David Hannay
As Australian cinema broke through to international audiences in the 1970s through respected art house films like Peter Weir's "Picnic At Hanging Rock," a new underground of low-budget exploitation filmmakers were turning out considerably less highbrow fare. Documentary filmmaker Mark Hartley explores this unbridled era of sex and violence, complete with clips from some of the scene's most outrageous flicks and interviews with the renegade filmmakers themselves.
Following a messy divorce, Lynn Graham moves back home to Australia with her three American-born children in tow. Buying an old house on the same street as her sister seems like a good idea, but its low price reflects a unpleasant history of murder and satanic ritual. Before long, her two youngest kids have fallen under the spell of an evil force emanating from a sinister cubbyhouse in the back garden, and bloody past events look set to repeat themselves.
When her practical joker boyfriend dies, a young woman recalls all the pranks he pulled as she tries to figure out who murdered him.
Has echoes of Jans Rautenbach's controversial "Jannie Totsiens" and was only unabanned in South Africa in 1990. This is is a superior sex/psychological thriller set an strange asylum for the super rich. The eerie music, sound effects and a prowling camera make this an edge of the seat viewing experience. Stephanie (Adrienne Pearce), arrives as a patient at a private clinic for sufferers of sexual dysfunction run by Dr Hildesheimer (Towje Kleiner). Stephanie’s fellow patients all have their own issues including inhibition, neurosis, fixation, delusions etc. Stephanie begins a tentative affair with one of the other patients while a killer stalks the institution.
Private Detective Mike Hayes (Guy Doleman), is working on a divorce case, when he stumbles upon a series of cover-ups that leads to a corpse. His investigation takes him into the lievs of two families living in the Sydney suburbs. Although they look like ordinary people, one of them is the killer. Hayes meets the strange teenager David Prentice (David Franklin), who keeps a violent crime scrapbook, and Val Meadows (Diane McLean), the mistress who believes that someone is trying to kill her. The more the investigation deepens, the more twisted and complex it becomes. It appears the only people who hate Val enough to want her dead, are her own family. Could it be her two sons, alienated by her dominant nature, her lover, or even her best friend?
A young girl is subjected to a reign of terror so that her soul can be transferred to the body of an old crone.
Three attractive socialites working for charity turn to robbery to keep a special primary school for underprivileged children open.
A man is brutally beaten so he and 4 others head to the beach for refuge and relaxation. It soon becomes clear that they've been imprisoned by person or persons unknown. Then an unknown mad killer begins picking off the vacationers, one by one.
A beautiful and talented editor of a successful women's magazine discovers that she is pregnant. She decides to have the baby and raise it as a single parent.
A beautiful woman, Kate (Tina Grenville), is released from a sanatorium unaware that while she was away her husband John (George Lazenby) has begun an affair with her sister Marianne (Wendy Hughes). The two sisters live together in a creepy apartment block while John is away, and find themselves stalked by some mysterious strangers.
Paul Lawrence is a working class man who dates Cara, sells shirts at a Sydney department store, and dreams of attending art school. Cara leaves for London and Paul becomes the protege of designer Marie Rosefield. Through this he enters the 'set', the world of Sydney art society. Rosefield is friends with Mark Broniski, an artist who commissions Paul to design a set for British stage director, John L. Fredericks. Paul is helped by art student Tony Brown, who is dating Paul's cousin, Kim Sylvester. Paul and Tony begin a homosexual affair. Kim's mother Peggy has an affair with Boronoski.
