim picture of outback life. Man is brutalised and even
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social and sexual relations are predicated on violence. This is civilisation in a
state of moral collapse (Hood 1994: 3).
An early horror film advancing similar themes was Peter Weir’s first feature film, the
bizarre masterpiece The Cars That Ate Paris (1974). The film revolves around ‘the
inhabitants of the small country town of Paris’ causing ‘passing cars to crash then
scavenge both the wrecked vehicles and their passengers (upon whom the local doctor
conducts brain experiments which turn them into “veggies”)’ (Hood 1994: 3).
Surviving one of the car wrecks, Arthur Waldo is adopted by the mayor of Paris and
is ‘subsumed into the culture, only later realising the extent to which he has been
victimised’. Throughout the film:
a morbid fascination with ‘car culture’ creates an atmosphere of sinister
oppressiveness. At last the town’s own hypocrisy causes it to be consumed by
the bizarrely re-built vehicle of Paris’s youth (Hood 1994: 3).
Since the 1970s, and like many Australian films more generally, Australian horror
films have been dominated both thematically and stylistically by the Australian
landscape. As Vanderbent (2006: 44) has argued:
What fascinates about a country like Australia is its landscape. It is the largest
island in the world, completely isolated with the Pacific on one side and Indian
Ocean on the other. Not only is the country isolated but its populated areas are
separated from each other by vast distances of bush, wilderness and desert.
This isolation captured the imagination of filmmakers in the 1970s and 80s
and lent itself to horror, sci-fi and thriller themes.
Many 1970s and 1980s horror films are characterised ‘by life in the bush gone wrong,
struggling against a hostile environment’ (Carroll & Ward 1996: 28). The
representation of the Australian outback as monstrous, through emphasising the
‘alien-ness and inhuman horror of it’ (Thomas 2000), has become a common trope
explored obsessively throughout Australian cinema history. This trope functions
within narrative ‘not just as’ a ‘location’, but as an ethereal entity, ‘set up in
opposition to the people existing within them’ (Thomas 2000). For Gardener (2006:
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4), ‘the personification of the monstrous “outback” … has hitherto been either virtual
or supernatural (as when the girls mysteriously vanish … in Picnic at Hanging Rock),
or literalised in the form of the villainous pig in Razorback’ (both examined below).
The grandfather of the ‘monstrous outback’ for the Australian horror tradition was
Weir’s second film, Picnic at Hanging Rock. This elegant ‘horror’ film is a
masterpiece of Australian cinema, and a standout film of the Australian horror
tradition. Picnic at Hanging Rock follows the story of the disappearance of a group of
schoolgirls on St Valentine’s Day 1900, creating ‘an aura of incipient sexuality and
brooding menace, opting for atmospheric imagery over narrative drive’ (Hood 1994:
4). The story is steeped in mystery, hinting at a malevolent supernatural force
emanating from a dangerous, ancient landscape. With ‘stopped clocks, disturbed
flights of birds, watching animals, school-girl mysticism, half-formed coincidences’, a
chilling eeriness pervades the film. This mood is compounded by narrative technique,
with audiences ‘presented with fragments of meaning … continually being
disorientated from the world of solid truths’ (1994: 4). Drawing upon ‘the horror of
suggestion rather than event’ (1994: 4), Picnic’s ominous mood and the use of the
landscape as a monstrous character have become archetypal local horror tropes.
Key 1970s horror films dominated by representations of a monstrous landscape were
The Last Wave and the Long Weekend. Peter Weir’s next film, The Last Wave,
another foreboding film steeped in mystery and influenced by Picnic – ‘a freak
hailstorm in the desert, unusually severe coastal storms, and later a fall of black rain’
(Pike & Cooper 1981: 404) – ‘is dominated by an awareness of the delicate balance
between human structures and a threatening natural/supernatural world’ (Hood 1994:
4). The film follows the story of lawyer David Burton who is confronted by the
‘irrational’ threatening to destroy all that is rationale through apocalyptic
premonitions of a menacing natural/supernatural force foreshadowing the extinction
of humanity with a giant tsunami. The film also examines the tensions between
Indigenous Australians and white non-Indigenous Australians. It explores Indigenous
Australian belief systems and the power of their mysticism. For Hood, ‘horror here is
the sense of a rational world suddenly charged with alien meaning that heralds a
predetermined apocalyptic end’ (1994: 4).
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A revenge of nature horror tale, Long Weekend follows the story of Peter and Marcia,
escaping for a ‘long weekend’ to a remote beach, miles from civilisation and
untouched by humanity. However, as the weekend progresses and their relationship
deteriorates, the protagonists’ unconscious destruction of nature mounts: crushing
colonies of ants, killing infant sea-hawks (eating unhatched eggs for breakfast),
shooting a dugong (as well as anything else in sight) and polluting their surroundings.
Drawing upon similar aforementioned techniques of suggestion, nature launches its
revenge with snake attacks, dive-bombing sea hawks and attacks by other benign
creatures.
The 1980s commercial horror push
With horror production increasing by the late 1970s, and a mix of pure (adhering to
established generic traditions) and experimental (displaying horror elements but
melding multiple generic and non-generic forms) horror films emerging, the
following decade saw a boom in Australian horror production. In part to shift the
financial burden from government funding agencies to private investors and to
stimulate the growth and development of the industry, the government introduced the
infamous 10BA tax incentive in 1981. The scheme had an immediate impact upon
industry productivity, and in particular commercial genre-production, with ‘the
number of projects developed and publicised as genre films’ growing exponentially
(Dermody & Jacka 1988a: 31). For many independent producers, horror was the
flagship. Throughout the 1970s, a meagre 19 horror and horror-related films were
produced, equating to barely two films per annum, while the 1980s produced over 40
titles – although many of Hood’s (1994) films are very loosely defined – with
productivity doubling to four ‘horror’ films per annum (see Appendix 1).
The 1980s commercial horror push, in parallel with the rise of Australian genre-
production more generally – particularly action and thriller films – emerged in part as
a reaction to the ‘limited economic viability of the AFC genre’ (Dermody & Jacka
1988a: 32). The inflow of private finance produced a wave of commercial-oriented
producers searching for profits. As commercial production strategies, many 1980s
horror films, particularly those led by producer Antony Ginnane (discussed below),
were ‘made consciously as B-features for small-scale theatrical release, for drive-ins,
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for cable’ (Dermody & Jacka 1988b: 30). Following broader industry trends, horror
budgets rose sharply throughout the 1980s. The Last Wave was the highest budgeted
1970s horror film produced for A$860,000, while the 1980s saw the production of
Dead Calm, budgeted at A$9 million, Razorback at A$4.5 million and Turkey Shoot
at A$2.5 million.
In a small domestic market hostile towards local horror pictures and ignored by
domestic critics, many producers directly targeted international markets. This trend
was exacerbated further by distribution barriers – with films managing to secure
cinema exhibition often receiving a narrow release – and highly dependent upon
international pre-sales and distribution advances to recoup production costs. However,
to achieve this, many horror films effaced cultural specificity to improve chances of
securing international distribution deals and audience reception:
Transnational ‘genre’ films (often made with a sort of fabricated American
identity) were products consciously designed for easy recognition in specific
overseas markets. The packages were intended for marketing in terms easily
understood by film-buyers … They had to be emptied of all reference and
relationship to the site of production; they had to belong to a trans-national
American-derived, moneyed cultural limbo (Dermody & Jacka 1988a: 48).
While there is a marked shift from the experimental horror films predominant
throughout the 1970s towards pure genre films, many horror films and genre films
more broadly were ‘derived from loosely-formed and lightly held notions of “genre”
from outside of the culture of origin, conceived in terms of market exploitation
categories, including home video and cable television’ (Dermody & Jacka 1988a: 47).
Consequently, many of these films ‘lacked the vitality of a genuinely “inside” generic
practice’ (49) – a trend traversing both the 1970s and the 1980s. Thirst (1979) is a
prime example. The film was an attempt by Ginnane to emulate British Hammer
horror films, and ‘he almost got it right’ with a ‘mix of gothic horror and modern day
science … reminiscent of the British studio’s final Dracula effort, The Satanic Rites
of Dracula (1973)’ (Brown 2006). For Null (2006):
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Thirst is one of the quirkier horror films in recent history, with blood-spewing
showers, bodily fluids packaged in milk cartons, bizarrely tilting (and
throbbing) rooms, and Contouri [Actress Chantal Contouri playing the
character Kate Davis] stumbling through all of it. The movie comes off as one
long dream sequence … it's mood music for the eyes, and bloody music at
that.
However, ‘it’s one scene of mindless horror followed by another – creative and well
produced, but not really Omen-class enthralling. All the borrowing from too many
genres just muddles the picture’ (Null 2006). One dubious attempt at genre production
was the slasher film Nightmares (released in the US as Stage Fright) (1980), as Scott
Murray (1995a: 64) has observed:
Surprisingly, director John Lamond makes no attempt to pretend anyone but
Cathy … is the murderer. Though she is not seen during the killing scenes (it
is all wobbly cam and heavy breathing), she has visual flashes of things only
the murderer could know. One result of this don’t-hide approach is that there
is no tension in the film. Equally, one knows each potential victim is certainly
done for.
Even though the number of non-cultural specific horror films dramatically increased
during the 1980s, the bifurcation of non-culturally specific and Australia horror films
continued, with many of ‘the least generically typical … often the most
characteristically Australian in content and approach’ (Hood 1994: 2-3). One of the
most distinctive Australian horror films was Russell Mulcahy’s Razorback (1984),
commonly referred to as the ‘Australian version of Jaws’. Set in the isolated
Australian outback, the film revolves around a degenerative rural community
terrorised by a giant boar:
Beautifully filmed by the award-winning Dean Semler, it is, despite its
antecedents, a film that fits into the outback paranoia theme common to many
Australian films. The desolation is oppressive, with civilization only in
evidence as desert flotsam, a township that is barely hanging on, a sinister
petfood plant and modified utes that look rather like something from Mad
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Max. There is a kind of otherworldliness about it all – and the otherworld is
amoral, where the human inhabitants are largely immoral and as arbitrarily
violent as the huge razorback boar itself (Hood 1994: 9).
Another key horror-thriller of the 1980s is Richard Franklin’s Hitchcockian Road
Games, starring American actors Stacy Keach and ‘scream-queen’ Jamie Lee Curtis,
renowned for her roles in US horror films Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), Terror
Train (1980) and Prom Night (1980). A non-culturally specific horror title revolving
around a truck driver playing ‘cat and mouse’ games with a serial killer using a young
female hitchhiker as bait, Road Games ‘is an interestingly complex piece of popular
cinema’, developing ‘tension through the accumulation of peripheral detail, good
characterization, and the unsettling impression that Keach’s ill-adapted truckie is
evoking the killer through his own obsessive game-playing’ (Hood 1994: 6).
Although the film is not overtly Australian, the outback and isolation-driven madness
– popularised by Wake in Fright – are key thematic features.
Some of the most prominent figures of Australian horror production emerged by the
end of the 1970s, and would continue their foray into horror production throughout
the 1980s. In many regards, producer Antony I. Ginnane – the ‘one-man Australian
horror factory’ (Brown 2006) – led the 1980s horror push. As Dermody and Jacka
(1988b: 30) have argued:
Ginnane is rather like an Australian Roger Corman [the renowned US schlock
horror film producer], though notwithstanding the fact that Ginnane’s films
have their adherents, the films have never been as aesthetically innovative or
as fully-bloodedly ‘schlocky’ as many those from the Corman table; nor was
Ginnane ever in the business of giving space to new and untried talent in the
manner of the Corman studio.
In a career spanning three decades, and with almost 60 feature film, mini series and
television credits as producer or executive producer, Ginnane became one of the most
productive Australian filmmakers of the era. Before moving into film management
and distribution, and shifting his base of operations to Los Angeles in 1991, he had a
total of 11 Australian horror/thriller films to his name along with horror and non-
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horror credits produced offshore to bypass Australian unions (including Race to the
Yankee Zephyr (1980) and Dead Kids (1981)). Consequently, Ginnane was behind
some of the more successful and controversial 1970s and 1980s Aussie exploitation
titles, including Patrick, Snapshot (1979), Harlequin (1980), Turkey Shoot (1982) and
Thirst (1979). Ginnane’s films were summarised as follows: ‘his late-1970s and early-
’80s films followed a formula of sex, violence, the supernatural and a handful of low-
profile overseas stars’ and ‘any Australianness was deliberately neutralised’ (Dzenis
1995b: 61). Another renowned and highly productive horror specialist during the era
was the screenwriter Everett De Roche, penning many of the most popular Aussie
horrors (and birthing many of Ginnane’s productions), including Razorback, Road
Games, Long Weekend, Patrick, Harlequin and Snapshot.
By 1987, the 10BA provisions were wound back from existing levels until they
became almost ineffective in attracting high levels of private finance, bringing to an
end an ‘era where genre … and blockbusters’ dominated Australian cinema (O’Regan
1996: 196). Several problems led to the demise of 10BA. First, for the Department of
Treasury, a major concern was the ‘“burgeoning cost to revenue” of the tax
concessions and … that control of Australian filmmaking had moved out of the hands
of the filmmakers and the film commissions’ (Treasury, quoted in Dermody & Jacka
1988b: 12–13). Second, ‘10BA film concessions did not necessarily give an outcome
that was desirable in cultural or aesthetic terms either’. As Dermody and Jacka
(1988b: 13) observe, ‘it encouraged formula, it encouraged films for the international
market because of the pressure on presales’. Furthermore, ‘unlike the days when the
AFC or another government film organization approved virtually every project made,
under 10BA there was no mechanism intended to ensure that the projects funded were
“quality” projects’ (13).
Horror films – not regarded as ‘quality’ projects – were thus partly a cause of the
problem for cultural policy advocates. Third, another issue for industry commentators
was ‘the lack of control over budgets and fees … adding enormously to the
unproductive cost of film production, and there was no upper limit on the size of fees
to financial intermediaries’ (1988b: 14). Consequently, as previously discussed,
physical production costs rose steeply during the 1980s.
72
The rot had already set in for horror production by the end of the decade. With the
exception of Dead Calm, more a psychological thriller than a horror film in a true
sense, emerging titles had little domestic or international impact, and many
disappeared into obscurity. In the words of Eofftv.com (2006: 2), ‘as the 80s
progressed, Australian horror went the way of the more venerated Italian history and
the impetus of the late 70s started to peter out’. It was also a period of transition for
Aussie exploitation films. According to Ozploitation aficionado Quentin Tarantino,
ironically around the time of Dead End Drive-in’s (1986) release, ‘exploitation
cinema was on the way out’ in drive-ins ‘and from now on it would be seen
exclusively on home video’ (Tarantino quoted in Harris 2008: 73). Waning fortunes,
however, were partly a result of Australian horror films struggling to compete in
saturated video markets (discussed below) and the impact of talent drain. By the
early- to mid 1990s, leading filmmakers behind key horror, horror-thriller, or
Australian gothic films, such as Peter Weir, Richard Franklin, Antony I. Ginnane,
Russell Mulcahy and Phillip Noyce, had left Australian shores for overseas film
industries, effectively leaching the Australian film industry’s vanguard behind a local
‘horror’ tradition. Consequently, Australian horror production during this period was
a mere shadow of that of the late 1970s and early 1980s, by far the most productive
historical era of Australian horror.
The 1990s: An underground existence
While the end of the 1990s would lay the foundations for the first horror films of the
2000s boom in production, and the years between 1988 and 1993 yielded a substantial
number of horror films (a total of 25), the decade is the lowest point in the history of
Australian horror production. With few exceptions, commercial production dried up,
ending the stream of distinctive offbeat Aussie horror titles flowing from preceding
decades, and while a culture of underground horror production endured, the horror
film ‘wasteland’ that emerged largely halted the 1980s growth and stylistic
development. For one international commentator, ‘there remains a thriving
underground and low-budget film culture at work in Australia that seems committed
to keeping Australian horror alive but even the most ardent admirers of this unique
and valuable film culture … would be forced to admit that the glory days are long
behind us’ (Eofftv.com 2006: 2). Several key factors were behind Australian horror
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production’s downturn in the 1990s. One in particular was the emergence of a
difficult domestic financing environment.
The winding back of 10BA in 1987, resulting in a dramatic decline in private finance,
cut off the predominant source of finance fuelling Australian horror films within a
closed national cinema hostile towards horror production. The demise of 10BA
affected the Australian film industry’s production of all generic and non-generic
persuasions. However, if the ‘history of Australian cinema’ is indeed ‘the history of
the fluctuations in the balance’ of cultural and commercial production (Dermody &
Jacka 1988a: 11–12), with the 10BA wound back and government funding once more
becoming the dominant form of production finance, the influence of the former had
prevailed and horror production was pushed from the margins into the shadows of
Australian cinema. Moreover, the winding back of the 10BA was compounded further
by economic recession from 1989–92, drying-up all forms of private finance
(O’Regan 1995). With funding agencies preoccupied with quality Australian film and
private investors strapped for cash, mainstream horror production was severely
handicapped. Moreover, with horror films and genre films of any description
becoming rare, and in stark contrast to the most popular ‘quirky’ Australian titles of
the decade, the romantic comedy Green Card (1991), the glitzy romantic comedy
Strictly Ballroom (1992) and the musical drama The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of
the Desert (1994), the few mainstream Aussie horrors to emerge were savaged by
domestic critics.
As government funding became the predominant source of production finance, a
ceiling for production budgets emerged, inhibiting high-end genre filmmaking – an
undercurrent beginning to blossom by the end of the 1980s. This meant little in itself
for largely low-budget horror productions; however, as horror production provides an
important training ground for many filmmakers with ambitions for larger-scale
production, this development acted as a major disincentive for emerging and
established higher-end filmmakers specialising in genre to remain in Australia.
Moreover, particular strands of Australian genre filmmaking withered and died as a
result.
74
As Australian producer Andrew Mason – a key figure behind the Hollywood-backed
Australian science-fiction film Dark City (1998) and involved in the Hollywood box
office hit The Matrix (1999) – explains, with the winding back of 10BA, ‘Australian
films … have been increasingly squeezed away from anything to do with fantasy or
science-fiction [both closely related to the horror genre] because of budget limitations
imposed by the financing structures that are possible in Australia’. For Mason, with
the budgets of Australian films ‘constrained by what money you can raise from the
Film Finance Corporation and some advance from a distributor, you’re probably
going to be working at a budget level that’s A$8 million maximum’ (Andrew Mason
quoted in Helms 1998: 20). Consequently, with low levels of private finance, and
higher end genre production – particularly films drawing upon fantastical elements
and high-level special effects – effectively stymied, the majority of horror productions
emerging throughout the decade were low-budget independent titles, an issue returned
to later.
The horror genre’s downturn in global markets in the mid-1980s also had detrimental
impacts on Australian horror output. As one international commentator observes:
Where the late 70s/early 80s releases had benefited from a global boom in the
fledgling home-video market that voraciously demanded new titles from
anywhere and everywhere, the late 1980s and 90s saw increasing generic
Australian releases struggling to find a place in a saturated market (Eofftv.com
2006: 2).
Moreover, the saturation of international video markets was exacerbated further by
waning domestic horror markets – further eroding distributor confidence and demand
for local titles. Following the horror genre’s decline by the mid-1980s, the horror
genre’s share of Australian rental video markets dipped sharply. In the mid-1980s, the
leading Australian industry magazine, Encore, conducting a national survey of 400
Australian video rental stores found that ‘a substantial 73 retailers (48.7 per cent of
the total surveyed) reported a trend towards comedy this past year, while an even
larger number, 106 (70.7 per cent), saw a corresponding decline in horror films’
(Encore 1985: 17). However, with the strong cult status of the horror genre:
75
Horror … was holding its own very well in some areas, especially those with a
predominance of young clients. As one retailer said: ‘the kids love blood and
guts’ … A retailer who said his business was 40 per cent horror said: ‘they
love it around here. They’re real horror-goers.’ In areas not made up of ‘real
horror goers’, the decline of the category was often attributed to a preference
for better quality films or the crude quality of many horror movies (Encore
1985: 17-18).
Within such an environment, described by one commentator as ‘an Australian
cinematic wasteland of coy, feel-good films’ (Dzenis 1995a: 378) – albeit from a
generic perspective with many within the industry lauding films such as Muriel’s
Wedding (1994), The Piano (1993), Strictly Ballroom (1992) and Shine (1996) as
cinematic breakthroughs – only two mainstream horror titles would emerge, both
dismal failures at the box office. The first Australian horror film of the new decade
was the slasher film Bloodmoon (1990), about a barbed wire-wielding killer stalking
and murdering female students from a Catholic all-girls school. Produced and
financed by the production subset of Australia’s largest domestic distributor, Village
Roadshow, Bloodmoon was a dubious attempt to capture mainstream cinema and teen
audiences. The film’s critical reception was poor to say the least:
Bloodmoon is a truly memorable cinematic experience – but for all the wrong
reasons. It is an unspeakably funny film, but in the saddest possible way. It is a
film promoted as horror, and it is for anyone with any faith left in Australian
mainstream film. Bloodmoon is the worst of all possible worlds: it has the
worst acting, story, dialogue … and it is the worst possible omen for where the
Australian film industry is headed (Schembri 1990).
The second and last mainstream horror film produced in almost a decade was the
Philip Brophy-directed spatter film Body Melt, released in 1993. A story about the
peaceful suburban community of Pebbles Court, Homesville, the residents of which
are unknowingly the test subjects of a defective experimental drug causing gruesome,
gore-splattered deaths ending in body melt, the film revolves around a series of
character-driven interwoven sub-plots:
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A businessman … beset by increasing hallucinations, picks up a strange
woman at the airport and takes her home; two rowdy wog teenagers … get
waylaid at a run-down farm of a seemingly inbred family (a subterranean
motif in disreputable Australian movies including Razorback [1984] and Sky
Pirates [1986]); a yuppie family journeys to a sinister health resort … an
expectant woman … at home begins to feel mightily queasy (Martin 1995).
Described by one reviewer as a typical ‘film of the 1990s’ – ‘pure cinema, visually
and aurally exploding and imploding the limits of possibility … cerebral and visceral
– fast, funny, clever and vile’ (Dzenis 1995a: 378) – the film’s reception was mixed.
Mainstream distributors ‘wouldn’t touch it’ and some critics labelled it ‘a lot of
nonsense’. However, Adrian Martin, a critic from The Age, lauded the film as
‘“undoubtedly the best Australian film of the year”’ (Martin, quoted in Dzenis 1995a:
378), arguing the critical neglect of the film is ‘attributed to the film’s “accursed
genre” and its evident adoration of trash culture’ (Dzenis 1995a: 378). Despite box
office failure, the film became an Australian cult title: still available in some rental
stores and adored by horror aficionados.
As mainstream production slowed to the point of disappearing altogether, Australian
horror production was sustained by an underground existence, characterised by low
budgets, private finance and independent filmmaking shot on video. Richard
Wolstencroft and Jon Hewitt, key figures in 2000s horror production (Hewitt as a
director, Wolstencroft as the festival director of the Melbourne Underground Film
Festival (MUFF)), produced one of the more renowned underground horrors of the
decade with the vampire film Bloodlust (1990), produced on a budget of A$300,000.
The film’s storyline followed three urban vampires ‘“who rip off the mob and find
themselves pursued into a living hell”’ (the film’s synopsis quoted in Quinn 1992).
Low budget and low quality, the film was as much a backhanded slap at the
Australian film establishment as it was an indie foray into the horror production –
emphasising exploitation, gratuitous violence and gore antithetical to Australian film.
Released straight to video and described by one reviewer as ‘appalling, plot-less,
badly directed, scripted and acted’ (Quinn 1992), the film retains a place in Australian
exploitation history, in part because of its objectionable nature but also the virtual
vacuum of exploitation cinema during the 1990s. Other low-budget horror films
77
emerging included Deep Sleep (1990), ‘mayhem in a deep-sleep clinic’; The Min-Min
(1990), about the violation of a sacred Aboriginal burial ground and Dreamtime
spirits; and Demonstone (1990), about a man whose girlfriend is possessed by a
demon (Hood 1994: 10).
Stylistically and aesthetically, 1990s horror films saw a major departure from ‘the
more considered and atmospheric works of the 1970s’, and to lesser extent the 1980s
(albeit explicit violence was becoming increasingly prevalent), ‘replaced by an
‘increasing number of gore films’ (Eofftv.com 2006: 2). The tasteless blood-soaked
displays of Body Melt, Bloodlust and Bloodmoon, for example, marked a major shift
away from the suggestive and foreboding Picnic at Hanging Rock, Dead Calm and
Long Weekend. Moreover, pure genre production was becoming more common,
moving away from the ‘loosely-formed’ notions of genre (Dermody & Jacka 1988a:
47) that had characterised Australian genre production in the preceding decades.
Throughout the 1990s, Australian horror production continued to produce talented
horror filmmakers lost to ‘talent drain’ – the siphoning of local talent to overseas film
industries. There were two significant examples in particular. The low-budget teen
psychological thriller Dangerous Game (1988) served as a Hollywood calling card for
Stephen Hopkins, who went on to direct Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream
Child (1989), Predator 2 (1990) and The Reaping (2007), among several other non-
horror ‘Hollywood’ films. Similarly, Jamie Blanks, leaving Australian shores with
only a short film under his belt – although he has since returned to the Australian film
industry, which is discussed in Chapter 4 – went on to direct the Hollywood horrors
Urban Legend (1998) and Valentine (2001). Talent drain is not a phenomenon unique
to horror production, and has been a feature of the Australian film industry since the
1970s; however, such prominent examples clearly highlight another of the many
barriers constraining the Australian horror tradition’s development.
Conclusion
This chapter has outlined the importance of horror films to Australian cinema, and
shown why they have been marginalised within a small to medium-sized, largely
publicly funded national cinema. The history of the Australian horror tradition has
78
illustrated that 1970s horror production was largely experimental, emerging within a
broader context of industry renewal. While both pure and mixed ‘horror-related’ films
emerged during this decade, generic models were highly experimental, with limited
congruence to international stylistic trends and market cycles. The 1980s experienced
a boom in Australian horror production as 10BA finance flowed into the sector, and
production was driven by strong international demand during the first half of the
decade before both international demand waned and the 10BA was wound back. The
1990s, the lowest point in Australian horror film’s history, were characterised by
underground shot-on-video production with narrow release. By the end of the decade,
more Australian filmmakers were now directly engaging with broader horror trends
and market cycles. Although distinctly Australian horror films continued to emerge,
the majority of titles were pure genre films rather than the hybrid experimental horror
titles characteristic of the 1970s and 1980s. While Australian horror films have
remained a distinct and at times a flourishing strand of genre production at the
margins of Australian cinema, throughout the first three decades of Australian
cinema, Australian horror production has faced major domestic financing,
distribution, critical and audience barriers, effectively stymieing horror’s growth as a
significant production sector. Chapter 4 explores the boom in 2000s horror
production, the broad nature of the films being produced, and forces giving rise to this
production.
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CHAPTER 4: CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN HORROR PRODUCTION The boom in contemporary horror production
From 1993 to 2000, a meagre total of four Australian horror films, as classified by the
AFC, were produced from a total of 185 Australian feature films, or 2 per cent of
national production over a seven-year period (AFC 2006a). However, from 2000 to
2008, drawing upon primary research outlined in Appendix 1, a total of 62 horror
films were either produced or in various stages of development.22 Horror production
has surged from barely registering on the radar of the Australian film industry to an
average of almost eight films per annum (see Table 9). National production rates are
hovering between 20 and 25 films per annum (AFC 2006d). However, in 2006 a total
of 14 horror films were produced or released – although half of these films are not
captured by AFC statistics reflecting the independent nature of much of Australian
horror production. While horror production is clearly experiencing strong growth, this
is not to say that productivity will remain at this level. As Table 9 illustrates,
production rates have fluctuated considerably from decade to decade, with 1980s
productivity increasing by a total of 28 films on 1970s production, before falling by
29 films in the 1990s, but surging again in the 2000s. The history of Australian horror
films has thus been characterised by cycles of ‘boom’ and ‘bust’. Nonetheless, recent
growth clearly represents a sharp increase in what has historically been a small, ad
hoc and marginalised filmmaking tradition.
Table 9: The growth and decline of Australian horror production by decade* Decade Total
horror films produced
Average per annum**
Increase/decreaseno. of films on previous decade
Annual production expenditure A$
Average annual budget expenditureA$
1970s 20 2 - n/a n/a 1980s 48 4 +28 n/a n/a 1990s 19 2 -29 $15 mil (est) $1.5 mil 2000–2007/08
62 8 +43 $107.7 mil*** $15.8 mil
**Rounded up to the nearest number.
*** Aggregate total for both mainstream and underground production (see text).
22 Announced before the end of February 2008.
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With burgeoning productivity, the budget expenditure on Australian horror production
has risen dramatically, becoming a significant proportion of the broader industry’s
annual production spend during the 2000s. The 1990s saw a ‘guestimated’ total
budget expenditure of less than A$15 million on Australian horror films,23 a figure
drawn from primary analysis of available budget ranges. From 2000 to 2007,
however, a total of 20 films with budgets of over A$1 million were produced,
amassing a total production spend of A$107.3 million (see Appendix 2). This equates
to an annual horror production spend of A$15.3 million over the last seven years, an
impressive figure considering the average five-year annual production spend of the
broader Australian film industry was $96 million (AFC 2006d).
If the average Australian industry production spend remained roughly commensurate
over a seven-year period to correlate with this study’s sample for horror expenditure, I
estimate that horror production has represented approximately 15 to 16 per cent of the
average domestic production spend from 2000 to 2007. Furthermore, underground
horror production – although on a completely different scale – from a total of 14 titles
with budgets of less than A$1 million, accounted for production expenditure of
A$369,400 from 2000 to 2007. As such, the total production spend for Australian
horror production over the same period (for budgets available) equates to almost
A$107.7 million. While these figures are inflated by a recent influx of high-end
internationally financed production (examined below), it clearly illustrates that horror
production has been a relatively important genre for commercially oriented Australian
filmmakers, and a vibrant strand of genre-production within the broader industry.
One way to highlight the recent success of contemporary Australian horror production
is through a comparison of its performance with the broader Australian film industry
through key performance indicators, namely production rates, international markets
and local audiences. Production rates for the broader Australian film industry
throughout the 2000s have been around 20 films per annum, down from 25 per annum
throughout the 1990s (AFC 2006d) while, as illustrated above, Australian horror
production has grown strongly, particularly considering the low base from which it
23 Available budgets included: Body Melt (1993), A$1.65 million; Dead End (1999), A$1 million; The Demons in My Head (1998), A$500,000; Bloodlust (1990), A$300,000; The Point of Death (1995), A$80,000; and Cthulhu (1996) A$50,000.
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has emerged. While international markets for Australian films have shrunk, with a
‘contraction in the number and size of sales of Australian (and other independent)
feature films to overseas markets’ in recent years (DCITA 2006: 5), international
markets for Australian horror, with burgeoning demand for horror films worldwide,
has never been stronger. Wolf Creek (2005) was sold into ‘every saleable territory in
the world’ (Lightfoot 2007); Cut (2000) also sold into every saleable territory
worldwide; Black Water (2007) sold into 76 countries; Storm Warning (2006) sold
into 42 international territories; Undead (2003) 40 regions; Feed (2005) and Safety in
Numbers (2005) have sold into every major international territory; Reign in Darkness
(2002) 27 territories; and Lost Things (2003) sold into 22 territories, to name just a
few. By contrast, Body Melt (1993) – among the most widely released local horror
titles in the 1990s – was sold into 22 international territories (including the US).
Table 10: International comparison of local box office share and production rates in selected countries Country 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Prod. Rates
Box off. (%)
Prod. Rates
Box off. (%)
Prod. rates
Box off. (%)
Prod. rates
Box off. (%)
Prod. rates
Box off. (%)
Prod. Rate
s
Box of.
(%) Australia∗ 26 8 22 8 24 5 16 4 16 1 19 3 Co-prods. 1 3 2 2 1 3 Canada n/a 2 59 2 66 3 94 4 69 5 80 5 Germany n/a 9 110 16 116 10 107 18 121 23 103 17 Spain n/a 10 107 18 137 14 110 16 133 13 142 16 France n/a 28 204 42 200 35 212 35 203 39 240 38 UK n/a 20 83 24 119 24 175 16 132 22 124 34 USA n/a 95 611 95 543 96 593 97 611 94 699 93 Source: For production rates: adapted from AFC (2005b); Screen Digest, June 2000, December 2001,
July 2003, June 2004 and June 2005. For share of local box office: adapted from AFC (2005c); Screen
Digest; European Audiovisual Observatory; Centre national de la cinématographie France; Canadian
Film and Television Production Association; British Film Institute; and Screen International.
Australian films have struggled to find local audiences during the 2000s (DCITA
2006; FFC 2006), dropping from 8 per cent of the local box office in 2000 to 3 per
cent by 2005 (AFC 2005b). However, for the first time in Australian film history,
there are early signs that Australian horror films are carving out a niche in the local
market, in both cinema and video markets (explored below). Moreover, as Table 10
illustrates, the rise of horror production has come at a time when the Australian film
industry’s productivity and market share of the domestic box office declines. While
national film industries worldwide have strengthened their competitiveness in the face
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of Hollywood’s dominance, the Australian film industry struggles to maintain its
position in an increasingly competitive global marketplace (AFC 2005a; AFC 2005b).
Horror production budget ranges and average Australian film budgets
Drawn from primary data, Table 11 outlines budget ranges for Australian horror films
produced between 2000 and 2007 (illustrated in Appendix 3), and the relations
between these figures and the broader film industry’s average budgets. Production
budgets for Australian horror films are divided into the following categories:
independent horror production, accounting for production controlled and produced
predominantly by Australian producers (albeit many have international financial
inputs); internationally financed horror films (predominantly financed and controlled
by international players); and co-production (with joint Australian and international
control).
Table 11: Average Australian film budgets and Australian horror films budgets24
Five-year Australian feature films Average 2001–02 to 2005–06*
Mainstream and underground horror production budget ranges
2000–07 Range ($M)
Austn Co-prods Int. financed Horrors
Independent Horror production
Co-prods
0 to 500, 000 - - - 14 - 500, 000 to 1 5 - - 1 - 1 to 3 5 - - 8 1 3 to 6 6 - 1 5 - 6 to 10 3 1 - 1 1 10 to 20 1 1 - - - 20 + 1 - 2 - - Source: ‘5-year Australian feature films Average 2001/02–2005/06’: Australian Film Commission
(2006b) Australian Film Commission, ‘Mainstream and underground horror production budget ranges
2000–2007’: primary sample outlined in Appendix 3.
Several primary trends emerge. First, reflecting the dualistic structure of the sector,
there are two main clusters of Australian horror production: low-end micro-budget
24 Table 11 comes with several caveats. First, not every horror film budget throughout the 2000s could be attained, thus figures are not representative for all horror films produced during this period. Second, the five-year Australian film industry averages include the budgets for Australian horror films and could not be disaggregated due to AFC privacy regulations. Moreover, AFC’s figures are average figures over a five-year period, while figures collated for this study are actual counts over a seven- rather than five-year period. Figures are thus illustrative rather than authoritative.
83
horror films produced for less than A$500,000 and low to mid-budget mainstream
films produced for budgets between A$1 million and A$6 million, with remaining
production spread across various budget ranges. By mid-2006, films with production
budgets less than A$500, 000 without a theatrical screening not included in official
AFC productions statistics (AFC 2006b), are included here to illustrate the core
clusters of contemporary production.
Second, production scale has widened significantly over this period, reflecting the
growing capacity of the horror production sector. While 1990s horror production was
predominantly micro to low budget, contemporary productions are emerging across a
spectrum of credit-card films to high-end films with budgets in excess of
A$20 million. Third, during the 2000s, horror has comprised a notable proportion of
the Australian film industry’s low-budget production ranges, largely films with
budgets between A$1 million to A$3 million. Nine horror films were produced in this
budget range, a figure above the industry’s average of five films per annum –
although it is a difficult to make an authoritative comparison due to data restrictions
outlined in the caveats to Table 11. Nonetheless, as horror productivity has risen
strongly during the 2000s and the Australian film industry’s production rates have
stagnated, these figures may suggest that some Australian producers operating with
low budgets are increasingly harnessing the commercial potential of the horror genre.
Table 12: Proportion of feature films in various budget ranges: 2000/01–2006/0725
No. titles
Less than $1 mil (%)
$1–3 mil (%)
$3–6 mil (%)
$6–10 mil (%)
$10–20 mil (%)
More than $20 mil (%)
Australian prod.
162 26.0 27.0 22.0 17.0 6.0 2.0
Australian co-prods.
17 n/a n/a 2.0 12.0 41.0 35.0
Horror prod.*
34 44.0 26.5 17.5 6.0 0 6.0
* Total for Australian financed, co-productions and internationally financed horror films. With reference to Table 12, in comparing the percentage of films produced by budget
range for the Australian film industry and Australian horror production, there are both
25 Figures for Australian production and co-productions also include budget ranges for horror films and could not be disaggregated.
84
similarities and disjunctions. In contrast to broader industry trends, a disproportionate
percentage of horror films are produced for less than a A$1 million (albeit this is
unsurprising considering the budget threshold for AFC statistics), while a similar
percentage of horror films are produced within the range of A$1–3 million. Horror
films then drop off compared with broader industry trends in higher budget ranges,
while internationally financed horror films occupy the higher budget range reaches.
What this shows is that most Australian horror production is low budget, but it may
also reflect the limitations of the domestic financing environment.
Table 13: Investment in Australian feature film production and co-productions
Australian productions and co-productions Government contributions Foreign investors Aust private
investors Year
Contribution A$ mil
% of total
finance
No. films
invested in
A$ mil % of total
finance
No. films
A$ mil
% of total
finance
No. films
1995/96 36.8 41.4 16 36.5 41.0 7 5.7 6.5 101996/97 54.4 41.5 18 39.7 30.2 8 16.1 12.3 151997/98 32.7 19.8 16 108.8 66.0 12 12.9 7.8 171998/99 36.5 31.1 19 48.1 41.0 16 19.9 17.0 91999/00 26.0 18.5 15 91.9 65.4 10 16.1 11.5 16Five-year average
37.3 29.0 17 65.0 50.5 11 14.2 11.0 13
2000/01 46.0 28.3 14 94.6 58.1 13 8.5 5.2 102001/02 31.7 18.6 17 92.5 54.3 11 29.2 17.1 182002/03 29.9 42.3 11 13.0 18.4 7 21.1 29.8 102003/04 34.5 15.4 12 109.5 48.7 7 11.2 5.0 112004/05 33.0 29.8 14 46.7 42.1 8 20.3 18.3 15Five-year average
35.0 23.7 14 71.2 48.2 9 18.0 12.2 13
2005/06 50.9 41.6 22 42.6 34.8 12 9.0 7.3 152006/07 44.9 16.6 18 197.8 73.2 13 13.3 4.9 13Source: Adapted from Australian Film Commission (AFC) (2006c), Available:
http://www.afc.gov.au/gtp/mpfeaturesinvestors.html [Accessed: 17 December 2007]. While private finance represented 12 per cent of financial sources during the 2000s
(Table 13), levels of investment have fluctuated dramatically from 5 per cent to
almost 30 per cent, peaking ‘in 2001/02 and 2002/03 … mainly due to increased
private investment under the pilot Film Licensed Investment Company (FLIC)
scheme’ (AFC 2008b) (although few if any horror films benefited from this scheme).
Furthermore, dipping to 5 per cent in 2003–04 and 4.9 per cent in 2006–07, private
finance had fallen to its lowest levels in over a decade during the 2000s.
Consequently, private finance – historically the lifeblood of Australian horror films –
85
has not always been a reliable source of production funding during this period,
suggesting that in terms of the horror genre’s increasing portion of the industry’s
lower budget ranges, many Australian producers are keeping budgets low, and horror
is a beneficiary of this.
The films: Aesthetic groupings, themes and characteristics
The films emerging from this fledgling sector, in terms of broad aesthetic groupings –
ranging across most horror sub-genres outlined in Table 2, from zombie films to
epidemic horror films – can be categorized as follows (represented in Table 14):
Table 14: A typology of contemporary Australian horror films Type of Australian horror film Examples ‘Aussie horror films’ Wolf Creek (2005)
Undead (2003) I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer (2006) Rogue (2007) Lost Things (2003) Storm Warning (2006)
Non-culturally specific generic films
Cubbyhouse (2001) Cut (2000) Demons Among Us (2006) Safety in Numbers (2005) When Evil Reigns (2006) Feed (2005) Daybreakers (2008)
Credit-card horrors When Evil Reigns (2006) Demons Among Us (2006) The Killbillies (2002) Bloodspit (2004)
Hybrid horror films Subterano (2003) Aussie horror films are distinctively Australian. While they conform to popular horror
genre conventions and trade upon this marketplace identity, they also contain
uniquely Australian cultural and social themes, Australian film tropes and Australian
characters, and are distinctively or recognisably Australian in the marketplace.
Undead, for example, is a typical zombie film. After a meteor shower, a small rural
town is overrun by rampaging zombies with a hunger for human flesh. However, it is
also an ‘Australian zombie film’. Set in a stereotypical dysfunctional rural Australian
town populated by larrikins and yobbos, the main character is a victim of the tall-
poppy-syndrome, and the male protagonist, is an archetypal laconic Australian male.
Aussie horror films tend to achieve greater levels of commercial and critical success
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than ‘non-culturally specific’ Australian horror films. In many cases, cultural
specificity serves to differentiate specific titles in a saturated and formulaic
marketplace. Consequently, specifically Australian themes, characters and
iconography can act as elements of generic invention which renew standard horror
film conventions. Wolf Creek, for example, is a standard slasher film. However, the
use of the landscape as a character in the film’s narrative, and the creation of an iconic
Australian serial-killer (an inverted psychotic version of Mick Dundee), renews what
is otherwise a standard slasher film.
Non-culturally specific horror films comprise the lion’s share of contemporary
Australian horror films. While often set in Australia, they otherwise have no or
limited cultural specificity. They are overtly commercial, often exploitative and
directly target international cinema markets and DVD markets (primarily the United
States). Thematically, non-culturally specific Australian horror films tend to explore
universal themes of the zeitgeist. Feed, for example, explores ‘body image’ and
regulating the dark side of the internet (consensual internet-facilitated cannibalism
and the world of ‘feeders’ and ‘gainers’ those who feed those who gain weight) – two
issues becoming increasingly prevalent in Western democratic societies. Safety in
Numbers is a cautionary tale of the dangers of reality television and the dire
psychological effects it can have for contestants. Such a cautionary narrative could
originate from any modern contemporary society, in this film, reality television
contestants returning to the program’s island location are hunted down by a
disgruntled former contestant. Non-culturally specific horror films also tend to rerun
popular, historical and conventional horror plotlines, rather than push the boundaries
of the horror genre. In so doing, they transpose dated content (for example, the
deconstruction of a typical 1970s family) with more contemporary themes and issues
(the deconstruction of a typical 2000s family).
Credit-card horrors, although typically more subversive and experimental in their
subject-matter than mainstream production, also produce both Aussie and non-
culturally specific horror films. For example, Schooner of Blood (2006) explores
Australian drinking culture as an allegorical backdrop for abject violence. Conversely,
The Killbillies is a non-culturally specific exploitation parody of the popular US
television series The Beverly Hillbillies (1962–71), about two warring hillbilly
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families, zombies and aliens. Moreover, without consciously attempting to be
‘cultural films’, many underground films are highly Australian in nature, often
containing strong usage of Aussie colloquialisms, ‘yobbo’ stereotypes and Aussie
humour.
Hybrid/experimental horror films, are films that utilise common horror elements and
tropes (e.g. graphic violent and gore), but are essentially hybrid (to the point of no
longer conforming to one identifiable genre) or experimental films. Such films,
however, are rare, as distorting the marketable identity of a horror film can undermine
potential profits. Many of these films are from another major genre that utilise horror
elements arguably in an attempt to broaden potential audiences. Subterano (2003), for
example, is a teen-oriented sci-fi film that utilizes low-levels of gore to appeal to
audiences growing up on a diet of violent sci-fi horrors.
Contemporary films: Building upon past traditions?
The development of the Australian horror tradition over the 1970s and 1980s, as
previously discussed, saw the emergence of several primary thematic concerns at the
core of prominent ‘Australian’ horror films: the representation of the monstrous
landscape, the struggle against this landscape and dangerous animals, Indigenous
Australian themes, and the fear of isolation and degenerative rural communities. After
the wasteland of the 1990s, many contemporary horror films have returned to these
central themes, in a sense ‘picking up’ where the tradition left off, but also building
upon it. The most popular distinctly Australian horror film of all time is Wolf Creek –
a film which, as an observer notes, is ‘a film of the past’, reengaging with established
cinematic themes, sensibilities and generic conventions (Gardener 2006: 1). The film
follows the story of:
Two British female backpackers (Liz and Kristy) who meet up with a young
Sydney man (Ben) in Broome and agree to go on a road-trip through central
Australia, aiming to finish in Cairns. The first key destination on their trip is
the Wolf Creek National Park in outback Western Australia, to visit an ancient
meteor site. Realizing that their car has broken down … the three allow an
outwardly friendly passer-by, Mick Taylor – a middle-aged local kangaroo
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shooter – to tow them to his place … to replace the broken car part. Drugged,
bound and separated at his camp, they awaken to discover that Mick is a
sadistic killer, and each person makes a desperate attempt to get away
(Blackwood 2007: 2).
On the surface, Wolf Creek is a contemporary film based on two prominent true
crimes: ‘the Ivan Milat hitchhiker murders from the early 1990s; and secondly, the
violent abduction and murder of British tourist Peter Falconio in the Northern
Territory in 1996’ (Blackwood 2007: 1). The film also has correlations with other
contemporary Aussie horror titles: ‘Mclean’s movie, although it raises itself to a
whole other filmmaking class, reminds us of … Aussie fantasies like Undead and
Visitors (2003) where neither zombies-behind-wire-fences nor multi-ethnic-pirates-
on-the-high-seas betray the slightest clue that things are going mighty wrong in the
world today’ (Martin 2005: 27). Moreover, as an explicit genre film, Wolf Creek is
connected with the slasher film tradition, closely following the plotline of The Texas
Chain Saw Massacre (1974), but also renewing generic conventions. The film
subverts the ‘final girl’ trope with the female protagonist ‘killed off’ during the movie
and the ‘final boy’ escaping (Gardener 2006; Blackwood 2007), it avoids typical
horror music scores foreshadowing impending ‘doom’ by adopting a more minimalist
approach, and it has a largely two-act plot in contrast to standard formulas. However,
beneath the surface, ‘Wolf Creek’s repetition’ of various Australian genre
conventions (as well as international conventions alluded to above) ‘threatens to
devolve the film into a regressive (or at best Nostalgic) exercise’ (Gardener 2006: 2).
For Martin (2005: 26), Wolf Creek is a return to cinema of the 1970s characterised by
Picnic at a Hanging Rock and Mad Max, ‘set in the “savage wilderness” of the
outback’ with a ‘horizon line that stretches infinitely’, before contemporary politics –
‘debate about reconciliation of Indigenous and settler cultures, as well about our
nation’s “multicultural experiment”’ – could ‘muck up that vista’. Building upon this
argument, Gardener (2006: 2–3) argues that Australian films have seen a shift away
from such representations of the landscape since the Mabo native title case in 1992,
towards a ‘postcolonial resignification of the landscape’:
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Since Mabo … Australian landscape cinema has been overwhelmed by grief:
grief for the destruction of Indigenous cultures since Australia’s so-called
‘founding’ in 1770; grief for the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples
despite Mabo and its socio-political consequences; and grief for the
eradication of metaphors and signifiers that once underpinned Australian
indentify and made settlers feel comfortable in the land … Recent films such
as … Jindabyne (2006) make that postcolonial grief explicit: Lawrence’s
allegory charts a small rural community’s grief following a young Indigenous
woman’s abuse and murder … if grief is increasingly conventional for
contemporary, post-Mabo cinema in Australia, then it is a convention that
Wolf Creek explicitly rejects, returning, instead, to tropes that disavow Mabo
altogether (Gardener 2006: 3).
For Greg Mclean the landscape is the fifth character in the film (Making of Wolf
Creek 2006), opposing the protagonists at every turn: rain falls in the desert (similar
to The Last Wave), watches stop, the protagonists’ car mysteriously breaks down
(similar to Picnic and Frog Dreaming (1986)), and at the end of the film Mick Taylor
dematerialises into the twilight as though part of the landscape. The film also connects
with and subverts stereotypical representations of Australianness. Mick Taylor is ‘a
direct descendent of the conventional, outback man epitomised by Mick Dundee’
(from Crocodile Dundee): ‘a burly … man in a stockman’s hat’ who is ‘practical …
swears heavily and speaks roughly, is anti-intellectual, anti-religious … hospitable (at
first)’, xenophobic and anti-homosexual (Blackwood 2007: 5-6). But beneath this
persona lurks a psychopath butchering backpackers.
While this study argues that the Australian gothic has become an outmoded generic
category for the discussion of the Australian horror tradition, Undead returns to the
Australian gothic tradition and the tropes of Australian cinema more generally. In the
mould of countless Australian horror films, the film is set in an isolated township, the
fishing village of Berkeley, populated largely by alcohol- and cricket-loving Aussie
eccentrics. When a freak meteor shower containing an infectious otherworldly virus
bombards the town, the inhabitants are transformed into flesh-eating zombies. The
survivors, struggling to flee the infected zone, discover an alien race is their only
chance for survival. Although an explicit zombie film, in the sensibility of Australian
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gothic, Undead explores the tropes of social disillusionment within society, the search
for an identity and the questioning of established authority. The main characters,
Marion the fisherman gunsmith, and Rene the beauty queen, are both victims of
society: Marion, a victim of a previous alien abduction, is a social outcast constantly
harassed by the police, while Rene, as alluded to above, is a victim of the tall-poppy
syndrome after winning the town’s beauty pageant. As such, both characters are
struggling to discover their social identities in a society antagonistic towards their
plight. However, after the outbreak Marion becomes ‘a gun-slinging hero’ and Rene
the ‘chosen one’ who can save Berkeley from destruction: ‘expounding the theme of
earlier Australian horror films that those who are deemed “crazy” or “outsiders” are
often the most valuable, the most aware of what is going on [a theme prevalent in
Razorback and Road Games]’ (Vanderbent 2006: 137).
Undead, like most Australian horror films, is also concerned with a monstrous
landscape with acidic rain and meteor showers. However, while set in a semi-rural
township, this is not the regular representation of the ‘outback’ found in Australian
horror films. Rather, the film’s action takes place on the ‘bushy’ outskirts of town;
thus the film is arguably an Australian horror flick concerned with the contamination
of this landscape by a more dangerous alien matter, perhaps alluding to the possibility
that Australian’s have more to fear than the Australian landscape. For Carroll and
Ward (1996: 28), key 1970s and 1980s horror films Long Weekend, Razorback and
Dead Calm, concerned with the struggle against landscape, can be summarised as
‘humans at the mercy of, respectively, a beach, a giant pig and the ocean’. Similarly,
several contemporary horror films can be distilled in similar ways: the struggle of
protagonists against killer-crocodiles in Rogue and Black Water; ‘spindly scrub and
formless, spooky beach landscapes’ in Lost Things (Martin 2005: 27); an ominous
storm in Storm Warning; and the beach again in the remake of Long Weekend.
As McKee (1997a & 1997b) has observed, Indigenous Australian cultural capital such
as Dreamtime myths and spirituality are popular tropes explored in numerous horror
films, including The Last Wave, and to a lesser extent Picnic at Hanging Rock, Frog
Dreaming, The Dreaming (1988), Kadaicha (1988), Zombie Brigade (1988) and The
Min-Min (1990). According to McKee (1997a: 200), ‘Aborigines, in positive or
negative ways, are often linked directly with the spiritual realm, that which is
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inaccessible to the urbanized settler society.’ While few 2000s horror films explore
Indigenous Australian themes – though Rogue contains tinges of Indigenous culture,
rock-paintings and music – Prey (2008) is a contemporary example of this trend. Also
inspired by the spiritual realm, Prey is a story about friends travelling by 4WD
through the outback when they are lured into a sacred Indigenous site ‘by an
Aboriginal servant, whose master needs fresh victims to consume’.26 While many
contemporary Australian horror films have returned to key themes explored by the
horror tradition in previous decades, other contemporary horror films have explored
new thematic ground.
Dying Breed (2008), starring Leigh Whannell (Saw) and Nathan Phillips (Wolf
Creek), makes an important contribution to the monstrous landscape tradition,
revolving around two intriguing facets of Australian history and folklore: the extinct
Tasmanian Tiger and the folkloric legend of the cannibal convict Alexander Pearce,
known as the ‘The Pieman’. While the Tasmanian Tiger was believed extinct by the
1930s after a government bounty saw hunters massacre the species and the last
recorded tiger died in captivity in 1936, numerous unconfirmed sightings continue
speculation that the species has survived. An Irish convict and bushranger, Alexander
Pearce was imprisoned at the brutal Tasmanian penal settlement of Sarah Island in
1822. Escaping with seven convicts, Pearce was the only survivor to reemerge from
the wilderness several weeks later. Two convicts had turned back and died at the
settlement from exhaustion, according to Pearce’s confession, the remaining five
escapees were murdered and eaten. Originally disbelieved by authorities, he escaped
the settlement a second time with Thomas Cox, and when later recaptured was found
with his remains in his possession although having sufficient food provisions. Pearce
was hung in 1824 for cannibalism. Fusing these two facets of folklore together, Dying
Breed follows the story of Zoologist Nina, her boyfriend Matt, his friend Jack and his
girlfriend Rebecca, travelling to Tasmania in search of the Tasmania Tiger after
recent sightings cast doubt over the species extinction. However, the wilderness of
Tasmania holds many other secrets better left undiscovered:
26 From the film’s synopsis.
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On their quest to find the extinct tiger, the group venture deep into isolated
territory and into the domain of ‘Pieman’ descendants. ‘Sarah’ is a small
township that passionately upholds its cannibalistic heritage in honour of the
convict patriarch that gave birth to it. It needs to stay hidden to survive … but
it also needs fresh ‘stock’ to breed. The four hunters become the hunted.27
I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer (2006), with its wordplay on the
US teen-horror film I Know What You Did Last Summer, is the story of a psychotic
serial killer stalking and murdering former members of a cricket team. While the
film’s plotline is a conventional slasher film, Australianness and sporting themes
renew these conventions. The story follows the revenge of Phil Philips. The victim of
a prank gone wrong, Philips was left impotent after his reproductive organs were
damaged, and now those responsible fear for their lives after detectives uncover a
spate of gruesome ‘cricket killings’. Each victim is found murdered by deadly cricket
weapons – nails driven through a cricket ball, spear-like stumps and razor-tipped
wicketkeeper gloves. The film explores the dark side of mateship and larrikinism
gone wrong, competitiveness and the national obsession with sports. The strong use of
Australian colloquialisms, cricket themes, and cricketing terminology (Howzat!) are
major characteristics of the film. In a similar vein to Wolf Creek, the film develops a
uniquely Australian serial-killer. While Mick Taylor is a subversive representation of
Mick Dundee, Phil Philips resembles the mustachioed Australian fast-bowler, Merv
Hughes, a popular national sporting hero in the 1980s and 1990s.
The 2000s has also seen the emergence of several high-concept universal genre films
in the vein of Hollywood films. Gabriel is a standout example. The film’s narrative
follows the Archangel Gabriel, the last of seven Archangels sent from Heaven into
Purgatory to regain its control from fallen angels. As Archangels must assume human
form before entry, Gabriel’s mission is complicated by human emotions such as fear,
love, hatred and anger when all Archangels before him have failed. The Spierig
Brothers’ second film, Daybreakers, is an innovative high-concept vampire film.
Breaking away from warring vampire families and rogue vampires on bloodlust
killing sprees, Daybreakers explores civilisation in the year 2017, living in the
27 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1064744/plotsummary.
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aftermath of a deadly epidemic transforming the majority of the world’s population
into vampires: ‘as the human population nears extinction, vampires must capture and
farm every remaining human, or find a blood substitute before time runs out.
However, a covert group of vampires makes a remarkable discovery, one which has
the power to save the human race.’28
The 2000s: The national and global mainstream breakout
There’s a powerful independent force bubbling up from Down Under, ready to
take over the world of horror. Yes, believe it or not, Australia is becoming the
reigning dominion for the new masters of horror like Saw creators Leigh
Whannell and James Wan and the Spierig Brothers, who made the zombie
movie Undead. Joining this roster is Melbourne’s latest horror-smith, Greg
Mclean (Douglas 2005).
The nexus between increasing productivity and commercial success cannot be
discounted from the breakout success of Australian horror production, with an
increasing volume of Australian horror films resulting in greater levels of mainstream
and niche commercial success, in turn fuelling more production. As this study has
established, the Australian horror tradition has historically produced numerous titles
achieving varying levels of national and international commercial success; however,
with disparate production and periods of downturn in mainstream production, and by
implication the circulation of higher-profile films, Australian horror films have failed
to develop a sustained niche in markets, or a popular following with horror audiences.
In mainstream global cinema and video markets in recent years, Saw, Wolf Creek and
Undead have become popular and commercially successful films – the first two with
wider mainstream audiences, the last particularly with horror aficionados and global
cult, trash and sleaze audiences. The most commercially successful ‘Australian’
horror film was the low-budget body-horror Saw, released in 2004. While Saw is not
strictly an Australian horror production within the context of this study, as it was
produced and financed offshore – although created by Australians, partly developed in
28 http://www.movieweb.com/movies/film/41/5141/summary.php
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Australia (particularly key casting and script development), and inextricably linked to
its Australian origins in industry literature and fan cultures – as we shall see, with a
major impact on domestic industry practices, Australian horror production’s
development cannot be discussed without its inclusion. Produced for US$1.2 million
and returning over US$100 million at the global box office, Saw has become a major
commercial success. It is one of the most popular worldwide horror films of the
decade, and has spawned the most successful horror franchises in almost two decades,
with Saw I, II, III and IV grossing US$457 million at the global box office alone.
The second Australian horror film to perform strongly in global markets, released a
year after Saw’s worldwide success, was the low-budget Wolf Creek. Produced for
A$1.4 million and returning over A$50 million in worldwide revenue, Wolf Creek has
become a popular mainstream horror title. Nevertheless, it is important to point out
that from a domestic perspective, Wolf Creek has been highly successful, while from
an international perspective, it has been a moderately successfully film. As illustrated
in Table 8, returns of US$27 million at the box office are modest in comparison to
other popular international horror films. Whilst not receiving the wider audiences
enjoyed by the above films, Undead, released in 2003, has also been a significant
breakout success. Produced for just less than A$1 million and selling widely into
video and secondary markets, Undead was lauded by the premiere horror fanzine
Fangoria.com29 as ‘the most inventive zombie film since Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead’
– a highly impressive accolade for a relatively low-budget film – and has become a
worldwide cult hit. Rogue has been released into worldwide cinema markets, with
Daybreakers also scheduled for global theatrical cinema release. Therefore, while the
1980s saw surging productivity, most titles reached audiences in video and cable
markets; some contemporary horror films, on the other hand, are achieving global
mainstream success.
Australian horror titles are also performing strongly in worldwide video markets.
Receiving mixed critical reviews and being heavily criticised by the broader
Australian film industry as a ‘terrible film’, the slasher Cut has sold widely worldwide
into video and secondary markets. Feed has become a worldwide cult film and opened
29 See http://www.fangoria.com.
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at no. 16 in the top 100 German DVD charts. Moreover, as one international
commentator has observed, numerous Australian horror titles have performed well in
lucrative US video markets:
The dawn of the 21st century signaled a comeback for Aussie horror movies.
A string of releases did solid business on video in the US: the … slasher Cut
(2000), the supernatural Hellion [released in Australia as Cubbyhouse] (2002),
the murder mystery Lost Things (2003), and the psychological terror of
Visitors (2003). The year 2003 witnessed the surprise success … of Undead
(Harris, M. 2007).
In terms of domestic markets, there are signs that Australian horror films are carving
out a niche in the local market. As a representative of Palace Films argues, ‘teenagers
in suburban multiplexes are the most typical mainstream audiences. They are less
likely to want to see an Australian film’ (Zeccola, quoted in Bosanquet 2007: 100).
For New South Wales Film and Television Office CEO Tania Chambers, ‘there is
absolutely no doubt that the 18- to 25-year-old male audience doesn’t go to the
cinema to watch Australian films other than genre. Films like Wolf Creek [Greg
Mclean, 2005] or Saw [James wan, 2004]’ (quoted in Bosanquet 2007: 100).
However, ‘the problem, of course, is that most Australian movies are not aimed at a
younger audience. It is now an older audience that tends to watch the niche or art-
house Australian films’ (Bosanquet 2007: 100). However, local producers are
beginning to target and connect with domestic youth and genre audiences.
In 2006, Wolf Creek earned A$6 million at the local box office to become the most
successful R-rated film in Australian film history (Darclight Films 2006a; Darclight
2006c). (Youth horror audiences unable to see this film at cinemas due to its R-rating
arguably saw this film on DVD (discussed below)). Most recently, Rogue and Gabriel
captured a combined A$3 million of the domestic box office. While only a handful of
Australian horror films received domestic cinema release in the 1990s, three
contemporary horror titles have now captured A$9 million of the domestic box office
in the space of two years (2005–07). While this means little in itself, the last time an
Australian horror/thriller film captured significant domestic box office earnings was
Dead Calm with A$2 million in 1989.
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Australian horror titles are also establishing a presence in the local DVD market. As
illustrated in Table 15, Wolf Creek was the fourth highest selling Australian movie on
video (both DVD and VHS) in domestic retail markets in 2007. Undead, Wolf Creek,
Gabriel and Feed have all developed local cult followings. With this new wave of
Aussie horrors often finding themselves on video store shelves with classic and cult
Aussie horrors such as Road Games, Razorback, Patrick and Body Melt, there is a
small but growing concentration of Australian horror titles in video stores.
Table 15: The top 10 Australian movies on video in 2007 (total retail sales) Rank* Title Distributor Release date 1 Happy Feet Roadshow 26 Apr 2007 2 Kenny Madman 7 Dec 2006 3 The Castle: Standard Edition Roadshow 19 Aug 2004 4 Wolf Creek Roadshow 2 Mar 2006 5 Mad Max trilogy Warner 15 Nov 2006 6 Ten Canoes Palace 24 Jan 2007
7 Strictly Ballroom: Special Edition Fox 23 Apr 2003
8 Boytown Roadshow 21 Feb 2007
9 Strictly Ballroom: Fabulous Edition MGM 1 Nov 2006
10 Babe UIP 12 Jul 1999 Source: Australian Film Commission (AFC) analysis of GfK Marketing data in AFC (2008c),
Australian share of retail video titles in 2007, media release, Australian Film Commission.
* Ranked by value of retail sales.
‘Australian horror’: An emerging brand in the marketplace and cult directors
With burgeoning productivity and increasing levels of domestic and international
success in cinema and video markets, Australian horror films are establishing a
‘brand’ in the global marketplace. In recent years ‘Australian horror’ – and associated
terms ‘Aussie horror’ and ‘horror from down-under’ – is increasingly fuelling
consumption and demand for local horror films. As illustrated in an international
horror fanzine review in late 2007: ‘Fans of Australian horror will be happy to hear
this one: Storm Warning, another horror movie from Australia, is coming out on DVD
on February 5 [2008] for your demented pleasure.’30 Indeed, the most recent crop of
horror films, following Wolf Creek, are being reviewed and consumed as ‘Australian
30 (http://www.bloodee.com/HorrorNewsReviews/Storm-Warning-DVD).
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horror’: Fangoria.com reviewed Black Water as an ‘Australian horror-thriller’; Storm
Warning was promoted as, ‘The rain runs red when a stranded couple is terrorized in
the Aussie shocker Storm Warning’;31 and Aintitcool.com reviewed Rogue as an
‘Aussie monster croc movie’,32 among many other examples.
However, the constitution of the brand in the marketplace is less straightforward, with
this label part aesthetic and part geographic. On the one hand, this brand accounts for
distinctively Australian horror films. Some of the most successful Australian horror
films in recent years, particularly those receiving the widest release, have been
culturally specific films with an Australian identity. As we have seen, both Wolf
Creek and Undead were characterised by representations of the Australian landscape
and stereotypes of ‘Australianness’. Recent releases have continued this trend. Greg
Mclean’s Rogue follows the story of a group of tourists hunted by a monstrous
crocodile in the picturesque but dangerous Northern Territory; in Black Water, three
people are trapped in a tree and stalked by a crocodile in unforgiving Australian
mangroves; and the villains in Storm Warning are subverted representations of typical
Australian male stereotypes found in myriad Australian films (rough-hewn larrikins).
Consequently, the term ‘Australian horror’ generates notions of horror in typically
Australian landscapes, featuring Australian monsters/animals, and in many cases
distinct and stereotypical representations of Australianness.
On the other hand, with non-culturally specific films comprising a large portion of
Australian horror production in recent years, the emerging Australian horror market
label also encompasses quite simply domestically produced horror films produced by
Australian filmmakers. Horror fans around the globe are eagerly awaiting the release
of the Spierig Brothers’ non-culturally specific Daybreakers. Nonetheless, the
‘Australian’ label is attached to the film based on the origins of its production:
‘Australian horror veterans Peter and Michael Spierig … wrote and will helm the
high-concept project’ (Siegel 2007).33 Moreover, rarely is Saw discussed without
reference to the origins of its filmmakers. In some cases, the Saw franchise is 31 The 2008 February issue of the Fangoria magazine, found at: http://www.fangoria.com/current_issue.php [Accessed 14 February 2008). 32 http://www.aintitcool.com/node/33660. 33 Available: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3id3ec9414fe7306f8d7999e5916c94219 [Accessed 13 February 2008).
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confused as Australian on account of this: ‘a hit Aussie horror flick has left British
cinema-goers fainting in their seats at the gruesome scenes. UK medics have warned
audiences off Saw III, the latest offering from millionaire Melbourne filmmakers
Leigh Whannell and James Wan’ (Hudson 2006).
However, it must be stressed that a large number of Australian horror films,
particularly cult and long-tail titles, circulate in global video markets without the
attached label of ‘Australian’, and the emerging market brand for Australian horror
films has emerged following Wolf Creek’s release in 2005. This brand is not a cultural
label in that it does not encompass notions of quality Australian content or positive
representations of Australianness and national identity; rather, it is a loosely derived
aesthetic construct which audiences and fanzines are beginning to use to identify,
consume and categorise Australian horror films.
Connected with this issue, and in part contributing to the development of this brand in
the marketplace, has been the emergence of several home-grown internationally
renowned cult-status horror directors at the forefront of Australian horror production.
As we have seen, the primary ‘star’ of the horror film in conjunction with the monster
is the film’s director, becoming a selling point for individual titles, and a brand-name
in his or her own right. Outlined in the epigraph to this section, throughout the 2000s
Australia has emerged as an important wellspring for the ‘new masters of horror’
(Douglas 2005). Saw’s Leigh Whannell and James Wan have become leading figures
in the global horror sector, and the Spierig Brothers, following Undead’s cult success,
and Greg Mclean, following Wolf Creek, have developed strong international cult
followings.
Adding to the calibre of this already impressive list is Melbourne filmmaker Jamie
Blanks. Beginning his career overseas with the US slasher films Urban Legends
(1998) and Valentine (2001), Blanks has recently returned ‘down under’, becoming a
flagship director for Australian horror production. He directed Storm Warning and the
remake of the classic Long Weekend (2008). The emergence of several brand-name
directors is a major boon to the sector’s development: it translates directly into
international presales and bargaining power for producers with funding entities and
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distributors (as they can factor their reputations into economic models and pre-sales),
and it generates pre-existing audiences for their films.
Two phases of development
Australian horror production throughout the 2000s is characterised by two distinct
phases of development. Before the commercial success of Saw and Wolf Creek by the
end of 2005, the first half of the 2000s was largely a period of transition. Following
the 1990s, mainstream Australian horror production was in a process of
(re)establishing itself within the Australian film industry, and was still a highly
marginal strand of domestic production. Moreover, early 2000s horror films emerged
during a period of evolving global audiovisual production with expanding home-video
DVD markets superseding VHS video as the genre de jour for home-viewing; indie
filmmaking was emerging as a predominant low-budget filmmaking practice; digital
video was replacing video as the dominant shooting-gauge for low-budget production;
and the internet was still developing as an online distribution platform. Saw and Wolf
Creek mark the turning-point for Australian horror production. The bifurcation
between ‘pre’- and ‘post’-Saw and Wolf Creek production is clearly illustrated in
productivity. The 2000s has seen the trebling of 1990s production, from a meagre 19
films to over 60 films (see Table 9). However, of these, 20 films were produced
before 2005 while in the space of three years over 40 films have been produced or are
in development. So while the first half of the decade had already equalled 1990s
production, after Wolf Creek, production doubled again.
The first phase: Australian horror production in the early 2000s
By the turn of the century, following the renaissance of horror as a popular genre in
mainstream cinema markets, the first wave of mainstream horror films was led by
domestic sales agents, distributors and commercial producers driven largely by strong
demand for horror films in international markets. Representing a major rupture with
the status quo within the Australian film industry and an attempt to embrace
commercial filmmaking practices, the first mainstream Australian horror film to
emerge in almost a decade was the slasher Cut (2000). As one reviewer wrote, ‘the
film [Cut] I’m writing about is an Australian horror movie, which is pretty
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unprecedented. Most Australian movies are either serious and meaningful, or
painfully quirky comedies. For a totally unabashed commercial film to be produced is
rare’ (OZ 2000). The film revolved around a group of film students setting out to
complete the fictional 1980s horror film Hot Blooded many years after its director
was brutally murdered and production was halted. However, whoever tries to
complete the film awakens a terrible curse, and as the film’s tag-line puts it, the
protagonists must ‘finish the film … before it finishes them’.
Without a vibrant and ongoing mainstream production tradition, production models
were uncertain. Within this vacuum, films were largely influenced by international
production and market cycles. Backed by Beyond International, one of Australia’s
largest international sales agents, the film was a commercial attempt to enter the
popular teen-slasher cycle dominating the horror genre’s share of global markets at
the time. Emerging following the worldwide success of Wes Craven’s Scream (1996),
the teen-slasher cycle – Scream, Scream II (1997), Scream III (2000); I Know What
You Did Last Summer (1997), I still Know What You Did Last Summer II (1998);
Urban Legend I (1998), Urban Legend II (2000), and myriad others – was largely
characterised by its postmodern, self-reflexive humour, a ‘hot’ exploitative celebrity
‘teen’ cast (Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe among
many others), teen-themes and smooth production values. Cut was an Australian
attempt to emulate this model. The film included ‘typical post-Scream film reference
style of humour, except … done with Australian flavour’ (OZ 2000). Cut’s cast was
comprised of US import Molly Ringwald (Teaching Mrs Tingle 1999 & Requiem for
Murder 1999), Australian television and film stars Jessica Napier (All Saints 1998–
present, Police Rescue 1991–96 and Water Rats 1996–2001) and Stephen Curry (from
the Aussie cult-hit The Castle 1997) and a cameo from pop singer and Australian
cultural icon Kylie Minogue. Attempting to compete head-on against international
titles, Cut drew upon comparatively sophisticated special effects produced by the
Make-Up Effects Group with The Matrix (1999) on their client list and a soundtrack
‘featuring some of Australia’s hottest new bands’ courtesy of Mushroom Records
(Beyond Films 2000a: 5).
In 2000, producer Chris Brown, in partnership with one of Australia’s most
experienced producers, David Hannay, produced the A$5 million demonic horror
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Cubbyhouse (2001) (Beyond Films 2000b), a story about Australian Lynn Graham
and her American-born children’s return to Australia after a failed marriage. They
move into an old ramshackle house with a quaint cubbyhouse near her sister. But the
cubbyhouse is possessed by a demon, casting a spell over whoever plays in it – and it
wants victims. Unsurprisingly, considering the vacuum from which mainstream
horror films were emerging, Cubbyhouse was ‘in a similar vein to the slasher film
Cut’ (Prisk 1999b). The film drew upon US import actor Joshua Leonard, from The
Blair Witch Project, supported by local actors Belinda McClory (The Matrix) and
Craig McLachlan (various Australian television programs and music fame), and
special effects ‘for an increasingly sophisticated audience suckled on American horror
fare’ (Boland 2001: 22). Becker Entertainment, one of Australia’s larger independent
distributors, made its own push for teen audiences with the sci-fi horror Subterano
(2003). The film is set in a futuristic world. A group of civilians trapped in an
underground carpark are forced to play a deadly game against a ‘gaming’ master
controlling killer remote-controlled toys. This film adopted similar production
elements: a comparatively high budget of A$6.3 million, an attempt at a high-concept
story, a cast including Australian actor Alex Dimitriades and special effects.
Despite relatively strong budgets and backing from some of Australia’s largest
domestic industry players, this renewed commercial horror push was a dismal failure
in its intended cinema markets. Opening on 100 screens across Australia, Cut failed at
the box office and was savaged by domestic critics. Yet Cut was the first time Beyond
International had ‘actively sold a genre film’ into global markets, and presales
exceeded ‘any result the company had managed from other films at previous markets’
(Prisk 1999b). Cubbyhouse failed to secure domestic cinema release, although
receiving theatrical release in France, and sold into 14 international regions.
Subterano, receiving the worst critical reception of the three, failed to secure cinema
release, and disappeared into video store ‘$1 dollar bargain bins’. As one reviewer put
it, ‘depth: there isn’t any. You can see the actors trying hard to breathe life into the
script but it’s like trying to blow up a rubber glove with the fingers chopped off’
(Cinematic Intelligence Agency 2003). For many horror filmmakers and aficionados,
the critical and mainstream failure of these films impacted negatively upon the
sector’s development, damaging the reputation of Australian horror films, which by
virtue of having little to no reputation at all, was neither bad nor respectable (the
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reasons for their criticism are examined in Chapter 5). As Undead’s Peter Spierig
argued, Cut ‘that’s a film I know didn’t receive any positive reviews … And it
definitely hurt us. And it hurt genre pictures in Australia’ (Peter Spierig, quoted in
Latauro 2003).
Production for video markets
Australian horror filmmakers were turning their attention towards expanding video
markets by the late 1990s. Although straight-to-video release had been largely
devalued within Australian cinema – and to an extent still is – the growth of DVD
markets in parallel with the global recovery of the horror genre enticed many
producers to target international video markets through low-budget genre production.
A key example is the production company Empire Motion Pictures. In 1999, after
Empire secured release into lucrative US home-video markets (although failing to
secure domestic release) for the sci-fi horror The Demons in My Head through US
distributor Raven Pictures International, Empire was urging other Australian
producers to target the ‘healthy returns’ international video markets can offer (Prisk
1999a). Working with genre specialist Chris Brown as executive producer, Empire
made another push for US video markets with the slasher To Become One (2002)
(Prisk 1999a).
Becker Films, in particular, targeted video markets in the early 2000s, with the
production of three genre straight-to-video titles each with budgets of A$1 million and
released on VHS video: the horror film Moloch (2000), about three university
students searching for gold and their struggle for survival against a territorial mutant;
the horror movie Scratch (2000), about a violent reality TV show; and Body Jackers
(2001), a science-fiction film about alien-cloning in the outback. However, while
video markets had undergone significant growth since the 1980s, VHS was waning as
a viewing format, a problem exacerbated further by grossly underdeveloped scripts
(Lightfoot 2007). Consequently, these titles disappeared into video markets.
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High-end indie horror production
By the late 1990s, in parallel with international trends, indie production was emerging
as a dominant modus operandi for Australian low-budget-filmmakers, and for one
commentator, ‘low-budget filmmakers’ were ‘no longer willing to wait for
government assistance’ and were taking independent routes to production (Mooney
1998). Most importantly, by the end of the 1990s, such production was becoming ‘one
of the fastest growing sectors’ of the broader Australian film industry (Mooney 1998).
While mainstream horror production driven by sales agents and distributors was
emerging at one end of the spectrum, independent productions drawing upon private
finance and innovative production strategies were also emerging. High-end indie
production (the characteristics of which are explored in detail in Chapter 5), although
undeniably influenced by booming horror markets, were responding largely to
domestic industry conditions in entrepreneurial ways. Produced on a budget drawn
from ‘life savings and financial contributions from friends and family’ (Scheib 2003),
Undead, as we have seen, has become a highly popular cult title. While the film was
produced ‘entirely for the love of it by people who are driven by a single-minded
determination to break into the big time’ (Scheib 2003), the film’s independent
production was determined in part by the limitations of the Australian film industry’s
financing environment and the marginalisation of the horror genre. As Peter Spierig
reflects, ‘we have in the past tried to get government funding for short films, script
development on another feature film we have written and have been rejected at the
very first stage every time. And we just became incredibly frustrated. We had won
numerous short film awards, the most recent one that won was best picture, and we
still couldn’t get funding’ (Hoskin 2003: 24). As Michael Spierig reveals, ‘we
personally have been told from government funding bodies that we shouldn’t be
making genre pictures … That they’re best left to the Americans ... which doesn’t
make sense to me, because the Japanese make some pretty damn good genre pictures’
(Hoskin 2003: 24).
However, indie production models provided ambitious filmmakers with a means of
bypassing domestic production barriers. Martin Murphy’s supernatural horror Lost
Things, a low-budget indie horror, followed the story of four teenagers – Emily,
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Tracy, Garry, and Brad – escaping to a secluded beach for the weekend. After the
protagonists meet ‘Zippo’ a strange beachcomber who warns them to leave, they
begin experiencing disturbing Déjà Vu, fragments of mysterious murders begin
unraveling, and time begins to ‘slip’, as they are trapped in a nightmarish time warp.
For its filmmakers, after working ‘in the industry for years’ and not wanting to spend
‘the best years of their lives trapped in development’, Lost Things gave them the
‘control’ to be ‘the filmmakers we wanted to be’ (Hoskin 2005: 18). Critically, some
have argued the film would have had greater appeal as a conventional slasher film,
while other have praised the film for its multiple layers of reality and a difficult non-
linear narrative: ‘the film proves that it’s the range of your imagination and the quality
of storytelling not the size of your budget that ultimately matters’ (Urban 2004).
Receiving a narrow domestic cinematic release, Lost Things played at 11 festivals in
18 months, sold into 22 countries, and producers have negotiated with international
distributor Sony for a US remake following a more conventional horror plotline.
Low-end credit-card production
Meanwhile, the rise of higher-quality, low-cost DV production and the lowering of
barriers to production saw the emergence of an undercurrent of micro-budget credit-
card films. While DV production was widespread by the turn of the century, the
quality gap between digital video and 35 mm film (and even 16 mm) was enough to
limit most DV production to pro-am production – in other words, amateur films that
would never receive any form of release. Consequently, early high-end indie
productions and low-budget mainstream straight-to-video titles were shot on various
gauges from Betacam to Super 16 (Undead – super 16; Scratch – Digital Betacam;
Moloch – Digital Betacam).
By 2002, DV was becoming the norm for credit-card horror films, with the emergence
of The Killbillies (2002), In Blood (2002) and Reign in Darkness (2002). Receiving
the widest audience, Reign in Darkness is the story of ‘molecular biologist Michael
Dorn’ who is ‘accidentally infected with a new virus he is developing, turning him
and its other victims into a new breed of vampire’34 (the film’s commercial
34 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0351639 [Accessed 17 April 2008].
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performance is discussed in Chapters 5 and 6). One of the most significant, but largely
unknown, early underground films was James Wan’s first feature, Stygian35 (2000;
co-directed with Shannon Young), made four years before he achieved worldwide
fame with Saw. Unreleased, the film is about a young couple separated in the hellish
world Exile after discovering a mystical talisman and Jamie’s struggle to rescue
Melinda. Emerging during a period of transition, Stygian is one of the few
underground indie productions not shot on DV.
The second phase: Post-Saw and Wolf Creek
The sharp growth and development of Australian horror production in recent years
has been triggered by Saw and Wolf Creek. Their impact upon domestic production
emanates from their global success, but also their origins as production strategies. In
parallel with previously discussed 2000s low-budget mainstream titles and high-end
indie films, Saw and Wolf Creek overcame difficult domestic production and
financing barriers through entrepreneurial production models.
Ironically, although having a major impact on the growth of Australian horror
production, ‘Melbourne filmmakers, James Wan [director] and Leigh Whannell [actor
and screenwriter], couldn’t raise a buck locally for their horror film Saw’ (Shore
2007). As Wan comments, ‘after years of trying to get a film off the ground
[following Stygian in 2000], we realized no one would give us money to make a film
… So we decided to sit down, write our own script, and see if we could fund it
ourselves … Saw really came out of that frustration’ (James Wan, quoted in Otto
2004). As Whannell recalls, ‘we wrote it [Saw] as an indie and then when we finished
it, our agent showed it to some producers in Australia and we shopped it around’
(Leigh Whannell, quoted in Fischer 2006). According to Wan, ‘we tried to get it off
the ground in Australia, spent about a year with Australian producers and I guess it’s
just the way it is with funding bodies, finding money’ (James Wan, quoted in Fischer
2006). Undeterred and in the spirit of indie filmmaking, Wan and Whannell tried an
alternative route to production:
35 Interestingly ‘Stygian’ is referenced in Saw as the name of the street where the serial killer, Jigsaw, develops his murderous contraptions.
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Five years ago the Melbourne film school friends were broke, but managed to
scrounge A$5,000 to shoot one disturbing scene from their Saw film script
involving a woman in a head-crushing bear trap. DVD copies of the scene
were sent to Hollywood studios and producers, with Evolution studios
snapping up the rights. In the deal … Whannell and Wan rejected an upfront
payment from Evolution and chose to take a share of Saw’s Profits, a decision
that made them multi-millionaires (N.A. 2007).
While shooting their first major film in the United States is impressive in its own
right, the filmmakers managed to secure their own terms for production. According to
Whannell, ‘they knew if they [US producers] wanted to get involved, James had to
direct and I had to play the lead’:
It’s like the old expression, shooting for the best … The most outrageous thing
we could offer, they [Evolution] said yes to … Other companies were saying
maybe James can direct but Leigh definitely can’t do the lead … Maybe we
can buy the script but James can’t direct. But this particular company
Evolution agreed to all of our terms, which was incredible (Leigh Whannell,
quoted in Fischer 2006).
As a director and screenwriter, Greg Mclean had been identified by public funding
agencies as a talented filmmaker relatively early in his career; however, the road to
production was difficult, with three films in development failing to go into production
and 40 applications for public funding rejected (Mclean 2007). Frustrated by these
hurdles, Mclean wrote Wolf Creek originally conceived as a low-budget indie film:
I was definitely in an extremely aggressive mode of existence because I’d
been trying to get a film out for a long time. Rogue was the first one I wrote
but it didn’t get made for different reasons [Rogue was eventually produced in
2006]. Then I had a few other near runs … and it was getting extremely
frustrating. I was broke and I had a lot of angst so I hurried into Wolf Creek
and all of my aggression about trying to make a movie made it into this movie
(Mclean, quoted in Epstein 2005).
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From producer David Lightfoot’s (2008) perspective:
I understood exactly where he was coming from because basically he’s an
auteur, but a very different auteur in the sense that he’s a very commercial
oriented auteur … a walking encyclopedia on genre … He wanted to work
with a producer who would let him be part of the producing as well … so he
could actually do his movie without people trying to screw around … with his
scripts … Together with Matt Hearn … we thought we have to get him over
the line, let’s find something we can do cheaply that he’s got … He had a
project called The Driver which is essentially Wolf Creek but it had 12 victims
… It was too big … and Greg very quickly picked up on that and came up
with the first draft of Wolf Creek … and suddenly it had three victims.
Finance was secured through private investors, with Matt Hearn mortgaging his house
and securing finance from friends and family, while Lightfoot sold his house to make
the film and lived off the money for a year while the film was developed (Lightfoot
2007). The SAFC and FFC eventually provided finance – even though the FFC were
‘deeply suspicious of non-market player private investment’ (Lightfoot 2007) and
‘certain members of the FFC in those days were certainly anti-genre’ (Lightfoot 2008)
– thanks largely to SAFC’s then CEO Judie Crombie’s ‘belief in the promise of Greg
and his script’, Lightfoot’s track-record (40 films), and his ‘past relationship with the
SAFC’ (Lightfoot 2007).
Saw and Wolf Creek’s impact upon the Australian film industry
The cult success of Undead offered the Australian film industry, a global audience
and international distributors the first indication that Australia can produce ‘quality’
genre films competitive in global markets. The release of Saw in the following year
stimulated further interest in independent Australian horror production, and ‘reignited
discussions about Australian low-budget genre film and its place in the global
commercial arena’ (Trbic 2005: 45). However, following the failure of Cut and the
early mainstream films that followed, in conjunction with the absence of a vibrant
mainstream tradition throughout the 1990s, few backed the emergence of a sustained
stream of successful Australian horror films – particularly one significant enough to
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attract the attention of public funding agencies. For one commentator, ‘whether the
emerging series of low budget projects heralds a sea change in the funding of
Australian genre films is yet to be seen, although it remains highly unlikely’ (Trbic
2005: 47). Moreover, their impact upon Australian filmmaking practices was arguably
diluted, with Saw technically a ‘runaway’ production and its success in part a result of
Lion’s Gate’s backing, and Undead reaching audiences predominantly in video
markets.
As previously discussed, a major criticism of Australian horror films in previous
decades has been their failure to master the horror genre, resulting in the production
of bastardised genre films. Therefore, Saw and Wolf Creek proved to the broader
industry and the world that Australian filmmakers can produce overtly commercial
films competitive against international titles, with strong command of the horror genre
– both high-concept non-cultural and culturally specific horror films. The rise of
Australian horror production, the visibility of which is single-handedly attributable to
these films, has sparked renewed interest in Australian genre production. As the CEO
of the Pacific Film and Television Commission (PFTC), Robin James, emphatically
argued, ‘“if you’re an independent producer and you want to make production your
business, you can’t afford to ignore the horror genre”’ (James, quoted in Shore 2007).
This represents a major shift in how the horror genre is perceived within Australian
cinema.
In the late 1990s, writer-director Bill Bennett (1998) argued that ‘Australians rarely
make pure genre films such as thrillers, horror flicks or action films. Genre is such a
Hollywood thing, and goes hand-in-hand with commerce … Australia has never had
to make genre-films’ because of the public funding environment ‘and rarely bothers to
try’ (Bennett, quoted in George 1998). However, with the release of Wolf Creek, Saw
and Undead, followed by a flood of titles in their wake, including Storm Warning,
Rogue, Gabriel, Black Water, Lake Mungo (2007) and Prey (2008) – many of which
have sold widely around the globe – horror films are becoming a serious production
option for Australian producers. As a commentator has observed:
If the Australian film industry dropped the ball by allowing the Saw horror
franchise to slip through its fingers, it was a mistake they weren’t going to
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make twice … After decades of industry snobbery, did Wolf Creek throw open
the floodgates to rivers of cinematic blood? With the current swathe of scary
flicks … the answer appears to be a resounding ‘yes’ (Kroenert 2007: 28).
Specialist dark-genre screenwriter Shane Krause, who wrote the chiller Acolytes
(2007) in partnership with Shayne Armstrong, provides useful insight into reasons for
the growing acceptance of the horror genre:
We went down to Sydney with two screenplays and we’d been working on
Kraal [an unproduced horror script] and it wasn't even finished … We had
another project there, which was a traditional Australian film, kind of a World
War Two drama, and that was the one I was more confident in and we had
about twenty producers lined up to see over a week. This was about five years
ago [2002] and I didn't want to take the horror film out of the suitcase. I felt
embarrassed talking about it to Australian producers … It finally came out of
the suitcase and that was the one that at every meeting producers were more
interested in as soon as we started talking about it – that was a real eye opener.
The reason was that producers [were thinking], “oh yeah, I could actually
make this. I don't need $100 million” … Maybe Australian producers over the
last few years have also realized they can't be so insular. They need to find
money from overseas and to do that they need a project understood and
appreciated overseas by whoever funds these things (Armstrong & Krause
2007).
An international reputation and international distributors
Is Australia about to become the horror capital of the world? (Sutherland
2007)
With the breakout mainstream success of Saw, Wolf Creek and to lesser extent
Undead, Australia is arguably becoming an internationally integrated hub or ‘hot
spot’ for independent horror production. International distributors increasingly
looking abroad for ‘new ideas’ and the acquisition of low-budget horror films have
turned their attention towards Australian horror production, opening the doors to
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international finance – in particular, financing high-budget horror films. This inflow
of investment is fuelling the sector’s growth. After the worldwide success of Wolf
Creek, the film’s distributor, the Weinstein Company, green-lit Greg Mclean’s
follow-up film, Rogue, with a budget of A$28 million; it became the highest-budget
Australian horror film ever to hit the cinema screens. Following the Weinstein
Company’s lead, Arclight Films International launched a new Melbourne office
devoted to the ‘acquisition and production’ of Australian genre film (Darclight Films
2006a). Lion’s Gate has since financed the Spierig Brothers’ follow-up vampire film,
Daybreakers, with a budget of A$25 million, while Sony acquired the distribution
rights for the high-end indie film Gabriel.
High-definition as a shooting-gauge
Wolf Creek has also had a major impact upon the adoption of HD as a shooting gauge.
Before Wolf Creek’s production, HD (a higher quality version of standard DV) was
largely unproven as a shooting gauge and shrouded in rumours about technical
glitches (many founded during HD’s infancy), which effectively prevented the
widespread adoption of the format for domestic feature film production. Originally
planning to shoot the film on standard DV, at the urging of Wolf Creek and Rogue’s
cinematographer Will Gibson, Mclean opted for the unproven alternative, a decision
both Greg Mclean and producer David Lightfoot have attributed, in part, to the film’s
success (Lightfoot 2007; Mclean 2007). With HD closing the quality gap on 35 mm
film – currently the highest quality and most expensive shooting format for feature
film production – while providing filmmakers with a cheaper shooting format, Mclean
was able to lower production costs, achieve relatively high-quality production values,
and ultimately produce a A$5 million film for a production budget of A$1 million
(Making of Wolf Creek 2006). Following the film’s release, low-budget mainstream
and high-end indie films, many of which are achieving cinema release, are embracing
HD production. Recent examples include Gabriel, Acolytes (2007) and Black Water.
Enterprise characteristics
An increasing number of emerging production companies are beginning to specialise
in horror production. As a commercial production strategy, the horror genre is
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becoming a growth strategy for many production companies, and a profitable means
for more traditional non-genre producers36 to diversify and supplement production
slates. For horror specialists, producers are also diversifying production slates across a
range of genres (particularly thrillers, action films and teen films) in an attempt to
spread risk and to better respond to market cycles. While much of Australian horror
production remains small-scale project-by-project-based and indie production, there
has been growth in enterprise structures in recent years.
The launch of the Melbourne office for Darclight Films, a division of Arclight Films
headed by prominent Australian executive-producer Garry Hamilton and the US
international sales agent, finance and lower to middle-tier distribution company in the
Australian market,37 has been a major development for Australian horror production.
Darclight is a unique production entity engaged in Australian feature film production,
benefiting from the scale and enterprise structure of Arclight. Within four years of its
inception, Arclight has sold over 60 motion pictures worldwide, established a sales
presence at international film markets and, since moving into production, has
launched ambitious plans to produce between six and 10 features per annum.
Dedicated to the production of mid- to higher end action, thriller and horror films
(Turk 2007), Darclight has already had a significant impact upon Australian horror
production. Since selling Wolf Creek to international distributors, Darclight has
commenced production with Storm Warning, directed by Jamie Blanks, with US
theatrical rights selling to Weinstein. Darclight has also recently produced Dying
Breed and Long Weekend, and will sell the chiller Acolytes and the psychological
horror The Fury (2008) into international markets.
A division of one of Australia’s largest entertainment consortiums, The Mushroom
Group, Mushroom Pictures, launched its foray into feature film production with the
slasher film Cut (2000). Under the umbrella of an entertainment conglomerate,
benefiting from legal advice, streamlined cash-flows, no overheads and other ‘un-
36 For example, George Miller, renowned for the iconic The Man from Snowy River and the international film The Never Ending Story II: The Next Chapter (1990), recently directed the supernatural horror film Prey (2007); and Richard Stewart and Penny Wall, from a television background, produced the chiller Acolytes. 37 Arclight Films has three divisions: Arclight Films, dealing in art-house/specialty films; Darclight Films, specialising in action, thriller and horror films; and Easternlight Films, specialising in Asian films across all genres.
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traded interdependencies’38 (Fabinyi 2007), Mushroom has produced on average one
feature film per annum, along with a substantial volume of television production.
Throughout the 2000s, Mushroom has had associated involvement with prominent
horror titles Wolf Creek and Storm Warning. Although branching out into a range of
genres such as crime (Getting Square (2003), Chopper (2000)) and thrillers (Macbeth
2006), horror remains a predominant production strategy. In 2006, Mushroom
collaborated with the Pacific Film and Television Commission (PFTC) on a script
development initiative designed ‘to develop a series of horror genre films specifically
with the potential for an electronic game-spinoff’ (Mushroom Pictures 2006).
Headed by Chris Brown39 and Chris Fitchett,40 two of the Australian film industry’s
most experienced filmmakers, the Gold Coast-based production company Pictures in
Paradise is another emerging horror specialist. Three of the company’s six features
are horror films: Cubbyhouse; The Locals (a New Zealand horror film) and
Daybreakers. With Wolf Creek’s Greg Mclean and David Lightfoot’s production
companies, Emu Creek Pictures and Ultra Films respectively, receiving back-end
returns from the film’s success and now with access to international finance, both
companies have experienced growth in production capacity. Shorris Films, an
emerging production company co-located in Melbourne and Los Angeles, and run by
Australian filmmaker and website entrepreneur Clint Morris,41 in collaboration with
US actor Christopher Showerman (George of the Jungle 2), has aggressively
embraced horror as a production strategy, launching the development of three horror
films: Howl (2008), Condition Dead (2008) and Rampage (2008). Clint Morris also
has an executive producer credit on the indie horror Dead Country (2008).
38 Untraded interdependencies are externalities with positive spillover effects for members of a cluster, a network or a business partnership. 39 Brown was named Independent Producer of the Year in 2004 by the Screen Producers’ Association of Australia, has over 20 years of experience in the film/entertainment industries, and has 24 feature credits to his name as producer/executive producer. 40 Fitchett has industry experience as a writer, director and producer, and was recently appointed the permanent chief executive of the AFC until 30 June 2008. 41 Founder of the website www.moviehole.com.
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Commercial film practices and exploitation
Serialisation and franchising are integral to the business of horror film production.
The vast majority of successful horror titles spawn sequels and lucrative franchises,
opening up television series, graphic novel adaptations, toys and merchandise,
documentaries, and many other ancillaries. However, emerging within a cultural
industry lacking sophisticated enterprise structures and limited commercial
filmmaking practices (Long 2005), until recently Australian horror production had
never produced a sequel, a franchise series or a remake of a successful horror title –
although a sequel to Patrick made it to draft-form and Saw has Australian roots.
Nonetheless, arguably a result of increasing relations with international distributors
and the emergence of sales agents as players within domestic horror production, there
are early signs that Australian horror films are adopting international commercial
filmmaking practices.
In a landmark development, the first ever remake of a classic Australian horror film –
Long Weekend (2008), penned by Everett De Roche – has been produced. At the 2005
SPAA Fringe Festival, Wolf Creek’s producer, David Lightfoot, announced Wolf
Creek sequels were in the pipeline. Darclight is also looking to cash in on Wolf
Creek’s brand in the marketplace, and the international standing of Jamie Blanks,
promoting Storm Warning as follows: ‘The people who brought you Wolf Creek and
the director of Urban Legend take terror to the extreme!’ (Darclight Films 2006b).
Even this tag-line has a Hollywood feel to it – a feel the broader Australian film
industry has avoided in previous decades. Producers have also moved to exploit the
international reputations of Greg Mclean and The Spierig Brothers in the marketing of
Rogue and Daybreakers respectively.
Rekindling a 1980s ethos, producers (and distributors) are embracing overt
exploitation. The recent domestic box office release Gabriel is arguably one of
Australia’s more exploitative films in recent times. Exploitation here does not come in
the form of gratuitous sex, nudity and explicit violence, but rather exploitative
marketing and the film’s derivative nature. Produced on a meagre budget, the film
was promoted by distributor Sony as a high-octane, action-packed Hollywood
blockbuster in the vein of The Matrix and Underworld, with many Australian viewers
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lured to cinemas on this basis. The reality, however, is soberingly different. Gabriel
was essentially a character-driven drama with limited action sequences. Moreover, as
a ‘derivative film’ drawing overtly upon the stylistic and thematic tropes of The
Matrix, Underworld and The Crow among several others, the film clearly targets
similar audiences but, despite an intriguing high-concept premise, brings little new to
audiences and cannot compete against the originals driven by quality action sequences
and sophisticated special effects. As critic David Stratton (2007) puts it, Gabriel ‘has
the look of … a poor man’s The Matrix’. This is not to say that Gabriel is a bad film –
it generated a bipolar response from audiences, developing a cult following while
other viewers were far from impressed; rather, the film is packaged in an exploitative
way to appeal to a mainstream audience, while concealing the film’s ‘indie nature’.
During the early 1990s, Brophy sought to bring his tasteless blood and guts
extravaganza Body Melt to mainstream Australian audiences through an exploitative
cast of Australian television personalities: Gerard Kennedy (Flying Doctors, All-
Saints and Neighbours); Ian Smith (playing the character of Harold Bishop in
Neighbours); Lisa McCune (Blue Heelers and more recently Sea Patrol); and Andrew
Daddo, among many others. While contemporary horror titles are yet to match Body
Melt’s bravado, producers are increasingly drawing upon popular Australian
television and film stars, and to lesser extent international talent, to attract audiences
in a similar vein to 1980s production trends.
US actor Jim Caviezel and French actress Nadia Fares starred in Long Weekend and
Storm Warning respectively. Former Neighbours star and Australian acting export
Radha Mitchell led the cast of Richard Franklin’s Visitors and Greg Mclean’s Rogue.
Jessica Napier, playing roles in the previously outlined Australian television
programs, acted in Cut and Safety in Numbers. Nathan Phillips from Wolf Creek fame,
since playing a role in the international thriller/horror Snakes on a Plane (2006),
starred in Dying Breed alongside Saw actor and co-creator Leigh Whannell.
Interestingly, veteran Australian actor John Jarratt, better known for his role on the
television program Better Homes and Gardens before playing Mick Taylor in Wolf
Creek, has now featured in a handful of Australian ‘horror’ films: the classic Picnic at
Hanging Rock, the ghost thriller Next of Kin (1982) and the crocodile films Dark Age
(1987) and Rogue.
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Conclusion
This chapter has explored the broad nature of contemporary Australian horror
production, the most productive and commercially successful era in the history of
Australian horror films. More specifically, it examined productivity levels and
production spend; the nature of production budgets in comparison to broader industry
budget expenditure; the nature of the films emerging; and the breakout of key titles in
national and global cinema and video markets. The 2000s have been characterised by
two phases of growth. The first was a period of transition following the 1990s, with
uncertain mainstream production models, and the increasing visibility of underground
indie titles. The second phase of development, triggered by the international success
of Wolf Creek and Saw, witnessed an increase in international interest in the sector by
international distributors, resulting in international inputs flowing into production.
The following chapter now turns to mainstream and underground production,
financing and distribution models.
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CHAPTER 5: FINANCING, PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION MODELS The previous chapter outlined broad emerging trends characterising the sector’s
growth; this chapter investigates the specific ‘industry’ dynamics of contemporary
films. The boom in contemporary horror production has resulted in a transformation
of production practices, from disparate, infrequent small-scale production to a
promising, but volatile, internationally integrated production sector. With Australian
horror production virtually drying up throughout the 1990s – and, as Hood (1994: 1)
observes, a ‘tradition’ was even ‘perhaps a generous term’ – horror has rarely been
discussed as a tradition, let alone a sector. However, with burgeoning productivity,
increasing specialisation within horror production, the development of enterprise
structures, and increasing levels of scale and production capacity, Australian horror
production is once more a distinctive strand of genre production within the broader
Australian film industry.
Figure 3: Production models and horror production’s tier structure
Spheres of production
Mainstream horror production
(A$30 mil–$1 mil)
High-end indie production
(A$100,000–$1 mil)
Underground horror production
(A$1,000–$100,000)
Rogue Daybreakers
Wolf Creek
Undead Gabriel
I Know How Many Runs …
Killbillies
Reign in Darkness
• Internationally financed production
• Co-productions
• Sales agent/distributor driven production
• Low-to mid-range independent production
• High-end indie filmmaking traditions (with greater access to networks and finance)
• Indie filmmaking traditions (blurring with pro-am production)
Production models
As illustrated in Figure 3 – a more detailed version of Figure 1 – while production
models are heterogeneous, varying for each individual production, several primary
productions strategies identifiable within the sector’s dual industry structure are
emerging. For mainstream production, these are low- to mid-budget independently
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financed production, sales agent/distributor-driven production models, and
internationally financed horror production; and for high-end indie and underground,
they are credit-card indie production models. While co-productions are also a primary
mainstream production model, they are examined as their own discrete category
below. The following production models are differentiated by budget sizes and
production scale, sources of finance, and the extent to which they draw upon
international inputs.
Mainstream production
Budget ranges: A$1 million–A$30 million
Financial sources: International; private; public finance
Markets: Cinema and video markets
Production models: low- to mid-range independent production
Sales agent/distributor-driven production
Internationally financed production
Low-to-mid range budget independent production
The majority of low- to mid-range independent horror production is driven by
independent producers (rather than distributors or financed predominantly by public
finance) and small-scale production companies looking to cash in on booming horror
markets and high returns from comparatively low budgets. In particular, horror
production is a popular production strategy for fledgling production companies. One
of the first productions for the New South Wales-based production company All at
Once, producing the FFC-backed Me Myself: Sometimes (2007) and currently with
several publicly funded films in production or development, was the A$1–$1.5
million psychological thriller/horror Feed. As writer and head of development Kieran
Galvin explains:
Whilst we don’t have a genre-driven business plan at AAO, we recognise the
potential of the market and may make niche films in the future but we do not
currently have any on our slate. It just comes down to finding a good script
with some commercial appeal (Galvin 2006).
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The horror genre is also a core commercial production strategy for Top Cat Films, a
Victorian-based production company. Currently with a diverse slate of 15 productions
in development or production, from the low-budget horror film Prey (2008) to the
A$15 million romance, adventure, action epic Dust and Glory (in development), the
company was drawn to the ‘profitability’ and commercial potential of the genre. As
producer Elizabeth Howatt-Jackman explains, drawing upon private finance, ‘there is
no requirement to make “Australian” film’. Consequently, the company is producing
‘two or three horror films’, to ‘set [the company] up financially with a strong capital
base to give us the time to develop projects we are passionate about’ (Howatt-
Jackman 2007).
Such independent films draw upon mixed financial models, a mixture of private and
international finance, with budgets of A$1–3 million. With fluctuating levels of
private investment in Australian film in recent years, many independent productions
with budgets exceeding A$1 million draw to an extent upon international sources.
While Wolf Creek’s A$1.4 million budget was raised through private and public
investment, most of these films do not draw upon public finance unless productions
emerge from the AFC’s Indivision program such as Black Water and Lake Mungo.
Nonetheless, following Wolf Creek’s commercial success, genre films have been
identified as potentially lucrative investment options by investment managers. As
Shaun Berg (2006) argues:
While investing in the Australian film industry carries risk, there are also
potentially substantial financial rewards … One such example is Wolf Creek,
the Australian feature directed by Greg Mclean and released in 2005. For the
small group of private investors behind this highly successful movie, the bet
certainly paid off. Having contributed A$250,000 of Wolf Creek’ s
A$1.38 million total budget, the private investors have since shared in the
film’s gross takings, so far more than A$24 million worldwide – a decent
return on investment if ever there was one. Other aspirant private investors can
certainly learn from the Wolf Creek example.
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A recent film benefiting from renewed private investor confidence in Australian film
is George ‘Snowy’ Miller’s Prey (Miller is the renowned Australian director of The
Man from Snowy River (1982)). With a budget of A$3.5 million, producers advertised
in The West Australian and raised A$1.1 million in private investment through an
investment seminar, levered A$1 million in international finance and raised the
remainder from further private investment (Hull 2007). However, without
experienced producers or strong backing from sales agents or international
distributors with access to international finance, many mainstream productions
struggle to secure similar levels of private investment. George Miller’s international
filmmaking reputation was arguably a key factor in the case of Prey.
As production strategies, such horror films have far superior production values than
underground production, and will often draw upon relatively established television
stars or Australian acting talent, and while most of these titles target cinema markets,
many are distributed into video-markets.
Mid-range budget sales agent/domestic distributor-driven production
A primary emerging model is production driven by domestic sales agents and
distributors. As commercial production strategies, such films are driven by
commercial imperatives and produced specifically to sell widely into international
territories, to appeal directly to international distributors, and to maximise fees to the
sales agent/distributor. Consequently, films driven by sales agents and distributors are
often ‘packaged’ horror films to achieve these commercial priorities. The films
generally draw upon high-profile international and renowned Australia casts; have
mid-range production budgets between A$3 million and A$7 million; often include
the attachment of a renowned director; and are strongly influenced by popular market
cycles.
Finance is drawn from mixed sources, particularly international partnerships enabled
through the enterprise sophistication and scale of the companies driving these
productions. As we have seen, Beyond Films (Cut and Cubbyhouse); Becker Films,
(Subterano, Feed (as a distributor), and several straight-to-video horror titles); and
Darclight (producing Storm Warning, Dying Breed and Long Weekend) are relatively
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large players within the Australian film industry, and draw upon their networks and
partnerships to lever private, international and public finance. Produced for
A$5.2 million, Cut’s finance was secured through national and international
partnerships. Beyond Films (with Gary Hamilton and Mikael Borglund as executive
producers) came on board as a production partner; Australian producers Bill and
Jennifer Bennett were attached to the project and secured production finance from the
South Australian Film Corporation; and international finance (the dominant source of
finance) came from the German production company MBP. The MBP connection was
levered through Bill Bennett’s former dealings with MBP’s head Rainer Mockert,
who took a credit as executive producer (Prisk 1999c).
A major criticism of these production strategies, however, is that they are targeted to
sell widely to distributors, with breaking new generic ground arguably a secondary
consideration. A core problem for Cut, Cubbyhouse and Subterano was that they were
contrived horror films packaged in an attempt to cash in on the horror genre without
sufficient creative input from horror specialists at the cutting edge of the genre’s
development in the marketplace. As Greg Mclean (2007) puts it, ‘those films were
created by sales agents trying to be like American companies … so they’re kind of
gutless as horror films as they weren’t actually driven by anyone credible. It’s like
let’s kind of make a horror film, we kind of know what they’re like, with no thought
to what a horror film is about’ (Mclean 2007).
However, with Darclight aiming to become a major horror producer, future
international sales will increasingly depend upon the commercial performance of
individual titles, developing the need to produce commercially successful titles.
Arguably, as a direct result of the failure of the previous crop of sales agent-driven
titles, production strategies are evolving. While Storm Warning and Long Weekend
produced post-Wolf Creek are still packaged horror films, there is a crucial difference.
They emerge from creative collaboration between director Jamie Blanks and
screenwriter Everette De Roche, both with strong track records in horror production.
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Internationally financed ‘Australian’ horror production
High-end and high-budget, with budgets usually above A$20 million, internationally
financed ‘Australian’ horror films command high-profile and wide release in cinema
markets. Financed entirely or partially by international players – large-scale
production companies, international distributors and to lesser extent studios – whether
or not such horror films are stylistically and thematically ‘Australian’ depends more
on the agency of key creatives than the ‘commercial imperatives’ of the copyright
owners. Since the 1990s, the increasing internationalisation of the Australian film
industry has seen the emergence of high-profile Australian directors (e.g. George
‘Mad Max’ Miller and Baz Luhrmann) working across both local and international
contexts using local crews with high budgets financed by major international studios
(examples include Happy Feet and Moulin Rouge (2001)) (Verhoeven 2006).
Similarly, international distributors, as previously outlined, have invested in the high-
budget follow-up films of prominent contemporary horror directors Greg Mclean and
the Spierig Brothers – with proven-track records and cult-statuses – following the
success of Wolf Creek and Undead respectively.
High-end indie production: Overlap between mainstream and underground
production
Budget ranges: A$100,000–A$1 million
Financial sources: Private; in some cases international finance
Market: Worldwide video markets; cinema
Production models: Indie filmmaking traditions
While there are two primary spheres of horror production, there is a ‘grey’ area of
overlap between mainstream and underground horror production which has resulted in
some of Australia’s most exciting low-budget breakout successes. The differentiation
between the A$28 million Rogue with worldwide theatrical release, and the A$6,000
credit-card film Watch Me (2006), distributed into the US video market, is clearly
evident. However, high-end indie productions naturally fall between these two
spheres of horror production, and although emerging from the underground, become
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mainstream titles. Undead is a prime example. Produced for a budget of almost A$1
million, which was miniscule for the film’s ambitions – a high-octane, action-based
genre film dependent upon relatively sophisticated special effects – the film secured
cinema exhibition and sold widely around the world. However, as Vanderbent (2006:
137) has observed:
Considering its low budget, the results are amazing. The directors undertook
all of the computer animation and graphics work: their computers often didn’t
have the processing power to render a single shot and would crash, on
average, fifteen times per day. The visual effects had to be creative because no
money was available after the first day of shooting. Shooting ended when the
film ran out, and most of the cast and crew were unpaid. Yet the enthusiasm
carried through so that the end product looks like a high-budget film.
Gabriel is another example. Emerging from the underground without the broader
Australian film industry knowing it existed before international distributor Sony
purchased the film’s distribution rights (Maddox 2006), the film was produced on a
cash budget of just A$150,000 and deferred cast and crew payments, before securing
domestic cinema release and worldwide video release.
Similar to credit-card production examined below, high-end indie films draw
predominantly upon private finance. These productions, however, generally bring
together more sophisticated sources of private finance – financial advances and quid
pro quo deals with sales agents, audiovisual services and equipment companies and
private investors, whereas low-end credit-card films are financed largely by the
filmmakers themselves. Gabriel was financed from 10BA investment, private equity
models and loans, with a licence fee from distributor Sony channelled into post-
production. High-end indie films generally fall between the budget ranges of
A$100,000 and less than A$1 million (illustrated in Figure 3). Moreover, Undead
illustrates that films commanding resources commensurate with mainstream horror
productions can be propelled into the mainstream while emerging from the
underground.
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While high-end films generally draw upon deferred payment systems, utilise low-cost
digital video and operate outside the norms of the broader industry, they are largely
driven by relatively experienced filmmakers (with experience drawn predominantly
from television production), who consciously attempt to develop alternative
production models to launch national and international filmmaking careers. Gabriel’s
Shane Abbess, for example, had 20 short films, music videos and television
commercials to his name and director of photography Peter Holland had a wealth of
short film, television and music video experience (JVC 2006). With considerable
industry experience, established professional networks and industry knowledge enable
high-end indie filmmakers to secure private finance for budgets above A$100,000.
Underground horror production
Budget ranges: A$1,000–A$100,000
Financial sources: Private
Market: Straight-to-DVD release; cult and long-tail markets
Production models: Indie filmmaking traditions
The Killbillies (2002), produced for a cash budget of A$2,000 and receiving a
European straight-to-DVD release, was hailed ‘the lowest budget [feature] film ever
produced in Australia’ (Thomason 2002). However, Nailed (2007), produced for a
cash budget of A$1,000 and released straight-to-DVD in the United States and South
Africa, has since lowered this benchmark. As illustrated in Table 16, several credit-
card horror titles have now been produced for commensurate cash budgets with DVD
release into long-tail markets and to lesser extent mainstream rental and sell-through
markets (examined below). This indicates that, with the rise of DV production, the
cost of indie filmmaking has dropped dramatically in recent years; it also shows that
the demarcations between indie-filmmaking and pro-am production are blurring. This
is perhaps unsurprising considering underground horror production is driven by film
school graduates, first-time filmmakers (some of whom have involvement in
television production, others with no formal film training), and career indie
filmmakers – most of whom have limited prospects of securing public finance or
large-scale private investment.
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Micro-budgets and indie filmmaking practices are at the core of underground horror
production models. As film journalist Sandy George (2007) observes, ‘if the cast and
crew are paid minimum award wages and are insured, and if the legally required
permits and contracts are in place, it is very hard to get change from $[A] 1 million’.
Consequently, few underground horror productions adhere to mainstream filmmaking
practices. While the production values of high-end indie films Gabriel and Undead
far exceed the meagre production budgets that sourced their production, low-end
credit films are stylistically ‘indie films’, and not the taste of mainstream audiences
weaned upon the production values of summer blockbusters. Moreover, high-end
indie films are more likely to adhere to more professional production practices, while
still drawing upon indie production models. Nonetheless, for more experienced indie
filmmakers with prior experience in television and audiovisual production, production
processes are often designed to minimise production budgets. As Doug Turner,
writer-director and co-director of the audiovisual services company Media 42,
explains, to increase the ‘shoot-ability’ of I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last
Summer, the script ‘was written to reduce the amount of time each member of the
ensemble cast have to spend on set – the main group … were on set for only three
days each’ (Turner 2006).
Table 16: Budget ranges for credit-card horror productions Range ($1000s) Film & production budget $AU Distribution deal 0 to 10,000 The Killbillies (2002) – $ 2,000
Bloodspit (2004) – $4,000 When Evil Reigns (2006) – $5,000 Watch Me (2006) – $6,000
Europe only DVD release Through UK’s Crypt Keeper Troma Entertainment (worldwide DVD release) www.whenevilreigns.com (producer-led distribution model) Maxim Media (US DVD release)
10,000 to 20,000 The Horror of Cornhole Cove (2006) – $10,000 (plus deferments for labour)
n/a
20,000 to 30,000 Demons Among Us (2006) – $20,000 Parallels (2006) – $20,000
Troma Entertainment (worldwide DVD release) www.filmannex.com
30,000 to 50,000 I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer (2006) – $37,000 Reign in Darkness (2002) – $49,000
n/a Worldwide DVD release IMF releasing and others
Underground horror productions are predominately shot on low-cost DV; cast and
crews are hired on voluntary and deferred payment arrangements; and cash budgets
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facilitating physical production are sourced from private finance. Finance is raised
from various private sources, including personal savings, private loans (from friends
and family), finance drawn from credit cards, and so on. Sydney indie filmmaker
Matthew Scott, with six indie features under his belt (including four horror films),
raised finance for the horror Questions (2005) through ‘working lots of overtime’,
raising money from his ‘father (about 60 per cent)’, and selling his ‘DVDs and comic
books’ (Scott 2007). Duke Hendrix and Leon Fish self-financed The Killbillies. After
the film became a niche hit, they used the film’s cult status to attract A$4,000 in
private investment to produce their second feature, Bloodspit (2004). Filmmakers
keep budgets as low as possible in an attempt to recoup production costs and to
personally manage financing without drawing upon institutional lenders. However, as
budgets rise above A$10,000, financial sources become more diverse, flowing from a
combination of sources: private investors, private equity-models, deferred payments,
larger private and credit-card loans, and cashless quid pro quo deals with distributors.
As part of Bloodspit’s distribution deal with Troma Entertainment, Hendrix and Fish
were sent to Cannes for seminars on distribution models (Fish 2007).
Credit-card horror films can experience fragmented and elongated production and
post-production processes. Depending upon the size of a fully financed feature film,
the complexity of a film script, the number of locations and many other issues,
production processes generally take between three and six months, and post-
production can take several months. For ultra-low-budget credit-card films without
the backing of funding bodies or distributors and adequate production budgets,
production can far exceed standard production processes. Production is sometimes
divided into segments. For example, The Dark Lurking (2008), shot on the Gold
Coast, had a shooting schedule divided into several ‘shooting blocks’, enabling
producers to refinance during gaps in the shooting schedule. While in this case a
fragmented shooting schedule is a deliberate strategy, production for other films is
fragmented over time as a result of the indie nature of production, as production tends
to fit around volunteer casts and crews, unpaid locations and often weekend or night
shoots. In this mould, The Killbillies took 25 days to shoot, spread over four months,
while Demons Among Us (2006) was shot over two years.
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In many cases, after finance is exhausted during production, post-production
processes take much longer for credit-card films than for fully financed films.
Filmmakers are often forced back into employment in ‘day jobs’ to accumulate
sufficient finance to continue post-production. Post-production then proceeds in a
fragmented fashion in between work and often family obligations. Moreover, as DV is
low cost, filmmakers often [re]shoot extensive pick-ups and ‘replacement’ or ‘reshot’
scenes to smooth over a chaotic under-resourced production process. Produced in
2000, When Evil Reigns was finally released on DVD in 2007, seven years after the
film’s completion – in part as a result of difficult post-production. However, as it was
produced in the early 2000s, the quality of digital production and editing equipment
also played a major part in this delay, with digital technologies now far more
sophisticated. Demons Among Us and Gabriel both took three years for combined
production and post-production. I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer
was in post-production for almost two years.
While most indie films are generally products of a passionate group of filmmakers
(Reid 1999; Lopez 1997) – in a similar vein to high-end indie films – a central
characteristic of the underground is that production, almost without exception, is
driven by avid fans of the horror genre. Considering the enthusiastic nature of horror
audiences, it is perhaps unsurprising that with the lowering of production barriers to
indie filmmaking, horror fans are increasingly becoming horror producers. For Stuart
Simpson, ‘I love the genre (when it is good) because it has so much room to play
with. You can say or do anything in a horror film … plus its so much fun making a
horror film’ (Simpson 2006). This love of horror films can lead to an intricate
knowledge of the horror genre, generic conventions and market trends. While many
mainstream horror filmmakers are also horror fans, as mainstream production can be
commercially opportunistic – as we have seen with the production of Cut – projects
are more inclined to be driven by filmmakers looking to cash in on the genre rather
than by their ‘love’ of the genre. For Luke Jackson, writer-co-director of When Evil
Reigns, ‘Alix [brother and co-director] and I have been huge horror fans since we
were really young, and would read and watch every horror novel or movie we could
get our hands on. I guess you can say we’ve made a lifetime study of the genre’
(Villinger 2006).
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The fragility of underground production
Underground horror production is entrepreneurial and dynamic, with filmmakers
attempting to develop franchises, create revenue streams, develop fan cultures and
handle a title’s marketing and packaging. The strong commercial success of Reign in
Darkness, so far earning a gross of A$7 million, was arguably a direct result of
entrepreneurial marketing and packaging. While the quality of the film has been
described as ‘a dodgy B-grade piece of crap’ (Dolan 2003: 34), Reign has managed to
thrive in saturated DVD sell-through and rental markets through savvy packaging
with glossy high-concept cover art and a strong tag-line (See Dolan 2003). Thus the
film has arguably managed to compete in an impulse-driven market where packaging
plays a major role in determining a purchase (AFC 2004). Already with the Z-Grade
horror features The Killbillies and Bloodspit to their names, Duke Hendrix and Leon
Fish have also started the television series Duke and Leon’s Film School (2006 – to
present) on Sydney’s community television station to share their indie filmmaking
exploits (See Fish 2006).
When Evil Reigns’ Luke and Alix Jackson have developed a ‘no-budget’ filmmaking
franchise generating considerable interest in the original title. Cashing in on the
achievement of producing a feature film for A$5000, the brothers made a do-it-
yourself (DIY) indie filmmaking commentary, included as an ‘extra feature’ on the
When Evil Reigns DVD. The documentary outlines their process of no-budget
filmmaking. Fanzines, filmmaking websites and subculture magazines have embraced
the brothers’ achievement as a successful example of indie filmmaking, which has
created media coverage and public exposure. Luke and Alix have also expanded their
franchise through public presentations to the broader Australian filmmaking
community on the subject. Consequently, aspiring filmmakers have been drawn to
When Evil Reigns to learn how they managed this feat, which has become a source of
inspiration:
You’ve more than inspired me. I’m now determined to make my very own no-
budget horror film. I’m currently writing up a script … But I’d like to thank
you guys for showing me it can be done. You just need to get up and do it (A
comment from Peter, 8 July 2007, on When Evil Reigns Myspace.com site).
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However, underground horror production is fragile. With limited resources,
production is by necessity innovative as filmmakers attempt to maximise what
resources they do have. Consequently, production can be extremely chaotic. For Duke
Hendrix and Leon Fish, after the lead actress quit a week before the shoot of The
Killbillies, to utilise the existing cast, ‘Duke and I decided her role and that of her
brother would be combined. And I got to be the half man/half woman’ (Ausfest
2002). For Luke and Alix Jackson:
It was a challenge to do the big infected group scenes for two reasons. One
being that you’d ask 50 people to turn up and you’d get eight, and these eight
still had to be creatively shot to become 50. Secondly, doing makeup. I
sometimes had an assistant for … the biggest group shots but not always, and
it was very difficult to do 10 to 20 make-up or prosthetics works, then have to
step into the scene to do my part [acting and directing] (Villinger, 2006).
While innovative production practices and the independent ethos are major strengths
of indie filmmaking, and most underground credit-card films would not have been
produced without indie production, filmmakers are often faced with major hurdles in
completing production. Since The Horror of Cornhole Cove’s (2006) production,
promotional screeners have been circulated to horror fanzines and, despite narrative
weaknesses, have received positive reviews. However, while the film is entertaining
and an innovative take on the epidemic subgenre, after losing actors and locations and
venturing away from the script, the film has become a hard sell to distributors. As
Aaron Cassidy outlines:
There was never ever supposed to be that much narration in the script, a lot of
the plot was explained naturally with dialogue … But there were some issues
and a lot of the intended script was never shot … we lost the shed as a location
and this forced us to make up fifteen minutes, which we did with outright
craziness (Cassidy 2007).
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Moreover, while the underground can produce breakout successes, it can also produce
‘flawed’ films, as a review of the ultra-low-budget Melbourne credit-card horror
Watch Me (2006) illustrates:
It gives this reviewer no pleasure to speak ill of a local indie project, but sadly
there’s plenty wrong with Watch Me … this film is weighed down by a script
full of truly awful expositional dialogue and frequently stupid character
behaviour. Worse still, the script’s central horror conceit (a cursed video) is
bodily lifted from the Ring series … It can be taken as a given that when
you’re working in such an ultra-low budget medium, you have to make the
best with what you have. Still, practically none of the performances are
believable (Ryan, Paul 2008, Watch Me, a review, January 10,
www.digitalretribution.com).
Nevertheless, this film has received DVD release, while many other titles have not.
Co-productions and internationalisation
As the scale and production capacity of Australian horror production increase, the
modus operandi of mainstream Australian horror production is moving towards
international partnerships through co-productions. While the Australian film industry
has shown lower-levels of co-production penetration than other national film
industries in recent years (Miller et al. 2001: 85), and official co-productions have
stagnated over the last decade (AFC 2007d), horror co-productions are on the rise as
international production companies and producers look to harness Australia’s low-
budget filmmaking expertise (and to lesser extent reputation) and Australian
filmmakers look to increase production scale, levels of finance and access to markets.
Table 17: Australian horror film co-productions Film Budgets Production partners Condition Dead (2008) Howl (2008) Gone (2007) Voodoo Lagoon (2006)
n/a n/a A$10 million US$1 million
US/Australia (unofficial) US/Australia (unofficial) UK/Australia (official co-production) UK/Australia (official co-production)
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A horror co-production is simply an Australian horror film produced in partnership
with one or more international parties. In the mould of regular co-productions, horror
co-productions – both official and non-official – have spilt creative control and
resources. Thus horror co-productions are less likely to produce distinctively
Australian horror films with the emphasis upon producing commercial genre films for
mass consumption aimed directly at international cinema and video markets. While
the majority of horror co-productions are un-official, official horror co-productions
are also emerging, including the UK–Australian co-productions Gone (2007) and
Voodoo Lagoon (2006).
Co-production between domestic and international producers is merely one aspect of
an internationally integrated production sector, with increasing levels of offshore
production and two-way talent-flows.
Village Roadshow Pictures and international horror co-productions
In the late 1990s, a new force emerged in Australian filmmaking. Village
Roadshow had in fact been around in one guise or another since 1954, initially
running a drive-in cinema in the Melbourne suburb of Croydon … In the 90s,
they started entering into co-production deals with US companies, resulting in
a string of teen-friendly horrors that showed absolutely no sign of Australian
uniqueness at all, among them Disturbing Behaviour (1998); Ghost Ship
(2002); Queen of the Damned (2002); and Darkness Falls (2003) (Eofftv.com
2006: 2-3).
Roadshow’s high-end transnational horror co-productions, discussed below, possibly
represent another tier of Australian horror production deeply entrenched within the
global production and distribution milieu. Yet, while money may flow back into the
country through Village Roadshow, such production contributes little to the
Australian horror production sector. Nevertheless, this section attempts to highlight
some of the grey areas emerging as a result of the internationalisation of the
Australian film industry in relation to how Australian film is currently understood.
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Village Roadshow Pictures is the US-based production arm of Village Roadshow
Limited, one of Australia’s leading entertainment and media conglomerates co-
producing and financing around six to eight high-end ‘Hollywood films’ per annum in
partnership with Warner Bros Pictures and other major production studios. Since the
1990s, from a library of 45 titles, Roadshow has co-produced around nine mid- to
high-end horror films (outlined in Table 18). From an international perspective, as the
above excerpt illustrates, as the subsidiary of an Australian entertainment
multinational, these films are non-cultural specific Australian co-productions, despite
being stylistically ‘Hollywood films’. The US statistical site, www.the-numbers.com,
lists the returns of some of these films under ‘Australian box office records’ and
IMDB.com also list many of these titles (see Table 18) as Australian co-productions.
Table 18: Village Roadshow horror co-productions Film Production
budget US$ Global box office returns US$
IMDB listing (country of origin)
House of Wax (2005) The Reaping (2007) Constantine (2005) Ghost Ship (2002) Eight Legged Freaks (2002) Valentine (2001) Darkness Falls (2003) Queen of the Damned (2002) Disturbing Behaviour (1998)
$40 mil n/a $100 mil $20 mil $30 mil $29 mil $11 mil $35 mil n/a
$68 mil $62 mil $231 mil $68 mil $46 mil $36 mil $47 mil $45 mil $17 mil
Australia/USA USA USA/Germany USA/Australia USA/Australia USA/Australia USA/Australia USA/Australia Australia/USA
Moreover, Ghost Ship (2002), Darkness Falls (2003), The Queen of the Damned
(2002) and House of Wax (2005) were filmed in Australia with Australian support
casts and Australian crews, and Valentine (2001) and The Reaping (2007) were
directed by co-located or expatriate Australians (Jamie Blanks and Stephen Hopkins).
However, these titles are not classified by the broader industry or the AFC as
Australian films, and are therefore not measured in industry statistics or as industry
outputs. Indeed, most within the industry would not consider these films to be even
remotely Australian. But with Roadshow an Australian company (albeit Roadshow
Pictures is US-based), within an increasingly internationally integrated audiovisual
sector, these films – at least at a level of corporate ownership – may be Australian co-
productions produced offshore.
The Roadshow films in question, however, are reverse co-productions to common
Australian film industry co-production practices. While international studios regularly
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collaborate with Australian producers to lever benefits from production in Australia
(favourable exchange rates, tax incentives, skilled crews, etc.), Roadshow is an
example of a large-scale Australian enterprise co-producing films offshore in
partnership with Hollywood studios to reap the benefits of larger-scale, high-end
Hollywood production, and in many cases lowering costs by shooting in Australia.
Therefore, while the former is common practice, the reverse is a grey area.
However, as we have seen throughout this study, the nature of Australian film – and
particularly how we currently understand the Australian film industry – is conditioned
by assumptions about ‘value’ and ‘constructs’ of Australian content, with Australian
content historically denoting films produced in Australia, produced by Australians,
telling Australian stories and drawing upon Australian inputs. ‘Australian
productions’ produced offshore, such as Ginnane’s films in the 1980s, have been
excluded. As Tom O’Regan (1995) has argued, how can the art-house film The Piano,
directed by a New Zealander, shot in New Zealand, but financed by Australian public
finance, be celebrated as Australian when Dark City, a science-fiction film shot in
Australia, written and directed by an Australian, but financed by an international
studio, is not considered Australian? Without dwelling on this issue, the point is that
the Australian film industry continues to view itself in a certain way, tending to
eclipse commercial and genre production and any other form of production failing to
adhere to particular constructs of ‘Australian’.
Increasing levels of offshore independent horror production
While Roadshow is an example of a major Australian entertainment conglomerate
producing films offshore through co-productions with major studios, independent
producers are also beginning to produce horror films offshore. Top Cat Films is again
an example. With two commercially oriented producers at the helm – producer
Elizabeth Howatt (Hating Alison Ashley (2005)) and co-located US writer-producer
Robert L. Galinsky (Flatliners (1990)) – the production company has an
‘international’ outlook. Prey filmed in Victoria with ‘a predominantly Australian
cast’. In contrast, a second horror film, Newcomer, may film in rural Iowa ‘as a US
domestic production, using an all-US cast’ (Top Cat Films 2007). For Top Cat Films,
the decision to potentially shoot the film in the United States as an Australian
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production company was in part driven by access to US investors and markets, and
Galinsky’s professional networks. For producer Elizabeth Howatt-Jackman, when
drawing upon private finance, ‘the only advantage is cost, but cost cannot be put
above authenticity in the case of a US teen film set in the Midwest’ (Howatt-Jackman
2007).
Clint Morris’s Shorris Films has three horror films, Rampage, Howl and Condition
Dead, ‘likely be part Australian-financed films, though at this stage, they may film in
the states’ (Morris 2007). While Shorris Films is a jointly based US-Australian
production company, and Clint Morris is based in Melbourne with an ongoing
involvement in domestic horror production (recently executive producing Dead
Country (2008)), these productions are essentially US projects, with ‘US writers, US
producers and US-set stories’ (Morris 2007). With partnerships and even production
companies increasingly formed across national boundaries, the incentives to produce
or partially produce films internationally are increasing.
Internationalisation and talent flows
Over the last three and half decades, Australian horror production’s development has
suffered at the hand of talent drain. As illustrated in Table 19, Australian filmmakers
have been the creative force behind international horror titles grossing a mammoth
US$930 million at the worldwide box office. Whether or not this is indicative of
talent drain is hard to measure, with international integration enabling two-way flows
of talent across national boundaries. It does illustrate, however, that Australia
continues to produce talented filmmakers responsible for highly popular and
commercially successfully international horror films.
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Table 19: The box office records of Australian directors behind successful international horror films Director (filmmaker)
Film (year) Budget US$
Box office US$
Russell Mulcahy Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) $45 mil $122 mil James Wan/Leigh Whannell
Saw (2004) Saw II (2005) Saw III (2006) Saw IV (2007)
$1 mil $4 mil $10 mil n/a
$103 mil $147 mil $164 mil $111 mil
Jamie Blanks Urban Legend (1998) Valentine (2001)
$14 mil $29 mil
$72 mil $36 mil
Stephen Hopkins Predator II (1990) The Reaping (2007) Nightmare on Elm Street 5 (1989)
$35 mil n/a $6 mil
$57 mil $62 mil $22 mil
Richard Franklin Psycho II (1983) $5 mil $34 mil Totals: 11 films $149 mil $930 mil
While cultural biases, snobbery and ideological barriers have been major forces
inhibiting the production and financing of Australian horror films until quite recently,
with low-budget horror production there are few physical barriers to Australian horror
production. Yet, unable to secure domestic finance and with little prospect of
developing a sustained genre career in Australia, many of Australia’s most promising
horror specialists have moved overseas to further careers. One could argue that
relocating overseas is a natural progression for talented filmmakers within a small
national cinema, and in many cases a commercial decision. Although this is
undeniably the case for some filmmakers, with genre filmmaking resisted by the
broader industry, there has also been little incentive for filmmakers to stay in
Australia to pursue genre filmmaking careers.
However, in recent years, internationalisation has begun to have positive effects on
talent flows for Australian horror production. With the Australian film industry now
integrated into the global audiovisual sector, and emerging as a hot-spot for
independent horror production, horror filmmakers achieving commercial success are
remaining based in Australia while retaining strong international connections with
distributors and studios, and the ability to work with high budgets and mixed domestic
and international casts and crews. While the international success of Wolf Creek and
Undead have handed Greg Mclean and the Spierig Brothers ‘Hollywood’ films –
large budget productions with renowned stars and high-level marketing campaigns –
they remain based, or co-located in the case of the latter, in Australia.
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Melbourne-born Jamie Blanks was another talented Australian horror director written
off to talent-drain. Training at Melbourne’s Swinburne Film School (becoming the
Victorian College of the Arts during his three years of study), Blanks rose to fame
producing and sending a short trailer for the yet-to-be-produced US teen-horror, I
Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), to producer Neal Moritz. Although Jim
Gillespie directed the film, Moritz was so impressed with Blanks he recruited him for
his next teen-slasher, Urban Legend (1998). The film was a huge success, grossing
over US$100 million in worldwide returns, spawning two sequels and landing Blanks
his next horror, Valentine (2001), grossing over US$36 million at the box office.
Blanks has since returned to Australia, directing Storm Warning and Long Weekend
(2008).
The globalisation of production is creating a two-way flow of talent contributing to
the growth of Australian horror production. During the early 2000s, international cult
director Brett Leonard (The Lawnmower Man (1992) and Virtuosity (1995)) directed
the US B-grade international runaway creature feature Man-thing (2005), an
adaptation of the Marvel comic filmed in Sydney. Starring in the film, Australian
actors Alex O’Loughlin and Patrick Thompson had devised the concept for what
would later become Feed (2005), and pitched the idea to Australian acting legend
Jack Thompson (also acting in the film). Securing financial backing from Becker
Entertainment, Thompson suggested the idea to Leonard, who came onboard as
director for what would become a worldwide Australian horror cult title (Making of
Feed 2005).
The crossover between mainstream and underground horror production
While mainstream and underground spheres of Australian horror production are
largely independent from each another, with few formal linkages, these systems of
production are far from being hermetically sealed. The main area of ‘crossover’ as
previously alluded to, is the emergence of high-end indie films. Due to the economics
of the horror film – with production values less important than eliciting emotional
responses from viewers – horror productions beginning as underground production
can become mainstream films. Consequently, underground production has become a
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wellspring for breakout successes, often with high levels of commercial success
relative to production budgets.
Underground Australian horror production is emerging as an important training
ground for horror filmmakers, which in turn fuels mainstream production. Saw’s
director James Wan and writer-actor Leigh Whannell developed their directorial and
acting skills respectively with the Melbourne indie horror production Stygian –
experience that arguably contributed to gaining the backing of Evolution
Entertainment and Lion’s Gate to produce Saw. Building a reputation as a maverick
indie director with the award-winning indie films Red Ball (1999) and Dark Love
Story (2006), and co-directing the indie horror film Bloodlust, Jon Hewitt, has
recently crossed over into mainstream horror production, directing the chiller Acolytes
with a budget of A$3.8 million. After independently financing and producing Undead,
the Spierig Brothers have become flagship filmmakers for Australian horror
production, directing the high-budget Daybreakers. All of these filmmakers emerging
from underground horror production have produced some of mainstream production’s
more popular titles.
For mainstream filmmakers, particularly technical talent, there are signs that
underground horror functions in a similar way to the independent sector in the United
States, with Hollywood A-list actors working on independent projects in between or
to supplement Hollywood productions. While the crew for The Killbillies was unpaid,
Grant Biffen controlled the FX strings, adding a touch of class to an otherwise raw
production. A long way from the hilarious low-budget schlock films of Liquid
Monkey Productions, Grant Biffen worked on The Matrix’s FX team, and for co-
creator Leon Fish, ‘we had the best FX man in Australia working on this film’
(Thomason 2002). Gabriel’s cast and crew worked entirely on a deferred payment
basis, though the production had the lighting crew from Superman Returns (2006) and
The Matrix (1999), and stunts coordinator Kyle Rowling previously worked on Star
Wars Episodes II and III (Fennell 2007).
Intangible interdependencies flow between mainstream and underground spheres of
production. As O’Regan (1996: 56) has argued, ‘higher budget productions also
benefit … Australian cinema. They raise the industry’s infrastructure … and drag the
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smaller Australian films in their wake.’ This is particularly the case with horror films.
For example, Lake Mungo (2007) was directly inspired by Wolf Creek, and in the
words of writer-director Joel Anderson, ‘“one of the main reasons that Lake Mungo
exists is because of Wolf Creek. That film had a big profile, and it made money, and
film always follows money”’ (Anderson, quoted in Hopkins 2007). Moreover, the
worldwide success and exposure of Saw and Wolf Creek injected vitality into indie
filmmaking subcultures, becoming a major source of inspiration for underground
filmmakers. As Lost Not Found’s (in development) writer-producer Efisa Fele
observes, ‘I haven’t really noticed any changes [in Australian horror production],
aside from the rise in horror filmmakers and projects that seem to have sprouted since
the release and success of … Saw. I think these young filmmakers who began with the
same passion we all have, who have succeeded in the global market, give
underground filmmakers hope and inspiration’ (Fele 2007).
For underground indie filmmaker Matthew Scott, there has been a major change in
underground film culture and attitudes towards Australian horror production: ‘way
more people are involved now. When we shot In Blood (early 2002) we could hardly
find anyone. When I shot Questions (2006), I had such a huge response that I didn’t
even have to hold auditions for my next film’ (Scott 2007). However, underground
production also impacts upon mainstream production’s development. Fanzines and
fan cultures (discussed in Chapter 6), developing largely around underground titles,
are expanding to embrace mainstream titles – effectively contributing to the
promotion and ‘culture’ of local horror films.
Information flows between the two spheres are weak but not altogether asymmetrical.
When Evil Reigns’ Alix Jackson gave an information session organised by the Media,
Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Australia’s entertainment union, in September 2006
to mainstream filmmakers about the dynamics of low-budget filmmaking.
Conversely, Storm Warning’s producer Pete Ford shared his knowledge with
emerging Melbourne indie filmmakers – such as Efisia Fele – at the monthly
INDI-stry networking event in October 2006.
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Mainstream distribution
Since the renaissance, distribution has been a major impediment to of Australian
horror production’s development. As Australian cinema ‘is a more marginal cinema in
its home market’ than other ‘major film-producing countries’, the distribution sector
in Australia is predominantly ‘import-orientated’ (O’Regan 1996: 90–91). This import
orientation, with an unequal balance between the consumption of imports and
domestic productions providing Australian audiences with ‘their most significant
experience of the cinema’ – ‘Australian distributors and exhibitors’ – have been ‘more
concerned with imported’ than locally produced feature films (1996: 91). As Wolf
Creek and Rogue’s producer David Lightfoot argues:
Local horror films don’t necessarily attract local distribution to the level that
they perhaps deserve … Village Roadshow buys Wolf Creek off Dimension
and they decide this is the film we’re going to throw ourselves at … but they
threw a lot of resources at it. History tells us that the average Australian horror
film doesn’t get that clout behind it. So without that clout … people don’t
necessarily get to hear about it and the word of mouth doesn’t spread. So
traditionally, local horror films in Australia which are really big have been
DVD or video titles (Lightfoot 2007).
Domestic exhibitors remain largely import oriented and resist screening local horror
titles. While Black Water received cinema release in early 2008, it was largely
shunned by domestic exhibitors – although screening in the United Kingdom, Poland,
Mexico and Malaysia, it opened on a meagre three screens in Darwin, failed to
receive a Sydney release and secured limited screenings in more populous states.
Nonetheless, since the success of Wolf Creek and Saw, several international
distributors now have vested interests in mainstream Australian horror production.
The mini-studio Lion’s Gate has the distribution rights to Saw and Undead, as well as
Daybreakers. The Weinstein Company (and its genre label, Dimension Films) has
secured the distribution rights for Wolf Creek and Storm Warning, and for Rogue. As
we have seen in Chapter 4, Arclight Films and Sony are also beginning to acquire,
and the former invest in, local horror films. Titles securing backing by international
distributors are more likely to receive a domestic release. With Australian horror
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production now on the radar of international distributors, international distributors’
interest in Australian horror films with domestic producers may solidify into sustained
business relations rather than a transient market cycle.
Figure 4: The long-tail and market segments for horror films
Source: Adapted from Anderson (2006).
Figure 4 represents the markets for mainstream and underground horror production
along the long-tail of the market. As we can see, mainstream horror films target the
head of the market (predominantly cinema and home-video markets), whereas the
underground productions examined below are distributed into the market tail. This
graphic, however, illustrates ‘intended markets’ for mainstream and underground
production strategies, with many mainstream titles – particularly low- to mid-range
independent and sales-agent driven production – targeting cinema markets securing
video release.
Underground distribution models
The majority of films emerging from underground horror production are
predominantly released into direct-to-video and long-tail markets such as online mail-
order markets, cult markets (DVDs sold online, but also through specialty cult/trash
stores and catalogues) and pay-per-download websites specialising in cult and indie
films. The zenith for underground producers is a title’s release into worldwide
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mainstream home-video markets. While mainstream titles have the potential for
relatively wide national and international box office success and wide DVD release in
worldwide video markets, underground films have the potential to become niche hits
and cult films. Such titles may not receive as wide a release or sell as many units but,
as illustrated in Chapter 2, underground titles can develop smaller niche audiences.
The major force driving a film’s production is production itself – that is, producing a
horror film on a micro budget for release of some kind. Therefore, release for
underground credit-card production is highly dependent upon the product’s final
quality and its market potential, with higher quality films receiving mainstream video
release (rental and sell-through) and lower end films distributed through alternative
forms of distribution from mail-order deals to pay-per-download models. For
example, Reign in Darkness sold into worldwide rental and sell-through video
markets, while When Evil Reigns has been distributed domestically by the film’s
producers through the website www.whenevilreigns.com, and the website
www.bittorrent.com. Reign in Darkness has earned millions of dollars, while When
Evil Reigns has become a niche hit, selling to a small volume of fans.
The majority of underground horror films secure release through negative pick-up
deals, with a distributor acquiring rights for a completed product rather than investing
in a title’s production. There are no distribution guarantees, and while mainstream
productions often receive completion funding through funding bodies or distributors,
most underground credit-card productions are acquired once completed and often
packaged, supported by independently financed marketing campaigns, posters, trailers
and fan-bases developed through www.mypsace.com.
Until quite recently, the absence of niche distributors specialising in cult and niche
horror products has limited the circulation of domestic straight-to-DVD horror
releases in Australia. However, with trash markets becoming increasingly lucrative,
independent niche distributors are attempting to tap-into these market opportunities.
In 2007, the distributor Accent Film Entertainment announced the launch of the label
Accent Underground, a niche distributor and distribution arm of the Melbourne
Underground Film Festival. Specialising in alternative cinema, rather than horror per
se, ‘the label will draw upon the talent showcased within MUFF as well as
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transgressive films from local and international filmmakers’ (Accent Film
Entertainment 2007).
With MUFF the premiere Australian film festival for underground horror filmmakers
(examined below), there is now a direct linkage between underground horror films
and domestic DVD markets and distribution catering to niche tastes. The first title
released under the Accent label is Stuart Simpson’s Demons Among Us (2006).
Released in November 2007, the title has been distributed into domestic sell-through
and to a lesser extent rental stores. There may also be early signs that competition
between distributors is emerging in niche domestic DVD markets. While Demons
Among Us signed with Accent, Siren Visual, one of Australia’s larger independent
DVD distributors, made the first offer for the title (Simpson 2006).
Moreover, underground horror production is also forging formal linkages with niche
international horror distributors. One international distributor in particular is the
independent production and distribution studio Troma Entertainment, renowned for
the Toxic Avenger (1985, 1989, 2000) franchise. A specialist niche distributor of
humorous, schlock Z-grade – or at best B-grade – titles, Troma has secured the
worldwide rights for Bloodspit and Demons Among Us.
Barriers to the distribution of underground horror films
The lack of specialised domestic distributors remains a hurdle for filmmakers. For
Stuart Simpson, securing domestic distribution for Demons Among Us was far more
difficult than securing international DVD release:
Distribution did not come straight away. In fact I didn’t think it was going to
happen at all. Every distribution company in Australia42 said they loved it but
it was not for them or their line of films. Also that it didn’t have a theatrical
release so no one would know about the film. Bullshit! Anyway, Siren
Entertainment were the only ones who came to the cast and crew screening
and showed some interest … finally after calling them a few times we struck 42 The film was sent to Madman Entertainment, Siren Visual, Umbrella Entertainment, Stomp Entertainment, Shock DVD and Force Entertainment
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up a deal. They really love the film and are getting right behind it (Simpson
2006).
For Duke Hendrix, in response to the question, ‘What sort of feedback have you
received since releasing The Killbillies?’, Hendrix replied, ‘Lots of laughter. At the
premiere punters laughed and the distributors laughed when we asked them to release
it’ (Ausfest 2002). What these excerpts illustrate is that, given the lack of domestic
niche distributors, filmmakers are attempting to secure release through distributors
operating within cinematic rather than niche market paradigms.
While the expansion of niche DVD markets and the emergence of long-tail markets
have created distribution opportunities, they also represent a double-edged sword for
underground filmmakers – and in some cases, this means decreasing prospects for
traditional DVD release. As Aaron Cassidy observes, ‘it has never been easier to
make an underground horror film but I think that has made it become harder to
distribute through normal channels due to competition’ (Cassidy 2007). Matthew
Scott makes a similar observation: ‘Every person with a camera is a filmmaker these
days. Distributors need something they can sell, and sex and violence sells’ (Scott
2007). What Scott alludes to is the nexus between distributors’ ‘demand’ and the
‘market preferences’ governing niche release. From a niche distributor’s perspective,
products must differentiate themselves from mainstream titles to retain audiences. As
the president of the major US schlock horror production and distribution studio Brain
Damage Films, Darrin Rampage, has argued, horror fans are hooked by: ‘“B and B:
blood and boobs. To fill the appetite of the horror fan, you need a whole lot more than
what Hollywood can deliver”’ (Rampage, quoted in Lawless 2007).
Therefore, specific market preferences determine product demand for straight-to-
DVD markets, and even long-tail markets run by a commercially oriented third party.
Following contemporary mainstream horror trends, gore and high levels of violence
are prerequisites for many niche distributors. As many underground titles are
inherently innovative – in terms of subject-matter and often form – some have failed
to appeal to niche distributors. The Horror of Cornhole Cove, for example, is a
hilariously bizarre take on the epidemic horror sub-genre. The film’s plotline revolves
around a kung-fu master and a street-smart knuckle-man hired by a South African
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gangster to deliver two Italian chickens (concealing illicit blood diamonds) to a
remote address overrun by corn-obsessed, ‘monster-cock’ zombies with an
unrelenting hunger for corn. Though highly innovative, as Cassidy concedes,
‘Cornhole is a pretty hard pitch … so I figure my money is better spent on a better
film with a more marketable premise’ (Cassidy 2007). This example suggests that
while there are an abundance of niche markets and thus opportunities for distribution,
in some cases niche preferences mirror each other, and are to an extent determined by
broader trends in mainstream markets.
Video-on-demand and ‘producer-led’ distribution models
The rise of the internet as a distribution platform and the opening up of long-tail
markets provide indie filmmakers with opportunities to independently distribute films
through ‘video-on-demand’ and ‘producer-led’ distribution models. Offering the
potential of controlling revenue streams, some underground filmmakers are
increasingly faced with a choice between traditional and long-tail models of
distribution. As Doug Turner, the writer-producer-co-director of I Know How Many
Runs You Scored Last Summer, outlines:
We’ll try and get a company – Darclight, Siren Visual, etc. – to distribute if
any of them bite … We’re also getting advice from friends telling us to
distribute it via BitTorrent43 and selling DRM [Digital Rights Management]
licenses for say A$5 a pop. Huge profit margins, low distribution costs and
news-worthy too. It is very tempting to use that distribution model rather than
the standard channels – although I still want to see the film in Blockbuster!
[original emphasis] (Turner 2006)
Written, directed and produced by Ben Warner, one film utilising video-on-demand is
the sci-fi horror Parallels (2006), a story about parallel universes, ‘murderous others’
and the consequences of meddling with fate. Without a national or international
43 BitTorrent, referred to above, is a leading open-source peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol for downloading online content, particularly audiovisual material, enabling independent producers to self-publish their content online through http://www.bittorrent.com.
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distribution deal, the film is now distributed through the website
www.filmannex.com. As Warner (2007) explains:
I approached a number of distributors (and also some approached me) about
Parallels both in Australia and around the world as far as DVD/Video
distribution, but the consistent message I got back was that although they liked
it, the film didn’t fit in to a sales model for them (i.e. it wasn’t an easy sell).
Warner was introduced to pay-per-download models after attending an information
session on alternative distribution models at the 2006 Cannes Film Market (Warner
2007). Striking a deal with Filmannex.com, Parallels is now distributed through a
non-exclusive distribution deal with ‘payments’ coming from a ‘percentage of sales –
there was no upfront payment from either side, but there was an agreement to split
royalties once they occur’ (Ben Warner 2007). Retaining copyright, Warner ‘can shop
the film around to other distributors, mediums and territories’ without affecting his
agreement with Filmannex.com (Warner 2007). Parallels is a typical long-tail niche
title. Potential viewers discover the title through fan cultures and viral marketing
networks. To download the film, a viewer becomes a member of the website and
purchase the title through a pay-per-download system (Parallels costs US$9). Once
downloaded, viewers are encouraged to review and rate the film: the more positive
reviews it accumulates, the higher it ranks in searches on Filmannex.com, increasing
the potential to attract wider audiences. Such a distribution model enables Parallels to
reach niche audiences that in an offline world limited by scarcity would not have been
possible, although generating major revenue streams is unlikely.
When Evil Reigns (2006) did not secure a domestic release, although originally
released straight-to-DVD in the United States before its distributor Day-by-Day
Entertainment stopped trading as an enterprise. Nevertheless, Luke and Alix Jackson
have since taken control of domestic distribution through a producer-led distribution
model. Having an unrated version of the DVD pressed and cover art designed, the
brothers now operate a de facto online mail-order operation, selling the film through
the website www.whenevilreigns.com (currently for A$10). Fans and potential
audiences are connected to the product through the social networking site
www.myspace.com. To further build its profile, When Evil Reigns has also been
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released via www.bittorrent.com to an international audience, already receiving over
2000 downloads. The film is ‘selling okay’ via mail order, it has reached an audience
of thousands, and the film’s growing profile has impacted positively upon the
filmmakers’ careers with a mainstream producer optioning and currently raising
finance for their latest project (Jackson 2008).
Horror films and public funding structures in transition
As we have seen, the relationship between public funding and Australian horror films
(and commercial genre films more generally) has been tenuous since the industry’s
renaissance, with the majority of Australian horror films marginalised within public
funding environments. Until quite recently, it has been a commonly held view within
the Australian film industry that public funding agencies will not fund horror films,
particularly horror films with strong ‘fantastical’ and ‘supernatural’ elements (which
comprise the majority of horror films). In many cases, the horror genre has been
considered the ‘kiss of death’ for projects attempting to secure public finance.
However, there has been a major shift in the attitude of public funding agencies
towards horror films in recent years, and for one commentator, ‘the Australian
funding bodies are beginning to take risks on these types of movies … and if it pays
off, then we should expect them to get behind filmmakers in this area even more’
(Appleyard 2007). Since the success of Wolf Creek, public funding has become an
important source of investment for mainstream horror titles. This is not to imply that
public finance is driving burgeoning production. On the contrary, the majority of
lower end horror films draw upon low levels of private finance; mid-range horror
films have mixed models of private, public and international finance; and higher end
productions predominantly draw upon international finance. Rather, public finance
has become one of several sources of finance fuelling contemporary production.
However, to understand the recent relations between horror films and public funding
is to first understand the pressures upon previous government funding models and the
transition that has occurred since 2005.
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The transition in funding models
Before Wolf Creek’s release, government funding agencies, in particular the FFC,
were coming under increasing pressure from the media, critics and public
commentators to justify funding structures and the commercial performance of
publicly funded films following the Australian film industry’s dramatic decline from
2003 to 2005 (see Long 2005 and Zion 2005). Crashing to its lowest point in the
history of Australian film during this period, the industry captured a dismal 1 per cent
of the domestic box office in 2004 (AFC 2005b). The most damning issue for critics
was the commercial failure of the lion’s share of Australian films, but also the
alarming decline in local audiences, prompting renewed arguments that the Australian
film industry is subsidised to produce self-gratifying films disconnected from the
tastes of domestic audiences. While the FFC has invested over $AU1 billion in feature
film production since its inception in 1988, by 2005 FFC-backed films had returned
just A$240 million on investment. Only a meagre total of 1144 films had fully
recouped production budgets by 2007 (AFC 2007a). However, as a small publicly
funded national cinema, the Australian film industry has always been funded
principally on cultural policy grounds, and thus on a basis of cultural rather than
economic returns.
However, achieving cultural outcomes through intangibles – acting as an international
cultural ambassador leading to potential trade and contributing to the growth of a
cultural identity among others – still depends heavily upon generating healthy
domestic audiences for cultural intangibles to flow. For Verhoeven (2006), the major
pressure upon public funding agencies has been the growing divide between
rationales for public funding – the funding of uniquely Australian stories to foster a
sense of national identity – and the reality that Australian audiences go to the cinema
for entertainment, not cultural didacticism. As Verhoeven (2006) puts it, ‘Australians
are inclined to watch films in a way that has almost no relationship to the national
agenda or the general quest for a national cultural identity in the cinema’ (2006: 158).
With domestic audiences dropping to their lowest levels in history, and international
44 FFC feature films fully recouping their production budgets include The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Green Card (Australia/France official co-production), Muriel’s Wedding, Napoleon, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Shine, Sirens, Strictly Ballroom, The Wog Boy and Wolf Creek.
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markets ironically comprising the largest proportion of FFC returns during the early
2000s, the FFC was coming under increasing pressure to reform investment practices.
In response, the FFC restructured funding models in an attempt to improve the
success rates of FFC-backed films, and to encourage more commercially oriented
production. In mid-2005, the FFC replaced the existing ‘let the market decide ethos’
evaluation system, with a dualistic ‘market evaluation’ and ‘market-door’ funding
system. The previous funding system was deal-driven, where films ‘would qualify for
funding primarily on the basis of local and international distribution and sales deals
secured by the producers’, regardless of the project’s market potential (Zion 2005).
Following FFC reforms, the ‘market door’ system similar to the former approach
judged films ‘solely on their ability to provide a “market attachment” (25 per cent of
the budget must be guaranteed by distribution advances … and there must be a
theatrical distribution deal in Australia and one other major territory)’ (Verhoeven
2006: 161). The ‘market evaluation’ system functions as follows: projects must pass
through a ‘creative evaluation process’ assessing the film’s ‘artistic vision’, script and
creative-team quality and the film’s potential commercial viability (Verhoeven 2006:
161–62; Zion 2005). While these reforms ‘technically’ made it easier for horror films
to quality for FFC funding, with emphasis shifting towards commercial potential, it
was arguably Wolf Creek’s success that ended the FFC’s reluctance to finance horror
films.
Several months after the FFC’s funding reform, Wolf Creek, receiving 60 per cent of
its production from the FFC and 40 per cent from private investors and the SAFC,
became the first ‘FFC-backed film to go into substantial profit before release’, selling
to international distributors for A$7.8 million (Lightfoot 2008;
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lightfoot). The year 2005, capturing a meagre 2.8
per cent of the domestic box office as illustrated in Table 20, was a pivotal turning
point in the transition of public funding structures. While Wolf Creek performed
strongly in domestic markets, the majority of releases continued the Australian film
industry’s poor commercial performance.
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Table 20: 2005 Australian feature film production budgets and local box office returns*
Film Genre Production budget A$ * Local box office revenues A$
Wolf Creek Horror $1.4 mil $6 mil Little Fish Drama $7 mil (approx) $3.7 mil Look Both Ways Drama $3.2 mil $2.8 mil The Oyster Farmer Drama $6.9 mill $2.4 mil The Proposition Drama/ Action $20 mil $2.2 mil Hating Alison Ashley Comedy/
Family $9 mil $2.1 mil
Danny Deck Chair Comedy $10 million (In excess of) $ 1 mil The Extra Comedy $5.5 mil $636,934 You and Your Stupid Mate
Comedy n/a $600,481
Peaches Drama $5.5 million $373,861 Deck Dogz Drama $4 million $124,302 The Illustrated Family Doctor
Drama/ thriller
$3.8 mil n/a
Source: Box office revenues: Movie Marshall (http://www.moviemarshal.com/main.html [Accessed
27/01/2006]; Production budgets: provided by the AFC upon request.
* Australian Box office revenues only, figures exclude international box office and DVD revenues.
For the FFC, Wolf Creek arguably vindicated a more commercial approach to lending,
thus providing a means to improve its funding record.
The FFC
Since becoming the principal financer of Australian feature films in 1988, the FFC
has rarely financed Australian horror films. From a total of 88 horror films produced
between 1989 and 2007 (see Appendix 1), the FFC has financed a total of nine horror
films, or 10 per cent of all Australian horror production during this period,
highlighting that the vast majority of Australian horror production has been
independently financed. However, this figure is misleading, in that the nine horror
films receiving FFC funding have been financed throughout the 2000s. Moreover,
five of these nine films, or over half, were financed following the commercial success
of Wolf Creek in late 2005.
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Table 21: FFC investment in Australian horror films45
Film Year Budget A$
FFC proportion of budget A$
Details
Dying Breed 2008 $2,900, 000 $1,018,000 Financed through the FFC’s
Marketplace door. Gone 2007
$11,000, 000
$2,969,000 Official UK/Aust Co-production
Daybreakers 2008 $25,000, 000
$5,000,000 Financed through the FFC’s Marketplace door.
Acolytes 2007 $3,866, 000 $2,700,000 Financed through FFC’s
evaluation door finance. Storm Warning 2006
$4,200,000 $1,900,000 FFC Marketplace Door finance, announced December 2005
Wolf Creek 2005 $1,380,000
$800,000 Screen West development funding and production finance came from the SAFC and the FFC.
Subterano 2003 no theatrical release
$6,300,000
$4,110,000 FFC production funding approvals for April 2000
Cubbyhouse 2001 no theatrical release
$5,200,000
$3,400,000 FFC funding approvals for February 2000: funded under the working title – ‘The third circle’
Visitors 2003 $5,900,000 $3,300,000 n/a
Source: Statistics provided by the Film Finance Corporation upon request in 2007. Horror titles financed before Wolf Creek were financed under the defunct market-
attachment system, enabling high-profile producers and domestic distributors
(Cubbyhouse: Chris Brown and David Hannay; Subterano: Becker Entertainment;
Visitors: Richard Franklin) to lever the necessary market-attachments to secure FFC
finance. Thus investment in horror was arguably a by-product of a system biased
towards established players entrenched within the system. However, the FFC is now
looking to cash in on Australian horror films as illustrated in Table 21, financing
productions from both emerging and established filmmakers.
While the FFC is the primary investor in Acolytes (providing 70 per cent of its
production budget), the FFC has largely acted as an equity investor, injecting small
amounts of finance relative to the film’s budget into numerous projects with
commercial potential and strong backing from distributors (26 per cent of Gone’s
budget; 20 per cent of Daybreaker’s budget; 45 per cent of Storm Warning’s budget).
With the exception of Wolf Creek and Acolytes, the FFC has invested below 50 per
cent in most post-Wolf Creek titles.
45Films identified as horror films in Appendix 1 receiving FFC finance, excluding Bedevil (1993) classified by Hood (1994) as a horror-related film.
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Furthermore, public (including FFC) finance has become an important source of
‘incentive’ finance for high-end horror films. Both Daybreakers and Rogue, financed
predominantly by international distributors, have received small injections of
incentive funding from public funding agencies. Daybreakers, for example, received
A$950,000 from the PFTC and FFC finance, although financed largely by Lion’s
Gate, and Rogue received development funding from the AFC. While the majority of
these production budgets are internationally financed, small injections of public
finance arguably serve to ‘clench’ or ‘sweeten’ the deal with international distributors.
Although the Spierig Brothers are co-located in the United States and Australia,
Daybreakers as a ‘universal’ genre film could have been shot anywhere in the world,
from Canada to New Zealand. Public incentive finance has served to ensure that these
films are produced in Australia. As such, higher-end horror production resemble
foreign production insofar as the international copyright owner attempts to lower
production costs through tax breaks and other production incentives it can solicit. On
the other hand, Australian producers attempt to secure production via funding and the
tax-incentives to which, as Australian filmmakers, they have access.
Secondary public funding agencies and horror production
Other public funding agencies have followed the FFC’s lead. Since the 1970s, the
various state funding chapters, in particular Film Victoria and the South Australian
Film Corporation, have shown less resistance towards financing Australian horror
films. As previously discussed, they contributed finance to numerous horror titles in
the 1970s. More recently, these funding bodies have also invested in Wolf Creek, Cut,
Body Melt and Visitors (see Table 22). The PFTC, in particular, has stepped up its
horror investment, launching a horror script development initiative in collaboration
with genre specialist Mushroom Pictures in 2006 (see Mushroom Pictures 2006),
developed the script for Dark Island and invested in the production of Acolytes,
Cubbyhouse and Daybreakers. The willingness of state funding bodies to finance
horror films has been driven by the shared objectives of seeding regional productivity.
Vying against each other to lure domestic production, state-agencies have been less
inclined to discriminate against productions on cultural grounds. However, the
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capacity of state agencies to source projects is inherently limited, with their financial
scale only allowing the injection of small amounts of capital into individual projects.
Table 22: Examples of non-FFC publicly funded horror films Film Date Budget
$AU Public funding
Private Details
Dark Island 2008 n/a PFTC n/a Script developed through the PFTC’s Feature Film Initiative in association with Phil Avalon, to assist new writers gain their first credit.
Black Water 2007 $1.2 million
AFC Indivision funding
TFI (UK)
Received AFC’s IndiVision Production finance
Visitors 2003 n/a FFC, Film Victoria
Showtime Digitimij
n/a
Cut 2000 $5.2 million
South Australian Film Corporation
MBP (German Production Company) Beyond Films Mushroom Pictures
The SAFC provided production finance for the film after a special Sate Cabinet meeting was held to consider the request in December 1998.
Body Melt 1993 $1.65 million
AFC, Film Victoria
n/a Reportedly the first Australian splatter film funded by public finance.
The AFC has also invested in various horror projects in recent years, through
professional and script development and to lesser extent production finance. In terms
of script development, while the lack of historical data for investment by genre limits
this analysis46, in recent years the AFC has invested in the script development of
numerous Aussie horror films. Drawn from primary data sourced from the AFC,
between 2004 and 2006 horror applicants have had a success rate of 17.5 per cent in
securing AFC-administered development finance, a figure not too dissimilar to the
overall success rate of 23.99 per cent (illustrated in Table 23). Launching the recent
low-budget Indivision initiative to stimulate market-oriented indie production, the
AFC has also recently financed Black Water and Lake Mungo.
46 The AFC did not begin classifying feature film development funding applicants by genre until 2004, which limits the ability of a researcher to analyse production and funding trends within mainstream filmmaking circles in previous decades.
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Table 23: AFC Script development funding 2004–06
Total script applications - 1917
Script funding approvals - 460
Horror script applications* - 74
Horror script approvals** - 13
Overall percentage of
approvals to applications - 23.99%
Success rate of horror - 17.5 %
Applications
Source: Australian Film Commission (2004/05), ‘Appendix 5’, Annual Report, Australian Film
Commission, Woolloomooloo. The rate of successful horror applications provided upon request by the
AFC in 2007.
* & ** AFC script applications and approvals between July 2004 and January 2007 where an applicant
nominated ‘horror’ as a genre.
The introduction of the Producer Offset
Following the 2007 federal budget, the government announced a A$280 million
assistance package for the Australian film industry designed to develop more
sophisticated enterprise dynamics and to foster industry productivity and
competitiveness in response to the industry’s ailing performance in recent years
(Brandis 2007). Introduced as part of this initiative, a 40 per cent Producer Offset for
feature film expenditure over A$1 million will replace the existing 10BA tax scheme
as the primary mechanism for stimulating private finance. In short, producers for all
qualifying films will receive a 40 per cent rebate on domestic production expenditure.
Importantly, as the Offset puts financing in the hands of private and international
investors, it removes ceilings to production budgets and may encourage more
commercial production strategies. Consequently, the Australian film industry is
entering a new phase of production that is potentially more conducive to genre
production.
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Conclusion
This chapter has shown the ways in which contemporary Australian horror films have
been produced, financed and distributed. With two spheres of production and a degree
of overlap between each, several primary characteristics emerge. Mainstream
production is benefiting from increasing levels of international finance flowing into
the sector, and collaboration with international producers and distributors.
Consequently, production companies, production slates, partnerships and networks
are forming across national boundaries. The higher the production budget, the more
likely it is that filmmakers will draw upon international finance, although even low-
budget mainstream titles and to lesser extent high-end indie films are securing
international finance. At an underground level of production, the lowering of barriers
to production and the rise of new production technologies are facilitating privately
financed micro-budget indie production driven by fan-based filmmakers. With high-
quality DV cameras enabling sophisticated production for comparatively low cost,
high-end indie films are emerging with the potential of national and international
cinematic release. Moving on from the characteristics of production and distribution,
the next chapter delves into commercial returns for mainstream and underground
production and examines how this relates to release patterns and economic models,
the foundations for which have been laid in this chapter. This is followed by an
examination of the importance of fan culture and subcultures to the sector,
particularly in terms of developmental value and their contribution to the formation of
audiences.
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CHAPTER 6: RETURNS, MARKETS AND FAN/SUBCULTURES The ‘success’ of contemporary Australian horror production
Success is a relative term. A major problem with attempting to measure the success of
Australian horror films is that ‘success’ is a problematic and nebulous term within the
Australian film industry. Australian films that secure cinema release, prestigious film
festival screenings at Cannes and Sundance, and national and international critical
acclaim have long been regarded as a measure of a film’s success and prestige within
Australian cinema.
On the other hand, profits, international sales, recouping production budgets and
national and international box office returns, although generally celebrated if a film is
perceived as a ‘quality’ and ‘critically successful’ movie, have often been secondary
concerns. Horror production, however, does not carry the label of prestigious cinema.
The drama Little Fish (2005), for example, failed to recoup its budget from the
national and international box office, but was lauded a critical success by the broader
Australian film industry, taking 12 AFI, Film Critic Circle of Australia and IF awards
(generally a critical measure of an Australian film’s worth). Conversely, despite Wolf
Creek’s strong national and international critical and commercial success, the film
failed to win a single AFI or ‘major’ Australian film award.
The vast majority of contemporary horror production’s commercial success, as we
shall see, comes from home-video markets. Even Undead and Storm Warning,
developing cult followings and performing well in video markets, have failed to
impress in cinema markets (the latter received a straight-to-DVD release).
Nonetheless, both films have recouped production budgets largely from DVD markets
(rental and sell-through), or presales in the case of the latter. Cut is another prime
example. While failing at the local box office, the film sold strongly in international
markets, and in the words of producer Martin Fabinyi, ‘from a business point-of-view
we made a lot of money’ (Fabinyi 2007). While Undead and Storm Warning are
commercially successful and popular within cult markets, are they successes or
failures within the context of the broader Australian film industry? With the exception
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of Undead, understood as a phenomenal achievement considering its indie origins, the
answer is possibly no.
Horror and a small domestic market
Another primary issue complicating discussion about the success and commercial
performance of Australian horror films is the size of the domestic audiovisual market.
While a small domestic market is a major barrier for all Australian films (Reid 1999;
O’Regan 1996; Harris, R. 2007), the problem is exacerbated in the case of horror
films. Horror films are undeniably popular with Australian teen audiences, alternative
subcultures (e.g. ‘goths’, ‘metal-heads’ and ‘emos’) and horror aficionados. However,
the horror genre captures only a comparatively small slice of an already small
Australian market. The horror genre in the United States, for example, with a
population of over 300 million people, captures on average approximately 7–8 per
cent of annual home-video rental markets (see Screen Digest (2002) for an example).
On the other hand, the horror genre in Australia, with a population of 21 million,
captures an average of 2–3 per cent of annual video retail markets (AFC 2008a).
In terms of cinema markets, as the head of the FFC, Brian Rosen, explains, ‘if you
look at all the horror films [domestic and international titles] that come out, they top
at around A$6.5 million in Australia, which suggests that there’s between 700,000
and 1 million people who go and see a horror film’ (Rosen, quoted in Kroenert 2007:
29). However, for David Lightfoot, ‘the United States’ on the other hand, has
approximately ‘50 million’ who may ‘be horror nuts’ (Lightfoot 2007). Consequently,
few horror films perform exceptionally well at the Australian box office, with only
The Sixth Sense making the all-time top 50 list of highest grossing films in the
Australian market (earning A$29.2 million), and only a handful (if any) horror titles
reaching the Top 20 highest grossing films per annum (see AFC 2007c).
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Table 24: The performance of horror films at the Australian box office, 2007 Film
Budget A$/US$
Opening screens
Weeks at the cinemas
Australian box office gross A$
Worldwide box office gross US$47
Saw IV n/a 238 8 $4.1 mil $140 mil Disturbia US$20 mil 211 6 $3.9 mil $117.5 mil Resident Evil: Extinction
US$45 mil 136 5 $2.6 mil $147.7 mil
28 Weeks Later
n/a 160 6 $2 mil $64.2 mil
30 Days of Night
US$30 mil 137 6 $2 mil $75 mil
Rogue* A$28 mil 170 6 $1.8 mil $3 mil Gabriel* A$150, 000 98 6 $1.2 mil n/a Hostel II US$10.2 mil 98 n/a $812,175 $35.6 mil Halloween US$20 mil 127 5 $702,662 $78.3 mil Black Sheep
n/a 52 4 $457,731 $4 .6 mil
The Hitcher n/a 107 n/a $481,417 $24.4 mil Source: Production budgets: IMDBPro.com and Boxofficemojo.com. Australian box office grosses:
Boxofficemojo.com.
* Denotes Australian horror film.
As represented in Table 24, Saw IV was the highest grossing horror film at the
Australian box office in 2007, returning a meagre total of A$4.1 million. While Rogue
underperformed at the domestic box office, earning A$1.8 million, considering its
production budget and a relatively strong marketing campaign, it outperformed high-
profile international releases Hostel II (2007) and the remake of the classic horror film
Halloween (2007), with box office takings similar to other popular global horror titles
30 Days of Night (2007) and 28 Weeks Later (2007). Consequently, because there is a
small audience base for horror films in the Australian market, even high-profile horror
titles performing strongly around the world can struggle in the Australian market.
According to Wolf Creek’s Greg Mclean, a local horror film almost has ‘to play
overseas first before it plays properly here’. For Mclean, Wolf Creek was a popular
domestic title ‘because it got in overseas’ and as a result ‘people in Australia were
desperate to see it’ (Mclean 2007). However, unless a film secures such a profile,
local horror titles struggle to earn large returns at the domestic box office,
undermining a title’s international release and impacting directly upon box office
returns.
47 Boxofficemojo.com figures current as of 6 July 2008.
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Returns and release patterns
With few exceptions, contemporary Australian horror films have performed poorly at
the box office, in many cases struggling to recoup even small proportions of
production budgets. From combined domestic and international box office figures,
only Wolf Creek and Gabriel have recouped production budgets, with the latter doing
so courtesy of a miniscule budget.48 Nevertheless, many contemporary horror films
are earning gross profits.
Table 25: Returns from cinema markets49 Film Year Budget
A$ Domestic box office returns A$
International box office US$, UK£, A$
Total box office US$, UK£, A$
Wolf Creek 2005 $1.4 mil $ 6 mil US$21.6 mil (approx)
US$27. 6 mil
Rogue 2007 $28 mil $1.8 mil A$1.3 mil A$3.1 mil50
Gabriel 2007 $150, 000 $1.2 mil n/a A$1.2 mil Black Water 2007 $1.2 mil $112,47351 A$208,290
(UK box office)52 A$320,763
Undead 2003 $1 mil53 $139,822 A$75,666 A$215, 488 Cut 2000 $5.2 mil $464,852 n/a n/a Visitors 2003 $5.9 mil $34,276 n/a n/a Feed 2005 $1–$1.5 mil n/a UK£3,159 UK£3,159 Gone 2007 $10 mil $86, 000 n/a n/a
The figures in Table 26 clearly indicate that domestic horror titles are, in some cases,
making significant returns on production investment, most of which comes from
video markets and international presales. Wolf Creek has returned a large proportion
of its total gross of A$50 million from video markets. While Feed performed poorly
at the box office, by late 2006 just over six months after its cinema release, the film
had ‘already almost fully recouped its budget’, and ‘DVD revenue’ was expected ‘to
be the biggest single contribution to profits’ (Galvin 2006).
48 Gabriel’s budget is a cash-only budget not including labour deferrals. 49 For box office figures that are dissimilar, i.e. across ‘domestic’, ‘international’ and ‘total box office’ categories, these figures have been converted to a single currency for consistency. 50 Boxofficemojo.com as of 10 July 2008. The actual gross box office figure was US$3 million. This figure was converted to Australian dollars using an exchange rate of US$1 = A$1.04623 (10 July 2008) using the Universal currency convertor (http://www.xe.com/ucc/). 51 IMDB.com as of 8 June 2008. 52 Boxofficemojo.com figures as of 2 March 2008. The actual UK box office gross was £97,656. This figure was converted to Australian dollars using an exchange rate of £1 = A$2.1329 (2 March 2008) using the Universal currency convertor (http://www.xe.com/ucc/). 53 Actual budget just less then A$1 million.
158
As previously outlined, breakout indie successes have also performed strongly in
global rental and sell-through markets, with Reign in Darkness earning a staggering
gross of A$7 million from a miniscule budget of A$49,000. Undead has also
performed well, earning US$4.2 million by 2005 from the US rental video market
alone. The high-end indie film Black Water went into profit before release (Robertson
2008), still with cinema and video markets to exploit, while Storm Warning recouped
its production budget before release through international presales (Ford 2008). With
the exception of Wolf Creek, this is not to imply that producers are always making
profits; rather, these films are making money. In the case of Reign in Darkness, for
example, while the film has made over A$7 million for distributors, the film has
returned only A$68,000 to investors. In an international context it is not exceptional
for films to profit from secondary and ancillary revenues, it is, however, exceptional
for Australian films. Indeed, rarely is such revenue associated with an Australian
film’s profitability, though this also emanates from Australian cinema’s preoccupation
with (domestic) box-office returns.
Table 26: Returns in home-video markets and international sales Film Year Regions
sold into Budget A$
Presales/ Int sales/ video revenues
Details
Wolf Creek54 2005 every saleable territory in the world
$1.4 mil US$15.38 mil (video)
Gross US video rental figures as of 06/11/2006.
Undead55 2003 40 regions $1 mil
US$4.2 Mil (video)
US video rental figures only as of 2005.
Reign in Darkness
2002 27 regions $49,000 A$7 mil (All revenue)
Gross revenue from domestic and international rental and sell-through video and secondary markets.
Storm Warning
2006 42 territories $4.2 mil A$4.2 mil (In excess of) (presales)
Presales only. Recouped its production budget and went into profit before release.
Black Water 2007 76 countries $1.2 mil A$1.2 mil (in excess of) (presales)
Presales only. Recouped its production budget before release.
Feed 2005 Every major territory
$1mil – $1.5 mil
Almost A$1mil -$1.5 mil (Approx) (all revenue)
All revenue as of late 2006. DVD revenues comprise a large proportion of earnings.
54 Total figure as at 01 August 2007; Box office figures from Box office Mojo 01 August 2007 55 International cinema figures: Box office Mojo 13 November 2006; National figures: Movie Marshall 13 November 2006; US DVD figures: IMDB PRO ‘Undead Business’ as of 05/11/2005
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International release: Cinema, video and alternative/niche markets
There has been a constant stream of Australian horror films released throughout the
2000s, with cinema releases becoming more common since the 1990s (see Table 27).
Moreover, contemporary horror films are bifurcated between domestic and
international release. As we can see, in recent years in particular, focusing purely
upon cinema release for Australian horror films occludes a large proportion of films
released into a diverse array of markets: cinema, mainstream home-video markets,
and niche markets such as online mail-order companies and pay-per-download
websites. However, while an increasing number of Australian horror films are
reaching cinema screens, the majority are released straight to video.
Throughout the 2000s, from a total of 39 films released (represented in Table 28),
25 per cent of Australian horror films received cinema release, while 56 per cent of all
horror titles were released directly into video markets. Importantly, of these over half
were released straight into international video markets without domestic video
release. However, the predominance of straight-to-video release is in stark contrast to
broader industry trends, with 73 per cent of 712 Australian feature films (including
co-productions) released between mid-1980 and mid-2006 receiving cinema release
(AFC 2007b). Feed and Cubbyhouse, failing to receive Australian cinema release,
have received overseas cinema release, clearly reflecting the size constraints of a
small domestic market.
For Australian horror films securing straight-to-video release into international
markets without domestic release, over 80 per cent are released into the US market
(Table 29). For over half of these titles, the United States is their only market. This
pattern reflects the fact that a large US video market consumes (and has always
consumed) a high percentage of Australian horror titles – which, by contrast, a small
domestic market cannot consume – but also that Australian producers have long
targeted US markets. Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that many US cult horror
distributors operate online mail-order services that effectively distribute their products
worldwide.
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Table 27: Australian horror film releases 2003–08 Year No. of
titles Release Title Release type56
2003 3 September November n/a
Undead Visitors The Killbillies
Cinema release Cinema release European only DVD release
2004 3 November n/a n/a
Lost Things Aussie Horror Pt 1 (compilation of classic Aussie horrors) Aussie Horror Pt 2
Cinema release US only DVD release US only DVD release
2005 1 November Wolf Creek Cinema release 2006 5 May
August September n/a n/a
Feed Savage Cinema Down Under Safety in Numbers Bloodspit Defenseless: A Blood Symphony
DVD release US DVD compilation release only (Films of Mark Savage) DVD release DVD release (US premiere) Online DVD release: http://www.subversivecinema.com
2007 9 June Mid-2007 June July July November November November December
When Evil Reigns Parallels Voodoo Lagoon Gone Nailed Demons Among Us Rogue Gabriel Silence is Golden
Online DVD release: www.whenevilreigns.com Online DVD release: www.filmannex.com Germany DVD release June; Japan release July Cinema release US and South Africa DVD release DVD release Cinema release57
Cinema release DVD release
2008 (as of May)
5 February February July October November
Storm Warning Black Water Watch Me Dead Country Dying Breed
DVD release (premiered straight to DVD in the US) Cinema release (UK release) Australian release – April US DVD release US DVD release Cinema release
56 Where no international release or online details are given this indicates a domestic release. 57 Originally scheduled for release in August, then October, then finally released in November.
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Table 28: A breakdown of Australian horror film release patterns: 2000–0758
Domestic cinema release
Straight-to-video (domestic and international release)
International video release only
Alternative distribution
No release
10 10 12 2 5 Dying Breed (2008) Back Water (2007) Rogue (2007) Gone (2007) Gabriel (2007) Wolf Creek (2005) Undead (2003) Lost Things (2003) Visitors (2003) Cut (2000)
Storm Warning (2006) Demons Among Us (2006) Safety in Numbers (2005) Feed (2005) (Int cinema release) Subterano (2003) Reign in Darkness (2002) Cubbyhouse (2001) (int. cinema release) Moloch (2000) Scratch (2000) Silence is Golden (2006)
Dead Country (2008) Nailed (2007) Watch Me (2006) Voodoo Lagoon (2006) When Evil Reigns (2006)59
Bloodspit (2004) Defenseless: A Blood Symphony (2004) Savage Cinema Down Under (2006) Aussie Horror Part 1 (2004) Aussie Horror Part 2 (2004) To Become One (2002) The Killbillies (2002)
Parallels (2006) When Evil Reigns (2006)
Stygian (2000) In Blood (2002) Ozferatu (2005) A Nocturne (2006) The Horror of Cornhole Cove (2006)
International video-release
Until recently, even some of Australia’s most popular classic horror titles, including
Razorback, Patrick and Long Weekend, were difficult to acquire in domestic markets,
particularly sell-though markets, with the exception of secondhand, boutique and
some rental stores. Many of the classic horror film back-catalogue was re-released by
the Melbourne-based Umbrella Films in the early- to mid 2000s. Yet films unreleased
domestically are still unavailable. By the mid-1990s, the killer-crocodile film Dark
Age (1986) had ‘never been available for viewing in Australia’ (See Hood 199460).
Even though the mid-1980s horror flick Marauders (1986) received ‘a positive review
in Variety by David Stratton’, was acquired by an international distributor, and
received ‘the odd local theatrical screening, Marauders remains unreleased in
Australia’ (Helms 2000). While DVDs ascendancy as a home-viewing format and the
rise of domestic niche distributors is to an extent alleviating supply problems,
58 Release data current at 1 May 2008. 59 When Evil Reigns was originally received straight-to-DVD in the United States by the company Day-by-Day Entertainment, which has since stopped trading as an enterprise. 60 Page 8. of Appendix: ‘Part 2: Australian Horror Movies List’. Available: http://www.tabula-rasa.info/AusHorror/OzHorrorFilms2.html [Accessed: 01May 2008].
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Australian viewers must still import contemporary niche titles released directly into
international markets (with many of these DVDs not encoded for the Australian
market).
Table 29: Australian horror films securing international video release only61
Film Year International territory
Details
Watch Me 2006 US Released by Maxim Media under the Brain Damage label
Nailed 2007 US South Africa
Distributed in the US by Trinity Home Entertainment and represented by Antony Ginnane’s sales agent IFM World Releasing
Voodoo Lagoon
2007 Japan Brazil Germany
Released in Japan as Hunt.
When Evil Reigns 2006 US Released into the US by Day-by-Day Entertainment
Savage Cinema Down Under
2006 US DVD compilation US DVD compilation release only (Films of Mark Savage, including: Marauders (1986) and Blood Symphony (2004))
The Killbillies 2002 Europe Distributed by the UK’s Crypt Keeper and retailed through Amazon.co.uk
Aussie Horror Pt 1 (compilation of classic Aussie horrors)
2004 US DVD compilation Compilation of classic Aussie horrors from the 1970s and 1980s: Thirst; Patrick and Strange Behaviour
Aussie Horror Pt 2
2004 US DVD compilation Compilation of classic Aussie horrors from the 1970s and 1980s: The Dreaming; Voyage into Fear; The Survivor and Snapshot
Defenseless: A Blood Symphony
2004 US Sold through the US online mail-order company and indie film specialist Subversivecinema.com
Bloodspit
2004 US Released by Troma Entertainment
To Become One 2002 US Distributed in the US by Brain Damage Films
The sci-fi horror The Demons in My Head (1998) and the slasher To Become One
(2002) both received a US straight-to-video release without securing domestic
distribution. Despite developing a niche cult following, underground indie horror film
The Killbillies (2002) is not available in domestic markets. Mark Savage, the cult-
status Australian indie filmmaker with eight features to his name, six of which are 61 Release information current as of 1 May 2008.
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video-titles, is another Australian filmmaker whose films are arguably better known
overseas. In 2006, Savage’s box-set, Savage Cinema From Down Under (2006),
including the horrors Defenseless: A Blood Symphony (2004) and Marauders, was
released only in US video markets. Most recently, the UK–Australian co-production
Voodoo Lagoon, released on DVD into Japan, Germany and Brazil, has not been
released domestically.
The new economic model for horror producers
The cinema release of a feature film continues to be important to its overall
success. The initial release period, along with the marketing and advertising
campaign that accompanies it, and the response from both critics and
audiences, will greatly influence the value of the feature in other media and in
other territories around the world. This remains the case despite the increasing
contributions to revenue of other media, such as DVD (AFC 2007b).
An initial examination may suggest horror production’s commercial performance and
release trends reflect the fact that most titles are B-grade products, which by their very
nature can only secure straight-to-video release. On the contrary, even though this is
undoubtedly the case for many titles, a new economic model is emerging for
Australian horror producers. While cinema markets still offer individual films the
highest potential returns, with costs associated with cinema exhibition release rising in
recent years (particularly prints and advertising (P&A)) and screening windows
shortening due to the saturation of worldwide cinema markets placing greater
emphasis on making returns in a film’s opening week, production for worldwide
DVD markets is becoming a more viable economic model. Consequently, Australian
producers are increasingly targeting DVD markets as their primary source of
recoupment and revenue. This model, however, applies chiefly to low- to mid-range
mainstream titles with strong potential for wide sales into international markets. As
we have established, video markets now account for a large proportion of a film’s
revenues; horror films have a constant and highly active audience base; and renowned
horror directors can become brands in the marketplace.
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Production companies and independent producers specialising in Australian horror
production are beginning to build production strategies around these economics.
Australian producers can produce relatively low-budget (A$1–7 million), high-
quality, English-language horror titles with strong branding that will sell widely into
international markets, recoup production budgets and go into profit. Storm Warning is
an example. As we have seen, produced for A$4.2 million and directed by Jamie
Blanks, the film went into profit before release, selling into 42 international
territories. While the film was originally scheduled for cinematic release, the new
economics of horror production make straight-to-DVD release a more viable option
for both distributors and producers. As Storm Warning’s producer Pete Ford (2008)
outlines in terms of the economic advantages for a distributor:
For a company like the Weinstein Company, even though we originally had a
theatrical commitment with Storm Warning, for them to go direct to DVD [in
the US], it does make a lot of sense … DVD sales are far greater and less
costly than getting that money in as revenue than theatrical. A great example is
… a movie called War (2007). Its box office was relatively disappointing. It
was a US$25 million film, they spent US$10–12 million on its P&A in the
States, it ends up doing about US$19–20 million at most, so you would deem
that a flop. Now it’s been out for 33 days in America and it has hit
US$40 million on its rentals, and that’s without sales, that’s just rentals. So all
of a sudden that equation shifts … the average horror film doesn’t need to be
in a cinema to work.
Though the A$28 million crocodile film Rogue returned only A$1.8 million at the
domestic box office, as film journalist Jim Schembri (2007) has argued, ‘it is likely
that the intended audience for Rogue is still out there, but is simply waiting for the
film’s release on DVD … so failure at the box office does not necessarily mean doom
for a film’.
For Ford, the emerging straight-to-DVD model eliminates the expenses of cinema
release while offering a model where producers can recoup costs through international
market sales:
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There is a huge component of all budgets for film which is the deliverables
budget – getting it ready to play in a cinema. And you can spend anywhere
between A$180,000 and A$200,000 just getting the print aspect ready to go.
For Australian movies that’s difficult. If you can turn to a better business
model, we can make a better deal straight-to-DVD and find with the internet,
better ways to promote that. So suddenly you don’t have the hard physical
costs – I mean A$200,000 out of a A$2 to A$3 million budget is a big chunk
of change – it’s 8 per cent of your budget. That could be spent on making a
better film or marketing … For me there is a more realistic way of looking at
this. If you can sell your film at market, that’s the first place you make your
dough, and if you understand … what DVD sales and returns are likely to be,
then you come up with a marketing plan geared to that to sell at market, you
will get a better price for it there. So you can recoup your money without ever
going into cinema (Ford 2008).
Evaluating the commercial performance and viability of contemporary horror
production
While this sector has produced both success stories and critical and economic failures,
particularly mid-range budget horror films carrying higher-levels of risk, available
data clearly indicate that in recent years an increasing number of Australian horror
titles are becoming economically viable or making gross returns. Some Australian
horror productions, particularly early sales agent-driven productions, have been
opportunistic attempts to exploit horror markets with little understanding of the
genre’s dynamics. In recent years, the horror production sector has clearly become
more successful, with many of the most successful titles emerging in the mid- to latter
half of the 2000s, after many earlier attempts were commercial failures.
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Table 30: Total profits for contemporary Australian horror films Film Year Budget
A$ Presales/ int sales/ video revenues
Cinema Total revenue A$ (to date)
Details
Wolf Creek62
2005 $1.4 mil US$15.38 mil (video)
US$27.6 mil $50 mil Gross revenue
Reign in Darkness
2002 $49, 000 A$7 mil (total revenue)
n/a $7 mil Gross revenue
Undead63 2003 $1 mil64
US$4.2 mil (video returns)
A$215, 488 $4.4 mil approx (in excess of)
Gross US video rentals and box office revenue
Storm Warning
2006 $4.2 mil A$4.2 mil (In excess of) (presales)
n/a $4.2 mil (In excess of)
Presale figures only
Rogue 2007 $28 mil n/a A$3.1 mil $3.1 mil (approx)
Gross box- office to date
Black Water
2007 $1.2 mil A$1.2 mil (in excess of) (presales)
A$320,763 $1.5 mil (in excess of)
Presale figures and UK and AU box office
Gabriel 2007 $150,000 n/a A$1.2 mil $1.2 mil AU box office Totals $3665 mil $71.4 mil
Moreover, low budgets have been the key to recouping budgets and making returns.
The most commercially successful horror titles have budgets less than A$5 million.
Films budgeted at A$1 million or less have been the most likely to earn gross profits.
Interestingly, films with the highest gross earnings on investment have been
independent films – titles such as Wolf Creek (though receiving FFC support),
Gabriel, Reign in Darkness and Undead. The FFC-financed Gone (2007), budgeted at
A$10 million, earned just A$86,000 at the domestic box office, and the A$6.3 million
Subterano (2003) failed to receive cinema release: these are examples of commercial
failures, but also perhaps films with inflated and unviable budgets.
Revenue, as illustrated in Table 30, represents a patchwork of presales, cinema and
video returns in various markets. DVD revenue and presales could not be acquired for
every title, and most figures are gross rather than net figures. Moreover, many horror
titles produced post-Wolf Creek are in release or yet to be released, thus earnings are
62 Total figure as at 1 August 2007; box office figures from Box office Mojo 01 August 2007 63 International cinema figures: Box office Mojo 13 November 2006; National figures: Movie Marshall 13 November 2006; US DVD figures: IMDB PRO ‘Undead Business’ as of 05/11/2005. 64 Actual budget just less then A$1 million. 65 Rounded up to nearest A$1 million.
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incomplete. DVD revenues for Undead are only available until 6 November 2005
after it was released in the United States on 1 July 2005, and are therefore greater than
what these figures indicate. Rogue and Black Water are still in release in international
cinema markets, and their current A$3.1 million and A$307,191 gross box office
revenues respectively are partial earnings. Therefore, these figures are not
representative of returns to producers, or a comprehensive picture of the sector’s
commercial returns during the 2000s. Nevertheless, this table presents an illustrative
snapshot of Australian horror film earnings.
For films where budgets and meaningful revenues were obtained, nine Australian
horror films had returned gross earnings in excess of A$71.4 million from budget
expenditure of A$36 million. Wolf Creek, however, is responsible for a large
proportion of these earnings, although Rogue also inflates budget expenditure.
Removing Wolf Creek and Rogue from the equation, five titles produced for A$8
million have still made approximate gross earnings of A$18.3 million – a noteworthy
figure for a small undercurrent of genre production within the Australian film
industry. For Ford (reiterating many of the issues discussed in Chapter 2):
The great thing about genre films is that they defy territory definition, they
play all over the world, they are easy to sell, because there is stuff to sell them
with, they have a clearly defined market and audience, and as a business
proposition … the reason they are leading the way is for all those reasons. You
know you’re going to get your money back, you know you can sell your film,
you know you’re going to get your name out there – there is straight risk
mitigation and its a smart business choice to be in … The economics of horror
is the simplest model you can have – make it cheap as you can, sell it for as
much as you can (Ford 2008).
Throughout the 2000s, Australian horror films have achieved various degrees of
success and failure:
• Commercially and critically successful films are films commercially profitable
while also receiving largely positive reviews from mainstream and horror
specialist critics, such as Wolf Creek and Undead.
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• ‘Bad’ but commercially successful films are commercially profitable films
receiving poor critical reception and considered ‘bad’ films that made money
(in the vein of the adage that ‘even bad horror films make money’). Examples
include Reign in Darkness.
• Cult hits are hit titles with horror-specific audiences, without reaching wider
mainstream audiences, and depending upon a film’s budget can be either a
commercial success or failure. Undead is an example of a profitable cult hit;
Body Melt an unprofitable cult film.
• Niche hits are underground credit-card films developing small fan bases and
becoming relative niche hits in long-tail markets. Most niche titles will not
make returns on their films, but many of these titles lead to the filmmaker’s
next film and other previously discussed intangible benefits. The Killbillies
and When Evil Reigns are niche hits, receiving small but sustained sales and an
enthusiastic fan following.
• Commercial and critical failures are films that fail commercially and receive
poor critical reception by fanzines, fans and critics. Such films are ironically
rare, as even the worst Z-grade horror can develop cult audiences precisely
because it is such a bad film (Everman 1993). However, overly ambitious
films with inflated budgets and those failing to engage with the horror genre
(lacking strong horror conventions) can become both critical and commercial
failures.
However, ‘FFC chief executive Brian Rosen is skeptical that Wolf Creek’s success
and the subsequent boom of locally produced horror is a sign that the genre is set to
dominate the local industry in any significant way’ (Kroenert 2007: 28-29). For
Rosen, with only a small market, audience base and thus domestic earning potential,
the sustainability of Australian horror films is limited:
As to how many they’ll [audiences] go to see in a year, that’s what will dictate
how many get made – and at the moment, horror films’ popularity has started
to wane … I don’t think it’s going to surge. There could be one or two horror
films in a year, but not 10, or even five (Rosen, quoted in Kroenert 2007: 29).
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Moreover, Rosen ‘insists the local direct-to-DVD horror market will never be a viable
one’ unless titles are produced for less than A$50,000 (Rosen, paraphrased in
Kroenert 2007: 29).
While Rosen has a point, his analysis focuses solely upon the domestic market.
However, as this chapter has shown, many Australian horror films failing at the
domestic box office make returns through international pre-sales and video markets.
Moreover, the lion’s share of revenues outlined in Tables 25 and 26 is international
revenue, and as release patterns indicate, a large portion of Australian horror films
receive international release before domestic release.
Now we turn to the function of fan cultures and subcultures.
The significance of horror subcultures and fan cultures
Aussie genre cinema doesn’t get a lot of attention on the net, and if you search
around you probably won’t even find one review of many an Aussie classic.
This situation must be changed! Hopefully we can get a few more reviews
online and create some sort of definitive Australian genre film database which
will show people that Razorback, Undead, and Wolf Creek aren’t the only
genre movies this country has made (Digitalretribution.com 2007)66.
Over the last decade and a half, there has been significant growth in film festivals, fan
culture and underground film culture, all of which now play a part in fostering the
growth and development of Australian horror films. A genre fuelled by its fans, and
the dynamism of fan culture more generally (Langford 2005), the disparate production
and inconsistent release of Australian horror production in previous decades has
impacted negatively upon the development of fan cultures. While Australian horror
films have long been marginalised within Australian cinema, without sustained
Australian horror output, layers of developmental infrastructure such as alterative film
festival circuits could never flourish, nor could an underground filmmaking
66 http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=71389237&blogID=219278745&Mytoken=C27DED71-D96C-48F4-89A363C0A0A8F6816869868.
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subculture without festivals and fan cultures fostering grassroots horror production.
Horror is an inherently international genre and the emergence of festivals and fan
cultures are connected to global movements; thus the global resurgence in horror as a
popular cultural form has also impacted upon domestic fan cultures. This couples
with, but does overshadow, noticeable development in grassroots infrastructure
fostering local horror production.
Several important developmental hubs fuelling fan culture and underground
filmmaking subcultures are emerging, namely: www.digitalretribution.com; The
Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF); the development of an alternative
genre festival circuit more generally; and increasing synergy with Australian dark
fiction.
Digital Retribution and fan culture
In recent years, fanzines such as Fangoria.com and Bloodydisgusting.com, offering
news bulletins, features, profiles (of directors and monsters) and online forums among
many other functions, have become online juggernauts, integral to the business of
global horror production. Attracting thousands of horror fans every day with an
impact upon the reception of particular titles, major distributors are pouring money
into advertising through fanzines to directly target horror audiences. Moreover, online
mail-order companies, ‘one of the fastest growing segments of the video market’
(Hawkins 2002, p.125), are partnering with leading fanzines to link fans to online
horror catalogues (see Oliver 1999 for an examination of the business models of mail-
order audiovisual companies).
Launched in 2002, the rise of the Australian online-fanzine Digitalretribution.com,
dedicated to Australian and international horror films, has become ‘Australia’s
number one source for trash, horror and sleaze’,67 attracting 10,000 views per day.
Most importantly for underground horror production, within the context of
developmental functions for grassroots filmmaking, Digitalretribution.com has acted
67 http://www.digital-retribution.com.
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as a knowledge aggregator and facilitator of information flows, a seedbed for fan
culture, a major promotional force and a hub in an online network.
Before recent growth in fan cultures devoted to Australian horror films, their
awareness with audiences, critics, analysts and the industry itself has been poor, with
information flows fragmented, and in many cases non-existent. While disparate
reviews of individual classic and contemporary Australian horror titles are scattered
across the internet, along with feature articles, trailers, interviews with filmmakers
and so on, many are lost among the dense catacombs of cyberspace with no synergy
or collation; thus there are no comprehensive websites or databases dedicated to
Australian horror films, unless one searches individually for titles across the gamut of
classic/contemporary and mainstream/underground divides. However,
Digitalretribution.com now provides the most comprehensive collection of reviews,
features, production bulletins and trailers across this spectrum. From Long Weekend
to Razorback (classics); Killbillies to Watch Me (underground); to Rogue, Gabriel and
even Subterano (mainstream), one can find information on Australian horror films
from this fanzine, with Australian content – despite a major disparity between
international and domestic flows of horror product – a significant emphasis.
Consequently, Digitalretribution.com has become a major promotional force for
Australian horror titles released into the marketplace, particularly underground titles
lacking marketing campaigns and heavily reliant upon favourable reviews to stimulate
public awareness. It updates its 10,000 users a day on local films during development,
production and release. The fanzine links users to trailers of underground productions,
thus linking potential audiences with titles. Moreover, it fosters fan culture, giving
away DVDs and tickets for Aussie titles, providing forums for fan discussion and
advertising cast and crew calls for productions (through its Myspace.com spin-off),
and of course, ‘hyping-up’ Aussie titles. As a recent news bulletin, illustrates:
We’ve been promoting the hell out of Stuart Simpson’s The Demons Among
Us for over a year now, and with the film finally making its Australian DVD
debut this week we figured it was time to add another trailer to the Dr.
Grindhouse (Villinger, Craig (2007), ‘The Demons Among Us Trailer 2’,
13 November, www.digitalretribution.com).
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Digitalretribution.com is also an important hub in an online network. Through ‘links
pages’, it connects users to filmmakers Myspace.com sites or websites, distributors
websites and other players in underground horror production, including MUFF and
equipment stores providing subsidised deals for indie filmmakers. Most importantly,
it connects distributors with vested interests in underground productions such as
Troma Entertainment and Accent Underground to filmmakers looking for distribution.
The Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF) and alternative film festivals
The Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF) has also had an important
developmental impact upon underground horror production. While a highly
competitive mainstream Australian film festival circuit for short and feature films has
developed over the decades, until quite recently there were few festivals showcasing
local feature-length genre or exploitation cinema. With the absence of a vibrant
alternative festival scene, and Australian horror films often rejected by mainstream
festivals, the growth of indie horror production has been handicapped as festival
circuits are integral to professional development, stimulating competition among
filmmakers, showcasing films, measuring quality through awards which can impact
upon distribution, and so forth.
MUFF emerges from this tension between mainstream festivals and alternative films.
Indie filmmaker Richard Wolstencroft after completing his second feature Pearls
Before Swine (2000) – already with Bloodlust to his name – submitted the film to the
Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF). The film was rejected, reportedly
because it was ‘too confrontational for the predictable tastes of MIFF’,68 although
screening at Stockholm, Puchon, Stiges and Ajijic film festivals (1999 to 2001) and
receiving DVD release. In a defiant response, Wolstencroft founded the Melbourne
Underground Film Festival (MUFF) – with its in-your-face subversion of MIFF’s
acronym – dedicated to alternative, exploitation, genre and political cinema. Now in
its eighth consecutive year, the festival has become arguably the premiere domestic
alternative and genre film festival and a critical date for underground horror
68 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_Underground_Film_Festival
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filmmakers, with many producing films with a MUFF premiere in mind. The festival
has had numerous value-adding functions for underground film production, acting as
a hub for underground filmmakers; a career launching platform; and an intermediary
between filmmakers and distributors.
First, while many underground filmmakers are connected online, MUFF provides one
of the few annual events bringing the best and worst of underground horror
production together, clustered around screenings, competitions and information
sessions. Consequently, the festival generates networking opportunities, and cast and
crew interdependencies, facilitates information flows and strengthens the (sub)culture
of underground production. Second, MUFF has launched the careers of numerous
underground filmmakers. James Wan’s Stygian premiered at the inaugural MUFF in
2000. Jon Hewitt’s Dark Love Story screened at MUFF 2006, one of the films
effectively earning him the mainstream horror production Acolytes. Several Mark
Savage films have won MUFF awards, and even Mclean’s short film ICQ (2001)
screened in the festival’s short film program long before Wolf Creek. Many of the
more renowned underground horror titles securing DVD release have won MUFF
awards, including Black Water (‘Best Cinematography’ for John Biggins and ‘Best
Director’ for David Nerlich and Andrew Traucki) (2007); When Evil Reigns (‘Best
Gratuitous use of violence’) (2006); Demons Among Us (‘Best use of the Guerilla
Aesthetic’ and ‘Best Sound’) (2006); and Defenseless: A Blood Symphony (‘Best
Actress’ for Susanne Hausschmid and ‘Best Film’ for Mark Savage) (2004).
Third, the festival has developed formal linkages with domestic – Accent
Underground – but also international distributors. In 2006, Lloyd Kauffman, the Head
of Troma Entertainment, was the festival’s international patron while on an Australian
indie-filmmaking lecture tour. Finally, in the words of indie filmmaker Efisia Fele
(2007):
I believe that the Australian underground horror movement is thriving and in
need of venues and festivals and benefactors to help it progress to the next
level. Institutions like the Melbourne Underground Film Festival exist and are
great for Australian and international underground [horror] filmmakers,
however, my only wish is that MUFF would be more recognised for its
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importance to the industry and eventually be ‘up there’ with mainstream film
festivals like the Melbourne International Film Festival.
In terms of other domestic festivals for Australian horror films, although horror
festivals have been emerging since the early 1990s, an increasing number of festivals
dedicated to the horror genre have emerged in recent years. Beginning in 2007,
Sydney’s A Night of Horror International Film Festival is becoming an important
festival for screenings, and is playing an important developmental role, actively
promoting Aussie horror in the media and online through various social networking
sites, and fostering horror scriptwriting through a national competition. The short
horror film festivals Schlock Fest (Queensland) and Trasharama a-go-go (a national
festival) provide emerging horror filmmakers with competitive environments to
develop their craft and to showcase films to audiences, effectively acting as a de facto
training ground. Unlike mainstream festivals, the trashier the film the better: ‘Bogan
zombies, killer lesbian go go dancers, rabid koalas, vampire babes,’ and ‘nasty aliens
… are just some of the crazy stories explored in the past’ (www.trasharama.com.au).
Many indie horror filmmakers begin their careers producing short films for Australian
and international short horror film festivals.
Connections between horror production and dark fiction
In recent years, there has been growing synergy between Australian dark fiction and
horror film culture. These connections, however, are stronger with underground than
mainstream horror production. While the discussion of ‘British horror’ inherently
includes both filmmaking and literary-fiction traditions69 (Hutchings 2002), with
Australia ‘sometimes accused of being unable to produce genre fiction’ (Ward 1995)
and the Australian horror tradition largely excluded from Australian film history, the
two have rarely between discussed in unison. This is unsurprising considering that the
Australian dark-fiction tradition has also struggled in a small, at times hostile,
marketplace towards local horror fiction (Congreve, McMullen & Paulsen 1996;
Paulsen 1994). Even if Australian horror production is regarded as a small
filmmaking tradition (over 150 films), the number of Australian horror films dwarf
69 Such discussion has a particular interest in the nexus between Hammer Horror films and Victorian gothic literature.
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the number of novel-length dark-fiction works (fiction’s equivalent to a feature film)
produced in Australia (Hood 1994). As a result, there has been little synergy between
the two over the last decade.
However, rather surprisingly, there have been strong connections between Australian
horror films and literary establishments (both national and international) throughout
the 1970s and 1980s, with many of the most successful Australian horror titles
adaptations of literary sources. The classic Razorback was based on the novel by Peter
Brennan published in 1981; Dead Calm was adapted from a novel written by the US
author Charles Williams published in 1963; The Survivor (1981) was adapted from
the novel by the UK author James Herbet; Dark Age (1987) was sourced from the
creature thriller Numunwari by crocodile expert Grahame Webb; Fortress (1986) was
adapted from Gabrielle Lord’s novel; and most recently, the low-budget Cthulhu
(1996) was based on two public-domain short stories – The Thing on the Doorstep
published in 1937 and The Shadow over Innsmouth published in 1936 – by H.P.
Lovecraft, the famed US dark fiction writer. Conversely, successful Australian horror
or horror-related films during this period have been novelised:
With the success of some local horror movies, local publishers showed interest
in novelisations of film scripts. 1977 saw the publication of The Last Wave
(Angus & Robertson), the novelisation by Petru Popescu of the Landmark
Peter Weir film of the same name. In 1978 another Australian horror film,
Patrick, was novelised by Keith Hetherington (Sun Books) (Congreve,
McMullen & Paulsen 1996: 138).
While most contemporary horror titles are original screenplays rather than adaptations
of prior works, one of the growing areas of synergy between the two in recent years,
is information flows and cross-promotion. While Digitalretribution.com is an online
hub and information facilitator for horror production, the Australian Horror Writers’
Association and Australian Horror & Dark Fiction Web Ring70 fulfils this role for
Australian dark fiction. Purely in terms of local horror production, the website
www.australianhorror.com promotes recent domestic horror releases, upcoming film
70 http://www.australianhorror.com/webring.
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festivals, sometimes reviews certain titles, and of course promotes horror
screenwriting-related competitions and events.
Dark fiction also provides creative inputs into horror production. One of Australian
horror production’s emerging specialist sources for horror and genre screenplays is
the formerly Queensland-based screenwriting partnership of Shayne Armstrong and
Shane Krause,71 with strong connections to dark fiction. This screenwriting
partnership, penning the mainstream chiller Acolytes (2007), optioned the horror
script Kraal from a novella written by Brisbane dark fiction writer Greg Boylan
which at the time of writing was in development in the United Kingdom. Luke C.
Jackson is another dark fiction writer with involvement in both movements. Luke
Jackson is first and foremost a writer for teen fiction markets, currently with four
novels to his name, including Summer’s End (horror), Sleeper (action-spy) and The
Unclaimed (mystery). However, Jackson has also penned the credit-card horror When
Evil Reigns.
Fan-based production
Beyond the furthest tip of the market tail is fan-based production. While much of
underground horror production is produced by filmmakers who themselves are horror
fans, there is a major difference between underground horror production and the pure
fan-based production discussed here. On the one hand, underground production in
most cases is produced by semi-professional filmmakers for indie festivals and horror
markets across the long-tail that may lead to distribution deals, audiences, awards, and
to an extent economic outcomes. Fan-based production, on the other hand, is purely
that: content produced by fans for no other reason than they are fans of a particular
horror title, or the horror genre more generally. As self-confessed fan and scholar
Henry Jenkins (2006) has shown in his work on participatory culture – a term
describing consumption where audiences not only act as consumers but also as
producers when engaging in cultural consumption – participatory fan-based
production, although in some instances bordering on piracy and devalued by many
industry analysts and gatekeepers, is a value-adding cultural phenomenon. With
71 http://www.armstrongkrause.com.
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horror fans arguably among the most active fan-bases for movie genres, fan-based
production is emerging for Australian horror films.
A primary example is Wolf Creek 2, a Youtube.com fan sequel. While the video has
been removed due to copyright infringement (for a matter unrelated to this fan film),
at the time of writing the video had received almost 6,000 views (including Greg
Mclean) with numerous viewer feedback and thus a fan culture of its own. Produced
by 15-year-old Irish teenagers Reece and Ryan O’Connell, this ‘sequel’ ran for over
20 minutes, was produced specifically for Youtube.com and shot at the actual ‘Wolfe
Creek’ crater while the two young filmmakers were on holiday in Australia. The story
revolves around a brother and sister travelling through the Australian outback to meet
their parents in Northern Australia after the ‘Wolf Creek backpacker murders’ –
following on from the storyline of the actual movie – when they pick up a hitch-hiker.
This seemingly friendly stranger, played by Reece and Ryan’s father, is Charlie
Taylor, Mick Taylor’s brother, who is equally insane and begins a new rampage of
carnage.
A search of Youtube.com for ‘wolf creek’ reveals myriad fan-produced videos and
snippets from the actual film: from fan-produced trailers, tips from horror aficionados
on how to avoid being as stupid as the characters in Wolf Creek, to fan-based
remakes. One example is The Story of Wolf Creek. Although difficult to tell from the
trailer, this ‘film’ appears to be a fan-remake based on Wolf Creek’s premise set in the
United States. Despite criticism of such fan productions, the emergence of such
content is generally symptomatic of a film’s success and, in a positive light, reflects a
respective title’s popularity. Moreover, such fan-based films have several value-
adding benefits for the titles from which they derive: they prolong their popularity and
augment fan bases, and they contribute to their mythology – with fans linking Wolf
Creek to local US backpacker murders, and in the case of Wolf Creek 2, developing
derivative characters and plotlines.
Conclusion
This chapter has examined the profitability and release patterns of contemporary
Australian horror films, illustrating horror production’s relative commercial success
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from 2000 to 2007. This analysis has also challenged conventional wisdom regarding
profit and release patterns currently governing the funding and release of Australian
films. While cinema is currently understood as the primary vehicle for earning profits
and returns, numerous Australian horror films over this period have become profitable
through secondary markets despite failing at the box office. Unlike most Australian
films, a high proportion of horror films are released directly into video markets
without cinematic release, many released internationally without a domestic release.
A new economic model is emerging, with video becoming the primary market for
recouping productions but also eliminating costs associated with cinematic release,
which by the virtue of a small domestic market with a limited audience base for
horror films is becoming less commercially viable. In terms of fan culture and
filmmaking subcultures, the chapter has highlighted the importance they play in
developing audiences and promoting titles. It has also examined how subcultures have
become grassroots developmental grounds for underground filmmakers. The next
chapter concludes the thesis with a discussion of key issues arising from this study’s
findings.
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CHAPTER 7: THE FUTURE OF AUSTRALIAN HORROR PRODUCTION – SUSTAINABILITY AND POLICY
This project set out to investigate the nature of contemporary Australian horror
production and distribution. This final chapter discusses key issues arising from the
research questions outlined in Chapter 1, namely: (1) What are the market, industrial
and technological forces driving production? (2) What is the nature of production and
distribution models? (3) What are the nature and characteristics of the films?; and (4)
what are the implications of this research for cinema studies and cultural policy? In
particular, it questions the sustainability of Australian horror production, synthesises
the limitations of cultural policy and examines the Producer Offset and its
implications for horror films.
Forces driving contemporary horror production
The boom in contemporary production has emerged from numerous intersecting
domestic industry conditions, international market and industry forces and
technological developments. With the increasing internationalisation of the Australian
film industry and a renewed push for more commercial film practices, many
Australian producers are attempting to harness the potential of low-budget horror
production, high margins of return and lucrative international markets. For some
mainstream producers, horror has become a primary commercial production strategy,
while for others it has become a one-off means of experimenting in genre production
and supplementing production slates. With the growth of indie filmmaking for both
emerging and experienced filmmakers as an independent but often fraught means of
advancing filmmakers’ careers, many such filmmakers have attempted to build
national and international filmmaking reputations through low-budget horror
production.
With worldwide horror markets performing strongly since the late 1990s, global
demand and supply factors have also played a major part in stimulating local
production. Moreover, the decentralisation of Hollywood production, creating
symbiotic relations between major studios, distributors and mini-studios, and globally
dispersed independent producers, has played a part in stimulating demand for horror
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titles and, as a by-product, international investment and partnerships with Australian
producers. Furthermore, as audiovisual production worldwide has experienced
significant internationalisation over the last decade, independent producers around the
globe are similarly looking to take advantage of these potentially favourable
international conditions which have seen a rise in co-productions between Australian
and international producers. Such producers are looking to lever cost advantages to
production by shooting in Australia and to harness the momentum developing within
Australian horror production in recent years. Both Australian and overseas producers
are looking towards co-productions and partnerships in an attempt to increase scale
and access to finance and markets. The development of the internet as a distribution
and social networking platform, DV and HD as a quality low-cost competitor
shooting gauges to 35mm film, and the opening up of online long-tail markets have
also had an impact upon Australian horror production and distribution, particularly
underground production.
The sustainability of production and distribution models
A question that arises in evaluating recent developments is whether the boom in
contemporary horror film production is a wave of productivity, or the maturation of
horror production as a sustained sector within the Australian film industry? In the first
instance, the growth and commercial success of Australian horror production in recent
years laid the foundations for sustained growth culminating from the development of
an international reputation, the emergence of a brand in the marketplace, the growth
of horror specialists and the emergence of brand-name directors. The commercial
horror push in the 1980s, driven largely by private finance levered from 10BA,
declined dramatically following the winding back of this tax-incentive – in part
reflecting the opportunistic nature of some horror production, but also the impact of
financial and cultural hurdles stymieing horror production within a closed national
cinema. However, as we have seen throughout this study, the internationalisation of
the Australian industry is producing an environment more conducive to horror
production. Australian horror production has naturally emerged from market and
industry conditions rather than being driven by policy incentives designed to boost
productivity. Most importantly, the growth and development of contemporary
production have occurred before the Producer Offset has taken effect, thus producers
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specialising in horror production are already well placed to exploit this incentive.
There are also competitive advantages for producers specialising in horror films.
Competitive advantages for Australian horror production
Within a publicly funded national cinema, the lion’s share of Australian films have
small to medium production budgets – although the industry is currently experiencing
inflationary pressures on budgets (Connolly 2008) – and, as previously discussed,
Australia has been unable to produce traditions of high-end genre production such as
action, fantasy or science-fiction films and sustained high-budget Australian
production more generally as a direct result of the industry’s financial limitations.
Consequently, many Australian films since the industry’s renaissance have struggled
to compete in domestic and international markets against high-budget Hollywood
films with high-profile A-list stars, large production budgets and high-quality
production values. As a result, Australian films have tended to target niche art-house
markets in an attempt to differentiate themselves from Hollywood blockbusters.
Until quite recently, barriers constraining Australian horror production have been
‘ideological’ and ‘cultural’ within publicly administered funding structures,
mainstream criticism and film culture, rather than physical barriers to production.
Horror production is low budget, and not reliant upon the aforementioned issues to
perform strongly in worldwide markets. Purely in terms of the broader industry’s
economics, horror is a production strategy innately suited to the limitations of the
Australian film industry’s production and financing environment. Moreover, as
ideological barriers are eroded by internationalisation, and as international horror
production is predominantly low-budget production, Australian horror production
competes in global markets on equal terms against international competitors. The
challenge for Australian producers to remain competitive in global horror markets
revolves around producing original titles from quality concepts with a strong
knowledge and command of the horror genre – renewing conventions through generic
invention which the horror tradition has become gradually more proficient in
achieving throughout the 2000s. Another important issue is the production of original
titles at the beginning and middle, rather than the end, of market cycles. The success
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of Undead and Wolf Creek is in part attributable to both films emerging at the
beginning of zombie and torture-porn cycles respectively.
Moreover, the Australian film industry’s domestic development and financing
structures produce competitive advantages for Australian producers against
international competitors. The emergence of quality world-class Australian directors
specialising in horror production since the 1970s industry renaissance is in part a
result of the domestic production environment from which they emerge. With world-
class film-training institutions and limited production finance, Australian filmmakers
develop their craft on minuscule budgets and limited resources, effectively shaping
Australia’s emerging talent into highly proficient low-budget filmmakers. As Antony
Ginnane has observed, Australian films are ‘notorious in a good way for getting so
much more value for dollar at every level of production’ (Antony Ginnane 2004).
However, production budgets in the United States are becoming grossly inflated, with
even indie production now costing between US$5 and $15 million, while many
Australian horror films are produced for less than A$5 million. Thus, within the
context of low-budget filmmaking, Australian horror filmmakers may be capable of a
more efficient production process, producing higher quality films with lower budgets
in comparison with international competitors. As Robert Connolly (2008: 6) puts it,
‘where equivalent studio genre films fall in the US$10 million-plus range, Wolf Creek
cost only A$1.3 [sic] million to produce.’
Furthermore, for Connolly (2008), the budgets of Australian films more generally
tend to fall into dangerous middle ground, neither large enough to compete against
Hollywood films nor low enough to ensure economic viability in an increasingly
competitive domestic market saturated by international art-house films, many backed
by majors with large marketing campaigns. However, as this study suggests, many
Australian horror films are produced on lean – indeed, at times very low –budgets,
enabling films to recoup production budgets – some from presales alone.
Consequently, Australian horror production is an example of a strand of production
within the broader industry operating within viable budget ranges, and may be a
driver of sustained low-budget horror production into the future.
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Cycles of boom and bust
As history has shown us, since the 1970s periods of strong horror productivity have
been followed by a steep decline in production. There are several reasons for this.
Periods of growth have been connected with international market demand and
domestic financing environments. Within a national cinema driven by cultural policy
and funding objectives largely antithetical to the very nature of horror films, horror
films have been highly dependent upon strong international demand to achieve wide
presales to recoup predominately small privately financed production budgets.
However, when international demand has declined and domestic financing has dried
up, horror production has declined becoming the province of largely under-capitalised
independent filmmakers trying to make a breakout hit through the horror genre. The
growth of Australian horror tradition has also been inhibited by the capacity
constraints of a small domestic marketplace, and sustained production flows have
been highly sensitive to a title[s] receiving poor critical reception and financial
returns. Consequently, the failure of various titles in a short period of time has
affected producer and distributor sentiment. Contemporary horror production has not
been immune to these forces.
By early 2008 there are already signs that the number of mainstream horror films
going into production is slowing – arguably a result of Rogue’s lukewarm domestic
box office earnings and the difficulties faced by Black Water in securing domestic
theatrical release – although numerous underground horror titles continue to emerge.
At times during the 2000s, private finance has reached its lowest level in the history
of Australian film. However, there is also a key difference between contemporary and
historical periods of horror production. International finance is becoming a major
source of production finance, and international distributors have established direct
linkages with some horror specialists to an extent offsetting the impact of domestic
finance limitations.
Market cycles and the sector’s growth
One of the primary challenges facing sustained growth of the sector is changing
market conditions and a downturn in global markets. With market demand slowing
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and mid-2000s market cycles such as torture porn and zombie films waning in
mainstream popularity, for horror maestro Roger Corman, the horror ‘trend is winding
down’ (Corman, paraphrased in George 2006). While mainstream markets for horror
will not wither altogether, current aesthetics styles and trends – ultra-violence and a
morbid fascination with torture – will evolve and new generic cycles will emerge.
Unfortunately from an industry development perspective, Australian horror
production has peaked near the eclipse of a golden decade for the horror genre.
Consequently, Greg Mclean’s Rogue, and Jamie Blanks’ Storm Warning faced more
difficult market conditions than Wolf Creek two years earlier – the former
underperforming at the domestic box office, the latter released straight-to-DVD in the
United States when it may have received cinema release under more favourable
conditions.
A primary challenge for Australian horror films will be the realignment of production
strategies in more difficult market environments. This may result in a decline of mid-
range budget production which increased by the mid-2000s, and a return to lower
budget films. One advantage for the sector is the growth of underground and higher-
end indie production driven by entrepreneurial models of financing and production.
Mainstream filmmaking is sensitive to popular market cycles and audience
sentiments; underground horror production is fiercely independent, subversive and
experimental. As underground filmmakers are often at the cutting-edge of generic and
market trends, driven more so by passion than market sentiment, highly innovative
products with strong market potential may continue to emerge during a period of
downturn. Moreover, underground production may continue to produce indie
filmmakers with proven market experience crossing over into mainstream.
Nevertheless, major questions remain in relation to the economic viability of long-tail
production. Is long-tail horror production a model for sustainability or unsustainable
youthful exploitation? Discussion with underground filmmakers for this study
indicates that many filmmakers do not expect to make significant returns from long-
tail and straight-to-DVD distribution models. Yet evidence suggests that such models
aid filmmakers in developing careers and facilitating their crossover into the
mainstream without necessarily resulting in a sustained economic model in their own
right. In short, long-tail production develops reputations for filmmakers, circulates a
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product to an audience and creates exposure for filmmakers in the media and fanzines,
and thus may be an emerging professional development model for filmmakers,
functioning in a similar way to short film production for festivals.
The limitations of cultural policy
Cultural policy (and public subsidy), in the way that is has been practiced in Australia
since the 1970s, has fostered a certain type of film industry: it circumscribes certain
notions of value; it mandates a particular film culture; and it limits the types of films
produced in Australia, in particular favouring art house films emphasising
Australianness and social realism in opposition to genre films. Consequently, cultural
policy’s narrowness ‘shuts out’ genres such as horror from funding environments and
mainstream film culture – so much so that horror films have barely been recognised as
an Australian filmmaking tradition, although always occupying a niche in Australian
cinema. Moreover, cultural policy has largely written off horror and other genres as
debased production without cultural resonance and as an affront to ‘quality’
Australian cinema. However, despite their disreputable nature, the most successful
horror films have been distinctly Australian, some consumed in national and
international markets as ‘Australian horror films’.
The nature of value is at the core of the problem. As Chapters 3 and 5 outline, cultural
policy has sought to fund films cultural enough to subsidise in an attempt to foster a
positive sense of national identity. However, in an increasingly international industry,
what constitutes Australian content is blurring, and local feature films are just as
likely to be non-culturally specific as they are uniquely Australian. Moreover, in a
diverse multicultural society, a ‘national identity’ is a problematic term with
Australians now a mix of diverse ethnicities, which undermines the traditional ocker
rural-dominated representations of Australianness (Rayner 2000). Nevertheless,
Australian films falling outside certain constructs of Australianness are refused the
status of Australian film and have largely been excluded from industry discussion. As
we saw in Chapter 5, Dark City is generally not regarded as Australian although it is
similar in nature to the ‘Australian’ art-house film The Piano. Tensions that arise for
horror films relate to two issues: horror is both a disreputable pulp genre and a youth
form. On the one hand, art-house films carry the label of prestige cinema and target
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middle-aged audiences – long the preferred demographic for Australian films. On the
other hand, pulp genres have faced contempt within Australian film culture and youth
audiences have historically been neglected by the Australian film industry.
Moreover, cultural policy’s narrowness contradicts a core funding rationale for public
funding. As Reid (1999: 11) argues:
The cultural and economic rationale for government subsidy of a local film
industry is about assisting talented Australians to bring the stories they most
passionately want to tell to the big screen, not the stories overseas studio
executives want them to tell.
Yet as we have seen, talented filmmakers such as the Spierig Brothers, telling ‘genre
stories’, were denied public funding before Undead’s production and told by funding
bodies to avoid genre production (Hoskin 2003: 24). As the Australian film industry
comprises a diverse range of agents and many younger generation filmmakers are
increasingly influenced by genre cinema, such limitations constrain the ability of
some filmmakers to tell the stories ‘they most passionately want to tell’.
Until quite recently, the stigma attached to horror production within the Australian
film industry has been a powerful force inhibiting the sector’s growth. As a result of
horror’s marginalisation and the force of horror’s stigma, many Australian filmmakers
have avoided horror production, others have half-heartedly tried their hand at the
genre, or have been driven from it altogether. Richard Franklin was a naturally gifted
filmmaker of high pedigree who was essentially chased from doing what he did best:
making cleverly shot, suspenseful Hitchcockian genre films. However, his ostracism
from film culture and his exclusion from mainstream criticism led to his departure
from the Australian film industry, only to return to produce the ‘quality’ Australian
dramas Hotel Sorrento (1995) and Brilliant Lies (1996) in a direct attempt to show his
critics that he is a filmmaker of worth. Such actions are clearly symptomatic of the
powerful stigma attached to genre-based production in Australia.
Graphic violence and gore are constitutive elements of a horror film’s narrative, just
as ‘road movies are violent’ and ‘nihilistic’ (Cunningham 1983: 237). For producers
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remaining in Australia during the 1970s and 1980s, caught between a hostile domestic
critical world and the cycles and demands of the marketplace, many horror producers
have shied away from explicit violence, and symptomatically many of the generic
conventions implicit in popular horror films. Films such as Snapshot, Road Games,
Patrick, Long Weekend and The Survivor (1981), now discussed as horror films and
either ignored or heavily criticised within the Australian film industry, have minimal
gore and depravity in comparison to their international contemporaries (Dawn of the
Dead (1978), Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980) and A Nightmare on Elm
Street (1984) to name a few). With specific reference to Franklin’s films, for Philip
Brophy (1987a: 29–30):
While our film artists acknowledge the aesthetic struggle to create ‘great
cinema’ they forget that the realm of Exploitation is not so easy to navigate. It
takes something else to transform trash into cash – a sensibility totally alien to
the deluded illusions of art, craft and culture. It is a sensibility that is both
absent in our industry and repressed in our film culture. A perfect example is
… Richard Franklin … Patrick is neo-Hammer, Road Games in neo-DePalma
and Psycho III72 [sic] is no-no-Hitchcock. Sure the thrills and spills are there
… but they don’t readily constitute hard-core exploitation. They lack the
genuine perversity which vitalizes the exploitative angles chosen in more
acute Hitchcock-ripoffs like William Castle’s Homicidal [1961], and Cohen’s
Blood Simple [1984] and DePalma’s Body Double [1984].
From a cultural policy perspective, even if one is sold on the developmental and
economic contributions of a vibrant horror production sector to the broader industry,
it is extremely difficult to justify public funding for films transgressing cultural policy
objectives, and stirring controversy among countless social groups in any given
culture: parental groups, feminists, religious groups, primary and secondary
educationists concerned about the psychological impact upon their students’
development, political organisations, and so on. Nevertheless, the stigma attached to
horror production arguably has adverse developmental flow-on effects for the broader
film industry. As this study has shown, although horror is a distinctive strand of genre
72 Franklin in fact directed Psycho II (1983).
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production, it is also connected with other strands of domestic genre production and
functions as a training ground for talent across both generic and non-generic film
production. Filmmakers beginning careers in horror films are just as likely to move
into different genres as they are to specialise in horror. As history has shown, shutting
down this training ground (either directly or indirectly through cultural policy and
film culture) may lead to talent drain or disconnected underground production, with
limited flow-on effects for the broader industry.
Finally, internationalisation may be producing an environment more conducive to
domestic horror production but the bias of mainstream criticism towards quality
Australian film, fuelled by cultural policy, still lingers. An almost farcical
conversation between two of Australia’s foremost mainstream movie critics is a prime
example:
Margaret: Look, I think this is very effective for what it is, which is a B movie
[referring to Greg Mclean’s Rogue] … It’s a classic B movie?
David: Well, it’s a B movie if Jaws was a B movie.
Margaret: Jaws is a B movie!
David: Well, okay, then. They’re sort of a B A movie (Pomeranz & Stratton
2007).
First, what this excerpt illustrates is that genre is poorly understood in mainstream
criticism. While Jaws (1975) began its life as an entrepreneurially financed
production, it became the first ‘Hollywood blockbuster’ as we currently understand
them, changing the face of Hollywood studio production, marking the beginning of
tent-pole productions with large budgets and high-end special effects, and receiving a
wide release backed by massive advertising campaigns. Second, the implied
assumption is that if Rogue is indeed a B-movie then such a film cannot be seriously
considered for a five-star review.
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Policy and industry development
From an industry development perspective, contemporary Australian horror
production raises questions for future public support of internationally oriented
domestic genre production and low-budget indie production, an issue connected with
cultural policy’s limitations. Many contemporary horror films have emerged outside
public funding and support, and have been inspired by weaknesses in current funding
structures. Moreover, numerous filmmakers interviewed for this study are career indie
filmmakers, vehemently opposed to the concept of public funding and fiercely
committed to independently financed production. However, as Wolf Creek’s director
Greg Mclean concedes, without public funding the film would never have gone into
production (Mclean 2007). Thus public finance was responsible for seeding one of the
key triggers in contemporary production’s growth. Furthermore, many filmmakers
have honed their professional skills through publicly financed or facilitated short
films and development programs. Therefore, horror production’s development
throughout the 2000s has not been completely bereft of influence from public support
environments and policy programs.
A changing funding environment: The Producer Offset and ‘Indivision’
Overall, the inception of the Producer Offset is a positive development for horror and
Australian cinema’s future more broadly. While not all Australian horror films have
been commercially viable throughout the 2000s, some are recouping production
budgets through international presales. Therefore, as the Offset offers producers a 40
per cent rebate on eligible production expenses, had Storm Warning (going into profit
from international presales alone) been produced under the scheme, the producers
would already be in strong position to utilise the rebate’s equity to attract future
investment and finance further production.
However, the Offset’s composition raises several issues of concern. Not applicable to
development costs, the Offset may undermine production slate development and
potentially affect the script quality of emerging projects (Ford 2008). Arising from the
tenets of cultural policy, the Offset is structured for traditional theatrical economic
models, with all qualifying films required to secure domestic theatrical release. As we
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have seen, new economic models for horror production are emerging, and theatrical
release is in some cases becoming less viable. Digital distribution platforms are also
becoming more prevalent. Therefore, the Offset may limit the adoption of more
economically viable straight-to-DVD release models, and for some encourage the
pursuit of an archaic economic model. This is as much an issue for the broader
industry as it is for horror.
Moreover, this study illustrates that production partnerships and even production
companies are being formed across national boundaries, and producers are looking
overseas to produce ‘Australian’ titles. Such dynamics challenge traditional notions of
what should qualify as Australian content. For an Australian film to secure finance
through the Producer Offset, it must satisfy three (among other) qualifying criteria
inherited from the defunct 10BA: a film must be predominantly shot in Australia; it
must be produced by Australians; and subject-matter is still a qualifying consideration
(FFC 2007).73 Thus Australian films produced offshore, and most expenditure
incurred overseas, will not qualify for the Offset, dissuading the growth of
international production although there are natural advantages in doing so for
producers. Consequently, these priorities may become disconnected from the
structural realities of an industry in a continuum of international integration.
Furthermore, some commercially viable horror films have been produced for much
less than the Offset’s minimum qualifying budget threshold of A$1 million. As
Antony Ginnane (2007) commented in an interview for Screen Business in relation to
the Producer Offset:
The third thing I am troubled with is this budget limit of a million dollars.
Where if you’re making a film for less than a A$1 million you don’t qualify.
And to me that’s a really bad thing, because it’s locked into old-line thinking,
its locked into a movie costs a million dollars to make. And movies don’t cost
a million dollars to make. Today, there are movies that can make as much
money as Australia [Baz Luhrmann 2008] may make, that are being made for
A$300,000; A$200,000; A$100,000. I’ve heard people say … there will be
73 See http://www.ffc.gov.au/investment.
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people running around making movies that aren’t movies. Well … I don’t
think it’s up to us. Movies can be made for A$50, 000, and those films in my
opinion are as much deserving of help as a A$1 million movie.
With 10BA’s replacement, the Offset and publicly administered finance become the
primary sources of financial assistance for the industry. Therefore, low-budget films
below A$1 million, and unlikely to secure public finance, may be excluded from any
form of assistance to stimulate private investment. Gabriel is one low-budget
production with a budget of A$150,000 which may not have gone into production
without securing private investment through the 10BA. The AFC’s low-budget
Indivision initiative is an important policy program seeding high-end indie projects,
and will be critical to financing films below A$1 million once the Offset becomes the
primary source of production finance. Moreover, the program also has the potential to
connect indie filmmakers emerging from underground horror production –
particularly those with several projects to their name – and facilitating their crossover
into the mainstream industry.
Horror filmmakers, particularly indie filmmakers, welcome arm’s length assistance so
long as it does not dictate production terms or interfere with the generic nature of
production. Therefore, indirect tax-incentives targeting and facilitating low-budget
production that fall beneath A$1 million, but with a floor to exclude low-end credit-
card productions bordering on pro-am production – as Chapter 5 points out, very few
indie producers are capable of raising budgets over A$100,000 – may stimulate lower
end, but commercially oriented, production with the potential of small-scale cinema
and DVD release. Underground filmmakers have also benefited from travel to
audiovisual markets and information from distribution seminars, suggesting that non-
financial assistance may also foster career development.
The horror films of Australian cinema
An important lesson for the broader Australian film industry is that, while the
Australian horror production sector is internationally integrated, commercially
oriented and genre based, cultural specificity and Australianness still play a role in
product differentiation, and ultimately the success of some horror titles. While non-
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culturally specific horror films comprise the largest proportion of output, the diverse
sources of cultural capital influencing Aussie horror films clearly illustrate the
importance of uniquely Australian thematic, aesthetic and stylistic elements for recent
horror titles: from the prominent role of the Australian landscape in Wolf Creek,
Rogue and Acolytes, to colonial history and the Tasmanian Tiger in Dying Breed,
Indigenous Australians themes in Prey and Rogue, and Australian sporting culture in
I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer, among many other examples.
As a tradition, the films represent the ‘underbelly’ of Australian cinema, very much in
contrast to the Australian film industry’s broader aesthetic project. In parallel with the
universal horror genre, Australian horror films are not positive depictions of
Australian society and culture, exploring as they do the grotesque, the monstrous, the
limits of boundaries, and so on. But as an Australian tradition, many explore such
universal concerns with an Australian sensibility, and draw upon culturally specific
‘fears’, ‘horrors’ and ‘monsters’. There has been an evolution in the way in which
Australian horror films interact with universal horror conventions over the last three
and half decades.
The ‘horror tradition’ in the 1970s and early 1980s is best understood as a ‘horrific
tradition’, although pure horror films did exist. Many of these horror-related films
were hybrid films mixing various genres and displaying horror elements without
being pure horror films in their own right. However, from the late 1980s and into the
1990s, the Australian horror tradition moved away from a preoccupation with
experimental films towards pure genre films. By the new millennium, hybrid films
were the exception, with most horror titles engaging with universal horror
conventions and experimenting with mixing horror conventions with invention. This
onset of generic innovation has correlations with the internationalisation of the
Australian film industry. In short, a major shift in how the tradition engaged with the
horror genre emerged as the Australian film industry was becoming more exposed to
international influences and market forces in the 1990s. Internationalisation has not
lessened the emergence of uniquely Australian horror titles. Rather, a cultural and
non-cultural divide has continued to characterise broad aesthetic trends while films
have progressively become more connected with international generic cycles and
universal conventions.
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The US market has also had a major influence on production strategies, which has
ultimately affected the content, style and subject-matter of local horror titles. Since
the 1970s, many films have been produced ‘with more than an eye on America’s large
lucrative audience – not surprisingly, they are often more concerned to exist within a
“universal” generic format than speak in an Australian voice’ (Hood 1994: 1). Some
Australian producers argue that cultural specificity has adverse effects upon a title’s
commercial appeal; others, such as Greg Mclean, argue to the contrary. Nevertheless,
Gabriel, Daybreakers, Reign in Darkness and The Gates of Hell (2008), among
others, are often set in the United States, have contrived American identities and
accents, or have constructed non-culturally specific identities in an attempt to appeal
to a ‘universal’ audience, particularly US audiences. In some cases, American accents
have been a major point of criticism for such films. In terms of Gabriel, for Dan
Walker,74 a reviewer for the online journal and reviews website Media and Culture:
One point that bothered me was the accents. Whitfield, originally a Brit, has a
largely British accent that at times has a quasi-American bite. The rest of the
cast, all Australians, have patchy American accents that sometimes detract
from their work.
In terms of Reign in Darkness, an IMDB.com comment by Charlie Bubble75 echoes
many other fan and reviewer sentiments:
Why try to do fake American accents and fail so badly! I had no idea which
planet some of these people were from when they opened their mouth. One
guy, an illegal arms dealer, does about three different accents in one sentence.
I think he starts off as a cockney, then lapses into an American accent and
finishes off as an Aussie!
Moreover, as this study has illustrated, the horror film’s universalising alchemy is the
evocation of primal fears. Cultural discount through accents, culturally specific
themes and cultural character types does not generally detract from a horror film’s 74 http://reviews.media-culture.org.au/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2310. 75 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0351639/usercomments.
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appeal, hence the cultural diversity of horror films circulating in global markets in
recent years. For example, UK horror titles 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later and The
Descent performed strongly at the box office, despite containing English accents,
colloquialisms and culturally specific humour. The popular US horror film 30 Days of
Night revolves around Russian vampires speaking in subtitles. However, what matters
for an audience is the horror waiting in the shadowy English farmhouses in the 28
Days franchise, or the monsters lurking in the darkness of The Descent.
Non-culturally specific titles such as Acolytes are perfectly natural within an
internationally oriented production sector. Set near Queensland’s Glasshouse
Mountains, the landscape is a major feature of this film, which follows the story of
three Australian high school students who discover a body and attempt to blackmail
the killer into killing a rapist. However, it neither attempts to emphasise
Australianness nor constructs a contrived US identity for a story that could have been
set anywhere in the world. For Wolf Creek Australianness was essential to the film’s
narrative, and stripped of cultural specificity, the film would arguably have become a
clichéd slasher film. The construction of contrived US identities on the other hand,
unless leading cast members are predominantly American as in the case of
Daybreakers, is fraught with problems for audience reception.
Where does underground horror end and pro-am production begin?
Feature films such as A Murder of Crows, with a trailer on Youtube.com, produced by
15-year-old Benjamin from Newcastle, Sydney – A.K.A. ‘TheSims2Ben’ – underline
the tensions involved in our future understanding of Australian horror production. The
definitional cut-off point for the inclusion of underground horror films in this study is
filmmakers actively attempting to sell or circulate their product into national and
international markets. Such filmmakers are thus guided by business and economic
imperatives, although their business models are quite different from mainstream
horror productions. However, not all these films succeed. The Horror of Cornhole
Cove is an example. Produced on a budget commensurate with many underground
horror productions, it has a Myspace.com site with linkages to other horror
productions, it has an online trailer and benefits from knowledge flows being part of
an online network, and so forth. However, to date this film has not secured formal
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distribution. Therefore, how does this film differ from A Murder of Crows? Assuming
a filmmaker cannot be discriminated against because of his or her age, this film is
essentially a very similar production. The only difference is that Cornhole was
actively a production strategy driven by quasi-business imperatives. Crows, however,
was produced to see ‘whether or not I could do it’ (‘TheSims2Ben’ 2007,
correspondence with the author, 17 August), which puts it firmly in the pro-am class.
A corollary from an industry development perspective is that determining the endless
tail of underground production will by necessity be fuzzy, and difficult to quantify.
Moreover, calculating the value of such production for the broader Australian horror
production sector is similarly fraught with difficulties. As Cornhole has cross-
promoted other horror productions, benefited from information flows and promotion
from Australian fanzines, and submitted screeners to fanzines and reviewers. It has
therefore contributed to the subculture of Australian horror production. However,
hypothetically speaking, producing a feature film and putting a trailer on
Youtube.com may in the future develop a cult following and result in thousands of
viewings, and if the clip is a breakout success, potentially hundreds of thousands of
viewings. With such exposure as a Youtube.com hit, the benefits for underground
horror production may be greater than the benefits accruing from a title like Cornhole.
Without suggesting Crows will become the next Youtube.com hit, such a future
outcome is a real possibility, and if such a phenomenon occurs, questions of value and
underground horror production will be called into question.
Conclusion
This study has constructed the heritage of the Australian horror film tradition and
delineated the primary production and distribution models of contemporary horror
films. It has found that horror films have been a relatively viable production strategy
during an era when digital production and distribution technologies,
internationalisation and a highly competitive global marketplace are creating a more
difficult environment for Australian films. While the average Australian cinema-goer
may be hard pressed to name a handful of Aussie horror titles, Australian horror
production is much larger than the public and perhaps even the Australian film
industry realise. However, in contrast to more venerated Australian feature film
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production – predominantly comedy, drama and art-house films – Australian horror
titles are produced for horror-specific, cult and youth audiences, rather than broader
mainstream and ‘older’ art-house audiences, with the lion’s share released directly
into video or cult markets.
In many ways, this study is a story of the struggles of Australian filmmakers engaging
with the horror genre since the 1970s, the numerous barriers facing production and
distribution, and the implications for the tradition’s growth. Most importantly, despite
these hurdles, the tradition has grown and horror has proved a highly robust form of
low-budget filmmaking for Australian producers. It surged in productivity during
conducive industry, market and financing conditions, before returning to an
underground existence during less favourable conditions. While mainstream
production companies and commercially oriented producers are targeting global
horror markets, this study also points towards the existence of underground horror
production producing credit-card films for long-tail and niche markets, and the
interrelations between these two very different worlds. As a sector on the Australian
film industry’s fringes, it highlights that production models – particularly low-budget
mainstream production and indie films – are often highly entrepreneurial.
On first glance, this study highlights the ‘exceptions’ of Australian horror films,
articulating horror as a genre-based microcosm often independent from and in
opposition to the broader project of Australian cinema, namely the disreputable nature
and marginalisation of horror films, the tensions between commercial and cultural
production, the abject nature of subject-matter contrasting with positive
representations of Australianness, a preoccupation with international rather than
domestic markets, drawing upon private rather than public finance, and so on.
However, there are also major continuities reminding us that local horror films are
products of Australian cinema. Akin to the broader industry, horror production has
been characterised by periods of boom and bust, and has been constrained by a small
domestic marketplace. In the 1970s, 1980s and even the 1990s, local horror titles have
experienced cultural cringe from local audiences, and import orientation has
constrained domestic exhibition. The most popular horror titles are often distinctly
Australian in nature, consistent with broader aesthetic trends, and horror films draw
upon the pool of tropes, iconography and themes unique to Australian cinema.
197
Chapter 2 outlined the broad nature of horror as genre and market segment suggesting
that the rise of Australian horror production is part of a broader international trend
driven by globalising film production and changing international distribution
environments. Chapter 3 outlined the tenuous position horror films occupy within a
national cinema, and outlined the generic evolution of Australian horror films since
the 1970s. Chapters 4 and 5 explored the extent to which Australian producers and
national and international audiences are engaging with local horror films and
highlighted that heterogeneous horror production is occurring across various budget
ranges. Chapter 6 argued that straight-to-video release is becoming a dominant
economic model for some horror producers.
Many of this study’s findings are drawn from a substantial amount of primary
research and statistical analysis. Consequently, it has allowed the analysis of diverse
facets of Australian horror production, from budget ranges and financial sources to
productivity by decade and characteristics of individual production companies.
Moreover, this study represents the most comprehensive study of Australian horror
films and the horror genre within Australian cinema, and the first history in over a
decade and a half. In a sense, this research augments the horror sector’s understanding
of itself and how the broader Australian film industry understands the sector.
Is also highlights that there is much more production occurring than government film
agencies – charged with monitoring and maintaining industry statistics – capture in
official annual production surveys. This said, the 2007/08 AFC annual production
survey captured several underground horror films that may have gone unnoticed in
earlier years. Before 2008, however, this study illustrates that official statistics
focused predominantly upon films attaining cinema release, and excluded many low-
budget films receiving straight-to-DVD release. Had this study drawn solely upon
AFC data and production listings in official industry magazines, a very different
picture would have emerged and a large proportion of underground horror production
would have gone unidentified.
This research suggests that Australian cinema needs to be more aware of popular
movie genres. Moreover, it highlights that domestic and international audiences are
198
becoming increasingly generic in their tastes as a result of globalisation, a finding
consistent with issues being raised internationally about global cinema. In particular,
within the context of Australian cinema, there is an alternative to cinema, and horror
films generally do not need cinema to be economically viable. Finally, this study
clearly points towards the importance of the US market for Australian horror titles.
Further research
This study opens the door to greater discussion of the Australian horror tradition and
the function of the horror genre as a naturalised part of Australian cinema and its
history. Nevertheless, this study has barely scratched the surface of the horror genre’s
nature within Australian cinema, and its relations to the broader horror genre. An
issue for further analysis is the textual nature of Australian horror films, and in
particular the intertextuality of horror films – how they influence each other and how
they are influenced by the tropes and the tradition of Australian cinema more broadly.
What are Australian horror films’ sources of cultural capital? What is the relationship
between horror films and Australian folklore, myths and legends? This study
provides some insight into these questions but further research is needed.
This study also generates the opportunity for discussion of the ‘dark side’ or
‘underside’ of Australian cinema, an area of discussion common in British cinema
studies discussing local horror films (see Hutchings 2002). Australian cinema does
not solely comprise quirky comedy and drama films or positive projections of
Australian culture and nationality. Horror films explore the negative aspects of
Australian culture, society and national identity, and reflect social and cultural
anxieties of a particular historical era (Marriott 2004). What are Australian horror
films’ social and cultural messages? What culturally specific perversities, nightmares,
anxieties and horrors do they explore? And what do they tell us about Australian
culture and society? What do uniquely Australian fears and terrors, as represented in
horror films, tell us about the Australian psyche and cultural anxieties by historical
period since the 1970s?
This study re-raises the ongoing question of genre production and its place in the
Australian film industry, and suggests that the economics of the horror film are suited
199
to the Australian film industry’s financial limitations. But what other niche genre
markets are suitable for Australian producers? Moreover, does the introduction of the
Producer Offset open up new genre markets previously closed to Australian producers
due to financial ceilings and the limitations of cultural policy? Moreover, a
comparative analysis could explore the commercial performance of Australian and
international horror traditions worldwide. How successful are Australian horror films
in relation to those of other countries? How significant a player is Australia in the
global horror market? What are the weaknesses and competitive advantages of
Australian horror production in relation to international traditions?
Indie horror production is merely one strand of Australian indie filmmaking occurring
each year. As this study illustrates in relation to the horror genre, the scope and scale
of indie production may not be well understood, despite contributing to the broader
industry, launching careers, and sometimes producing significant breakout successes.
How large is Australian indie production as a sector in terms of annual production and
production spend? What indie distribution models exist? What is the proportion of
films produced to those released? What is the economic and non-economic transfer of
indie production to the broader Australian film industry? How many filmmakers are
building sustained careers from indie production?
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Appendix 1: Australian horror films by decade – a chronological breakdown The following table of Australian horror films by decade is compiled from two
sources. The list from The Strangler’s Grip (1912) to Body Melt (1993) has been
adapted from Robert Hood’s (1994) survey of horror-related films, using a very broad
definition. From Body Melt onwards, the list is compiled from primary sources
outlined in the Methodology section of (and defined in) Chapter 1. Hood’s (1994) list
has been tweaked slightly: the 1980s horror films Marauders (1986) and Strange
Behaviour (1981), absent from Hood’s survey, have been added. Year/era Total Films 1900–50 6 The Strangler’s Grip (Photographed by Franklin Barrett, 1912)
The Face at the Window (Charles Villiers, 1919) The Guyra Ghost Mystery (John Cosgrove, 1921) The Twins (Leslie McCallum, 1923) Fisher’s Ghost (Raymond Longford, 1924) Under Capricorn (Alfred Hitchcock, 1949 – Great Britain)
1970–79 Experimental beginnings
20 And the Word Was Made Flesh (Dusan Marek, 1971) Homesdale (Peter Weir, 1971) (50 mins) Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, 1971) Shirley Thompson versus The Aliens (Jim Sharman, 1972) Night of Fear (Terry Bourke, 1973) The Sabbat of the Black Cat (Ralph Lawrence Marsden, 1973) (80 mins) The Cars That Ate Paris (Peter Weir, 1974) Inn of the Damned (Terry Bourke, 1975) Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975) End Play (Tim Burstall, 1976) Summer of Secrets (Jim Sharman, 1976) aka Secret of Paradise The Last Wave (Peter Weir, 1977) Summerfield (Ken Hannam, 1977) Patrick (Richard Franklin, 1978) The Plumber (Peter Weir, 1978) Weekend of Shadows (Tom Jeffry, 1978) Long Weekend (Colin Eggleston, 1979) Mad Max (George Miller, 1979) Snapshot (Simon Wincer, 1979) Thirst (Rod Hardy, 1979)
1980–89 The 1980s horror push
48 The Chain Reaction (Ian Berry, 1980) Harlequin (Simon Wincer, 1980) Nightmares (John Lamond, 1980) Alison’s Birthday (Ian Coughlan, 1981) Horror Movie (Maurice Murphy, 1981) aka Goose Flesh Mad Max 2 (George Miller, 1981) Roadgames (Richard Franklin, 1981) The Survivor (David Hemmings, 1981) Strange Behaviour (Michael Laughlin 1981) Crosstalk (Mark Egerton, 1982) Lady, Stay Dead (Terry Bourke, 1982) Next of Kin (Tony Williams, 1982) Turkey Shoot (Brian Trenchard-Smith, 1982) Savage Attraction (Frank Shields, 1983) Innocent Prey (Colin Eggleston, 1984) One Night Stand (John Duigan, 1984) Razorback (Russell Mulcahy, 1984)
201
Mad Max 3 (George Miller, 1985) Cassandra (Colin Eggleston, 1986) Dead-End Drive-In (Brian Trenchard-Smith, 1986) Frog Dreaming (Brian Trenchard-Smith, 1986) aka The Quest The Hound of Music (Gary McFeat, 1986) Spook (David Anthony Hall, 1986) Marauders (Mark Savage, 1986) Fortress (Arch Nicholson, 1986) Link (Richard Franklin,1986) (offshore UK production) Dark Age (Arch Nicholson, 1987) Brainblast (Andy Neyl, 1987) Contagion (Karl Zwicky, 1987) Frenchman’s Farm (Ron Way, 1987) Howling III: the Marsupials (Philippe Mora, 1987) Kadaicha (James Bogle, 1987) Outback Vampires (Colin Eggleston, 1987) Zombie Brigade (Barrie Pattison, 1987) Dangerous Game (Stephen Hopkins, 1988) The Dreaming (Mario Andreacchio, 1988) Pandemonium (Hayden Keenan, 1988) Houseboat Horror (Ollie Martin, 1988) Out of the Body (Brian Trenchard-Smith, 1988) Vicious (Karl Zwicky, 1988) aka To Make A Killing Dead Calm (Phillip Noyce, 1989) Death Run (Robert A. Cocks, 1989) Fatal Sky (Frank Shields, 1989) aka No Cause For Alarm and Vanished Ghosts … of the Civil Dead (John Hillcoat, 1989) Incident at Raven’s Gate (Rolf de Heer, 1989) The Salute of the Jugger (David Peoples, 1989) The 13th Floor (Chris Roache, 1989)
1990–99 An underground existence
19 Bloodmoon (Alec Mills, 1990) Dead Sleep (Alec Mills, 1990) Demonstone (Andrew Prowse, 1990) aka Heartstone The Min-Min (Carl T. Woods, 1990) Sher Mountain Killings Mystery (Vince Martin, 1990) Bloodlust (Richard Wolstencroft and Jon Hewitt, 1991) Beyond the Rim (Craig Godfrey, 1992) The Presence (John Rhall, 1992) Bedevil (Tracey Moffatt, 1993) Body Melt (Philip Brophy, 1993) Done to Death (Darren Boyce, 1993) ** End of Hood’s survey ** Beginning of this study’s survey ** Encounters (Michael Fahey, 1993) The Point of Death (Craig Godfrey, 1995) Cthulhu (Damian Heffernan, 1996) Sceemer (Gary Young, 1996) Back from the Dead (Craig Godfrey 1996) The Demons in My Head (Neil Johnson 1998) Game Room (Joe Tornatore, 1999) Dead End (Iren Koster 1999)
2000–07 The boom in contemporary Australian horror production
62 Moloch (Ernest (Ernie) Clark, 2000) Cut (Kimble Rendall, 2000) Stygian (James Wan and Shannon Young, 2000) Scratch (Michael Ralph, 2000) Cubbyhouse (Murray Fahey, 2001) In Blood (Matt Moss, 2002) The Killbillies (Duke Hendrix, 2002) (77 mins) Reign in Darkness (David W. Allen and Kel Dolen, 2002) To Become One (Neil Johnson, 2002)
202
Subterano (Esben Storm, 2003) Visitors (Richard Franklin, 2003) Lost Things (Martin Murphy, 2003) Undead (Michael and Peter Spierig, 2003) Bloodspit (Duke Hendrix, 2004) (75 mins) Defenseless: A Blood Symphony (Mark Savage, 2004) Ozferatu (Daryl White, 2005) Feed (Brett Leonard, 2005) Wolf Creek (Greg Mclean, 2005) Safety in Numbers (David Douglas, 2005) Questions (Matthew Scott 2005) When Evil Reigns (Alix and Luke C Jackson, 2006) Demons Among Us (Stuart Simpson, 2006) Voodoo Lagoon (Nicholas Cohen, 2006) Silence is Golden (Matthew Freitas and Jonathan Nolan, 2006) Parallels (Ben Warner, 2006) I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer (Doug Turner and Stacey Edmonds, 2006) Family Demons (Ursula Dabrowsky, 2006) Shattered (Johan Earl, 2006) Watch Me (Melanie Ansley, 2006) Schooner of Blood (Kate Glover, 2006) A Nocturne (Bill Mousoulis, 2006) The Horror of Cornhole Cove (Aaron Cassidy, 2006) Storm Warning (Jamie Blanks, 2006) The Subject (Chris Scott, 2006) Gabriel (Shane Abbess, 2007) Gone (Ringan Ledwidge, 2007) Rogue (Greg Mclean, 2007) Acolytes (Jon Hewitt, 2007) Black Water (Andrew Traucki and David Nerlich, 2007) The Disturbed (Daniel Armstrong, 2007) Devil’s Gateway (Alexander Herget, 2007) Flesh (Stuart Stanton, 2007) Rosebery 7470 (Stefan Popescu, 2007) Lake Mungo (Joel Anderson, 2007) Shape (Andrew Miles, 2007) Nailed (Gabriel Dowrick, 2007) Prey (George Miller, 2008) Daybreakers (Michael and Peter Spierig, 2008) Gone Missing (Ed Lyons, 2008) Condition Dead (Patrick Lussier, 2008) Howl (David Flores, 2008) Dying Breed (Jody Dwyer, 2008) Dead Country (Andrew Merkelbach, 2008) (75 mins) Zombies in Kombies (Glenn Majurey, 2008) The Dark Lurking (Greg Connors, 2008) Long Weekend (Jamie Blanks, 2008) (remake) The Forest (Wayne Dixon, 2008) The Gates of Hell (Kelly Dolen, 2008) The 7th Hunt (Jon Cohen, 2008) Bring Her Home: Dead or Alive (Matthew Scott, 2008) The Fury (James Colmer, 2008) Axed (Joshua Long, 2008)
2000–07 International Aussie horror compilations
3 Savage Cinema Down Under (Mark Savage, 2006) Aussie Horror Part 1 (2004) (Classics compilation: Thirst; Patrick and Strange Behaviour) Aussie Horror Part 2 (2004) (Classics compilation: The Dreaming; Voyage into Fear; The Survivor and Snapshot)
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Appendix 2: Budget expenditure on Australian horror production: 2000–08 Mainstream production (Budgets above A$1 mil)
Underground horror production76
(budgets below A$1 mil) No. Film Budget Budget
source No. Film Budget Budget
source 1. Rogue $28 mil Lightfoot
(2007) 1. Gabriel $150,000 Herald Sun,
16 November 200777
2. Daybreakers $25 mil FFC 2. Reign in Darkness
$49,000 Dolan (2003)
3. Gone $10 mil IF magazine Nov 2005
3. I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer
$37,000 Interview
4. Subterano $6.3 mil FFC 4. Rosebery 7470
$30,000 IMDBPro
5. Visitors $5.9 mil FFC 5. Family Demons
$22,000 Interview
6. Cut $5.2 mil* FFC 6. Demons Among Us
$20,000 Interview
7. Cubbyhouse $5 mil FFC 7. Parallels
$20,000 Interview
8. Storm Warning
$4.2 mil FFC 8. Watch Me
$6,000 IMDBPro
9. Acolytes $3.8 mil FFC 9. When Evil Reigns
$5,000 Interview
10. Dying Breed $2.9 mil FFC IMDBPro
10. Bloodspit $4,000 Interview
11. Wolf Creek $1.4 mil**
Shore (2007)
11. The Killbillies
$2,000 Interview
12. Lake Mungo $1.4 mil IMDBPro 12. To Become One
$1,900 IMDBPro
13. Black Water $1.2 million
Interview
13. In Blood $1,500 Interview
14. Devil’s Gateway
$1 mil IMDBPro 14. Nailed $1,000 IMDB
15. Dead Country $1 mil IMDBPro 16. Voodoo
Lagoon $1 mil Encore78
17. Feed $1 mil Interview 18. Scratch $1 mil AFC 19. Moloch $1mil AFC 20. Undead $1 mil Age
1/07/05
Total: $107.3 mil Total: $369,400 *Actual budget A$5.25 million; **Actual budget A$1.38 million rounded up to A$1.4 million.
76 Budget figures refer to cash budgets spent on production and does not include deferrals for above and below the line costs. While most credit-card films are deferred payment arrangements some do not use payment deferrals and cast and crew members simply work for free. 77 http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22768696-5006023,00.html [Accessed 26 May 2008]. 78 Encore (2005), vol. 23, no. 9, in ‘Production Listings’.
204
Appendix 3: Australian horror films by budget range Range
(A$) Internationally financed horrors
Non-cultural and Aussie horrors (A$)
Co-productions
$0 to 500,000 Gabriel $150,000 Reign in Darkness $49,000 I Know How Many … $37,000 Rosebery 7470 $30,000 Family Demons $22,000 Demons Among Us $20,000 Parallels $20,000 Watch Me $6,000 When Evil Reigns $5,000 Bloodspit $4,000 The Killbillies $2,000 To Become One $1,900 In Blood $1,500 Nailed $1,000
n/a
$500,000 to 1 million
Undead $1 million (just under $1 mil)
n/a
$1 to 3 million Feed $1–1.5 million Wolf Creek $1.4 million Black Water $1.2 million Lake Mungo $ 1.4 million Scratch $1 million Moloch $ 1 million Devil’s Gateway $1 million Dead Country $1 million
Voodoo Lagoon $1 million
$3 to 6 million Cut $5.2 million (predominantly internationally financed)
Visitors $5.9 million Cubbyhouse $5 million Storm Warning $4.2 million Acolytes $3.8 million Dying Breed $2.9 million
n/a
$6 to 10 million
Subterano $6.3 million Gone $10 million
$10 to 20 million
n/a
$20 million + Rogue $28 million Daybreakers $25 million
205
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