THE SAPPHIRES

Stars: Deborah Mailman, Chris O'Dowd, Jessica Mauboy, Shari Stebbens, Miranda Tapsell, Tory Kittles, Eka Darville, Lynette Narkle, Kylie Belling, Don Battee, Judith Lucy, Rhys Muldoon, Georgina Haig and Gregory J Fryer.
Writers: Tony Briggs and Keith Thompson.
Director: Wayne Blair.

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Screening - OPENING NIGHT, Thur 2 Aug, 7.30pm.

Rating: 2.5/5

Charming import Chris O’Dowd stands above a frustratingly predictable song-and-dance show in Wayne Blair’s The Sapphires. Though it touches upon such hot button issues as racism, the Vietnam War, self-determination via social change and the stolen generation, there is an anaemic shallowness to the film’s exploration of them that suggests palatability and sentimentality were higher priorities than social commentary.

The pulled-punches in terms of thematic insight would have seemed less obvious had the more crowd-pleasing elements been handled with greater skill. Instead, the film hamstrings itself with some bland, episodic plotting, just-ok musical numbers and a cringing reliance upon anachronistic ‘Strine (the ‘strewth’ and ‘drongo’ laden scripts for both Red Dog and now The Sapphires indicate the broadly-played Aussie stereotype is alive and well).

Additionally, overstated 60s iconography abounds, including a grab-bag of clichéd period music (Soul Man; Hang On, I’m Coming; I Can’t Help Myself, and so on). Though Blair’s vision expands the action, the stage play origins are obvious in the films structure, which allows for a show-stopping tune at regular intervals whether the drama needs it or not.

Loosely adapted from the true story of four women of the Yorta Yorta clan who sang together in the late 60s and 70s (unlike in the film, only two, Laurel Robinson and Lois Peeler, toured Vietnam), the film is at its best when establishing the conflicted bond that the group shares. The mother-hen is Gail (Deborah Mailman), an all-too-confrontational, downright unlikable young woman who, much to the actress’ credit, remains the emotional core of the film.

There is deep-seated animosity between Gail and her cousin Kay (a fine Shari Stebbens) dating back to Kay’s forced removal from her family as a child and subsequent shunning of her roots. Though this subplot offers some good melodrama (a bout of fisticuffs between the two, for example), the stolen generation issues lack a potent focus.

The other singers are Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell), a firebrand with a lust for life and, more specifically, American soldiers; and, Julie (Jessica Mauboy), the youngest but most level-headed of the group and certainly the most talented. Neither character is developed with much conviction over the course of the film, though Mauboy exudes all the front-girl charisma that her pop persona suggested she would.

An over-extended but funny opening sequence set during a country pub talent show introduces ne’er-do-well Irishman Dave Lovelace, who introduces the girl group to the wonders of soul music then hitches a ride on their star-making trajectory. As Lovelace, Chris O’Dowd is the ace up the sleeve that Blair often relies upon to enrich scenes of unfocussed drama.

The opening shots of an unusually lush outback landscape hint at an artistry that is only occasionally realised. Cinematographer Warwick Thornton seems entirely at ease in the idyllic bushland setting of the girl’s mission home (a very different slice of indigenous life to the one painted by Thornton in his acclaimed 2009 directorial debut, Samson and Delilah), but a tinniness infuses the Vietnam-set sequences. Tightly-framed versions of Saigon and US military bases clearly constructed in the wilds of the Oz bush aren’t very convincing, though a dramatically-staged attack that occurs during one of the girl’s final shows most definitely is.   

SIDE BY SIDE

Features: Keanu Reeves, Martin Scorsese, Vilmos Zsigmond, James Cameron, David Fincher, Wally Pfister, Dion Beebe, Vittorio Storaro, Robert Rodriguez, Steven Soderbergh, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski, Donald McAlpine, Michael Chapman, Walter Murch, Greta Gerwig and George Lucas.
Director: Chris Kenneally

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Screenings - Sun 5 Aug, 1.30pm; Wed 8 Aug, 4.30pm.

Rating: 4/5

 

Capturing a paradigm shift in the life cycle of the American motion picture, Chris Kenneally’s remarkably captivating doco Side by Side only occasionally teeters over into the kind of hard-to-decipher techtalk that threatens to distance average moviegoers. For the most part, it is an enthralling collection of A-list talking heads arguing their stance on the digital-vs-film debate.

Hosted by an omnipresent Keanu Reeves, exhibiting far more warmth and personality than he has in any of his last half-dozen acting parts, Side by Side darts and weaves between the most savvy of Hollywood’s directorial talents, each of them espousing on the pros and cons of new camera technology. Such erudite and informed speakers as Scorsese, Fincher, Soderbergh, Cameron, Rodriguez, Linklater, Nolan and Lucas (though, oddly, no Spielberg), as well as cinematographers and technical craftsmen from the field of in-camera technology, all speak with a fierce passion for their preferred medium.

Reeves has worked with several of the filmmakers on past projects and engages them on their views with an informed and open interviewing style. Those new to the debate won’t feel lost for long; easy-to-grasp graphics describing the technology under scrutiny ensures the debate is easily comprehended. The doco will lose some when it delves into the benefits of the latest digital-camera workings; if the word ‘Red’ is still just a colour to you, the 70 minute mark is perhaps a good time for that bathroom break.

Enlivened by scene clips from dozens of films and propelled forward by a determination on Kenneally’s part to keep things fluid and fascinating rather than argumentative and academic, Side by Side is top-tier festival fodder and a must-own DVD item for any film buff. It will ultimately become a time-capsule document of a point in the film industry’s history when a line in the sand is drawn by one faction and defied and crossed by the other.

Oh, and it was shot on digital.

KILLER JOE

Stars: Matthew McConnaughey, Thomas Haden Church, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple and Gina Gershon.
Writers: Tracy Letts, based upon his play.
Director: William Friedkin.

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Screenings - Fri 3 Aug, 11.30pm; Wed 8 Aug, 9.00pm.

Rating: 4/5

Awright, awright, longtime fans of Matthew McConnaughey. That Oscar speech we all hoped he would someday give but never really believed would ever eventuate seems a whole lot closer, thanks to his brilliantly evil titular psychopath, Joe Cooper, in William Friedkin’s trailer-trash noir gem, Killer Joe.

McConnaughey riffs off equally complex and blackly funny characterisations from Emile Hirsch, Thomas Haden-Church, Gina Gershon and Juno Temple to deliver a figure of commanding centrifugal force in this tummy-tightening slab of dusty, delirious immorality.

As the smalltown lawmen making blood money as a soulless hitman, the actor puts behind him a decade of limp rom-coms and shirtless tabloid pap-shots in one great performance. We can only hope it’s a kicker to a new phase in McConaughey’s career, where he delivers on the promise Hollywood held for him when he debuted his Newman-esque matinee idol screen presence in his first lead role, 1996s A Time To Kill. That same year, he impressed as charismatic lawman Buddy Deeds in John Sayles’ small town murder-mystery Lone Star, a character that could be seen as a forebearer of the dark soul he plays in Killer Joe.

Based on scripter Tracy Lett’s stage play, Killer Joe is the story of Hirsch’s Chris Smith, a desperate, petty loser deep in debt to bad people. When he discovers his ailing mother is heavily life-insured, he hatches a plan to off her with the help of Ansel (Haden-Church, equally Oscar-worthy), his droll, seen-it-all-before brother-in-law. Ansel’s brash wife Sharla (Gershon, whose on-screen introduction is priceless) and innocent teen-vixen daughter Dottie (Temple, a Teri Garr-like presence destined for a career of stealing films in great support parts) soon become caught up in the ridiculously ill-conceived murder plot.

That his films are still being sold by ‘From The Director of The French Connectiom and The Exorcist…’ taglines gives some indication to what a dichotomous curse those films were to the career of William Friedkin. After years in the critical and commercial wilderness, he has refocussed his output to deliberately small character pieces. The 2006 paranoid fantasy Bug (also a Letts adaptation) divided opinion, but few could argue Killer Joe is the work of a spent-force director. His handling of the extended, single-setting denouement (one of the few passages that point to the material’s stage origins) is a master-class of film tension.

Despite the small-room settings of many of the film’s key scenes (trailer kitchens, strip clubs, pool halls), Killer Joe feels broad and vast in its scope. The characters fill the screen beyond the edge of the frame; they make larger-than-life the viewing experience, even when five adults are crammed inside four tight walls, as is often the case. The dialogue crackles; the tension, palpable. Killer Joe is driven by a narrative momentum that enthrals. Even when McConnaughey is not onscreen, it is a cracking piece of character-driven entertainment; when he is, it something greater again.

STORM SURFERS 3D

Features: Tom Carroll, Ross Clarke-Jones, Barton Lynch, Grace Carroll, Kelly Slater, Paul Morgan, Mark Mathews, Paul ‘Antman’ Paterson and Ben Matson.
Writers/Directors:  Justin McMillan and Chris Nelius.

Rating: 4/5

The psychology of its passionate subjects and the majesty and might of the great waves they live to ride are captured with clarity, in every sense of the word, in Storm Surfers 3D. Tom Carroll and Ross Clarke-Jones are growing old as gracefully as leathery waxheads can and directors Justin McMillan and Chris Nelius grasp with insight what it means to crave young man thrills with an ageing body and mind.

It is this very human side to their film that will see Storm Surfers 3D play to festival crowds and arthouse/doco audiences and not just packed surf club halls. As giddyingly involving as the sports action is (and, at times, it is positively vertigo inducing), it is the themes of mateship, ageing, fatherhood and legacy that resonate most profoundly.

Full-time big wave surfers, the more introspective Carroll and spirited wildman Clarke-Jones travel the world conquering open ocean breaks and tight, shallow reef barrels that sometimes top 30 feet and carry several tonnes worth of water pressure. Clarke-Jones seems immune to the effects of age, both physically and mentally, but Carroll is portrayed as a man facing the importance of his own mortality.

A father of three daughters, Carroll spends the first half of the film sitting out the big rides with a shoulder injury, then struggling with his confidence when the chance to get back out their presents itself. Periods of reflection and of two friends offering insight and concern for each other provide a soulful element to Storm Surfers that make it one of those sports films that transcends its action component.

It must be said, though, that the action is grandly presented. The use of crisp, top-tier 3D technology is occasionally too impressive; there were several moments when twinges of seasickness kick in. But first-person camera work that puts the viewer on the board with Carroll and Clarke-Jones is totally immersive; helicopter shots of vast banking walls of deep blue water are spectacular. The camera team’s stunning cinematography represents some of the finest applications of the technology in factual filmmaking ever seen. 

Painting a far more enchanting portrait of Australia’s surfing brotherhood than Macario De Souza’s grubby 2007 doco Bra Boys, Storm Surfers affords two surfing icons a fitting tribute by showing them as extraordinary everymen. Whatever effort it took to get the film’s images, both intimate and expansive, it plays as wonderfully naturalistic on screen. Like the great waves Carroll and Clarke-Jones tackle, the film reveals an occasionally turbulent depth to the towering image the two men project.

THE THREE STOOGES

Stars: Chris Diamantopoulos, Sean Hayes, Will Sasso, Sofia Vergara, Craig Bierko, Larry David, Jane Lynch, Stephen Collins, Jennifer Hudson, Kirby Heyborne and Kate Upton.
Writers: Mike Cerrone, Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly.
Directors: Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly.

Rating: 3.5/5

There is more than enough nyuk for your buck in The Farrelly Brother’s The Three Stooges. Surely representing the furthest that Hollywood has reached back for a reboot opportunity, this energetic no-brainer is at its best when (re)capturing the slapstick violence of Larry, Moe and Curly’s golden era; it works less well when riffing on easily-lampooned pop culture references. The semi-serious biopic that this project began as (quite incredibly, to star Sean Penn, Benicia del Toro and a voluminous Jim Carrey as Curly) is still one of Hollywood’s great missed opportunities, but this re-energising of arguably film comedy’s most undervalued performers is a more than fitting tribute.                  

Multi-hyphenate siblings Peter and Bobby – kind of low-brow cinema’s answer to Joel and Ethan Coen - have never fully rediscovered the dim-witted comedic joie de vivre that enlivened their hit debut, Dumb and Dumber, a film that grows in estimation as every year passes (yes, There’s Something About Mary is a classic, but the comedy is smarter and the plotting more structured). After three regrettable duds in the form of The Perfect Catch, The Heartbreak Kid and Hall Pass, they certainly seem to have got their mojo back with The Three Stooges.

The film ambles through a straight-outta-the-‘50’s ‘save-the-orphanage’ plotline as a means by which to allow Larry (Sean Hayes), Curly (Will Sasso) and Moe (Chris Diamantopoulos) to wreak vengeance upon snotty, immoral types. They include conniving siren Lydia (Sofia Vergara), her imbecilic lover Mac (Craig Bierko, whose delivery of the word “Penguins?” gets one of the films biggest laughs) and greedy businessman, Mr Harter (Stephen Collins). Caught up in the midst of high society, the eye-poking, hair-pulling idiots are a blissfully self-ignorant force-of-nature, bringing undone back-stabbing schemes and adulterous liaisons without a single clue as to how or why.

Split into three title-carded parts (a further nod to the comedy team’s short-feature filmography), the movie aims high in both its complex staging of physical gags and its dependence upon the audience’s willingness to just go with the elevated nuttiness of it all. Not all of it entire works; the decision to make Moe a reality TV star, unleashing him upon the unsuspecting sub-human numbskulls who populate MTV’s The Jersey Shore is too hit/miss (and will date the film instantly).

A lot of it works wonderfully, however. Perfectly-pitched performances by the three new Stooges, each one given their own moments to shine, and a sweetly sentimental line in brotherly love ensures that a paper-thin plot is of no consequence at all when it comes to the laugh-to-running-time ratio. Everything in the orphanage is hilarious, which is as it should be; a nunned-up Larry David and such diverse talents as Jane Lynch, Jennifer Hudson, Brian Doyle-Murray and supermodel Kate Upton play off the Stooges’ shenanigans with obvious glee.

The Farrelly’s don’t rely on the trio for all the film’s big laughs; just typing ‘Pokher, Keester & Wintz’, the name of a proctology partnership, has reduced me to tears and the brother's final-frames appearance to warn kids off mimicking the Stooges antics is priceless. But they could have, so lovingly realized is this reworking.

THE IMPOSTER

Features: Frédéric Bourdin, Carey Gibson, Beverly Dollarhide, Charlie Parker, Nancy Fisher, Bryan Gibson, Codey Gibson, Bruce Perry and Phillip French.
Writer / Director: Bart Layton.

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Screenings - Sat 11 Aug, 9.00pm; Fri 17 Aug, 6.30pm.

Rating: 4.5/5

Bart Layton’s The Imposter begins with an incident that shatters a family and rocks a community. Thirteen year-old Texan teenager Nicholas Barclay, the epitome of the blonde-hair, blue-eyed All-American youth and all the promise that description held in the summer of 1994, disappears without a trace on his way home from a neighbourhood basketball game. Three-and-a-half years later, the family is all but resigned to the fact that they will never see Nicholas again.

Until into their lives comes a young man hailing from Spain, by the name of Frédéric Bourdin.

An artfully constructed docudrama that ranks among the very best of this hard-to-define genre, Layton’s film is a riveting account of the man who assumed a missing boys identity and managed to fool a family, a township and a federal government before it all began to unravel. The details of the deceit, however, are just the first steps on the incredible journey that the abused spirit and sad memory of Nicholas must endure.

The Imposter morphs effortlessly from scene-to-scene - a noir-ish mystery thriller, a crime-scene procedural, a drama chronicling a family’s anguish, a facts-only documentary – yet exists as a fluid single entity of profoundly impactful force. Every one of the talking heads are captured within a frame rich in detail and production prowess; behind-the-scenes contributions not usually heralded as part of the factual films, such as lighting, set design and music, are all employed with precision and subtle but unforgettable resonance.

Layton is helped immeasurably by both the geographical scale of Bourdin’s ruse (his life of crime has extended to many countries, including Australia) and by a group of subjects who each have deeply-rooted emotional ties to the case. The most compelling of them, of course, is Bourdin himself, who immediately strikes one as both a charming, erudite Frenchman and a clinical sociopath. Audience assumptions are shattered, though, when some third-act finger-pointing suggests young Nicholas’ family may have more to do with the boy’s disappearance than first thought.

The Imposter has been justifiably compared to The Thin Blue Line, master documentarian Errol Morris’ similarly-themed 1988 work that was so influential it would lead to a murder case being re-opened and an inncocent man being released from prison. The Imposter’s impact may not extend to that degree despite a final shot that offers hope that it someday might. Nevertheless, Layton’s superbly cinematic film certainly exposes one of the great acts of heartless fraudulence in modern history and the egos, emotions and procedures that combined to let it be so.

THOSE WHO KILL: SHADOWS OF THE PAST

Stars: Laura Bach, Jakob Cedergren, Simon Kvamm, Lars Mikkelsen, Lars Ranthe, Lærke Winther and Frederik Meldal Nørgaard.
Writers: Morten Dragsted and Siv Rajendram Eliassen.
Director: Birger Larsen

REVELATIONS FILM FESTIVAL Screenings – Sun July 8, 3.30pm; Sun July 14, 2.30pm.

Rating: 3.5/5

A polished, workmanlike police procedural that pulls off familiar tropes with clarity and tense momentum, Those Who Kill: Shadows of the Past is enlivened by its contemporary Copenhagen setting, above-par genre acting and frank gore.

The occasional narrative diversion from the well-trodden path most often taken by serial killer thrillers is enough to give this big-screen airing of one of Denmark’s most popular small-screen properties a focus that mostly compels to the inevitable showdown, which is executed with aplomb.

After a horribly riveting opening sequence aboard a bus, the film settles into a steady stream of clichés that are played very broadly; one gets the feeling that the entire first act is an overplayed set-up that the director Birger Larsen, a veteran of the TV series, is more than eager to subvert.

Thomas (Jakob Cedergren) is a divisional psychiatrist easing through his last couple of days with the force before a new job in the safer world of psychology academia. It is a pay upgrade that ensures his beautiful wife Mia (Lærke Winther) and son Johan (Benjamin Brüel von Klitzing) can buy that dream house (see what I mean about clichés….?). His partner is Katrine (the striking and strong Laura Bach), a hardbitten cop despite her young age who can’t believe her partner would leave ‘the life’.

After some perfunctory forensic work - the speedy, simple kind often associated with frivolous hour-long ‘CSI’-type shows - it emerges that the bus massacre was the work of Kristian Almen (a truly menacing Simon Kvamm), an ex-patient of Thomas’ not long out of incarceration. The film follows a well-worn path up to this point but soon discrepancies appear in the plotting that spin the film in unexpected directions. And not a moment too soon, frankly; an hour in and my attention was wavering, but the third act is a corker.

Filled with the kind of cop-shop banter and action brio most often associated with mid-range Hollywood programmers, Those Who Kill: Shadows of the Past finds a freshness that comes from its international cast and continental flavours, rather than anything aesthetically or structurally ground-breaking. Perhaps best recalling David Fincher’s Se7en or, more recently, Jonas Åkerlund’s Dennis Quaid starrer Horseman in its willingness to wallow in some supremely visceral physical horror undercut with themes of regret and painful redemption, Larsen’s film doesn’t reach high enough to carry any importance but nor does it fall short of its ambitions to be a solidly dark-natured mystery-thriller.

BUFF

Features: David Stratton, Margaret Pomeranz, Richard Sowada, Jack Sargeant, Peter Rowsthorne, Alan Stiles, Simon Miraudo, Mark Naglazas, Anita Krsnik, Madeline Bates, Jimmy Jack, Stephen Sunderland, Danielle Marsland and Rob Denham.
Writers/Directors: Gavin Bond and Ian Abercromby

REVELATIONS FILM FESTIVAL Screening – Sun July 15, 9.15pm.

Rating: 3/5

A sweet if inconsequential celebration of what educated film types love most about movies, watching Buff is like joining a table of film nerds at a pub and trying to keep up. Which most true ‘buffs’ will do effortlessly, of course; there’s nothing particularly revelatory about anything anyone says, except perhaps exhibition legend Alan Stiles admission that his guilty pleasure is the Troma Studio's 1987 schlock Z-grader, Surf Nazis Must Die. Didn’t see that one coming!

The collated talking heads are all respected voices from most arenas in the world of cinema. They include festival directors (including Revelations own Richard Sowada and Jack Sargeant), new-Gen online critics, actors, scholars and, of course, the ubiquitous ‘David and Margaret’.

Their contributions are in the form of rather straightforward answers to the sort of questions anyone might ask should they be seated next to them at a dinner party – What’s your favourite film? What’s your favourite scene? What’s your least favourite movie? What’s your favourite line? Responses don’t surprise for the most part, but watching the joy with which these commited cinephiles speak about their passion is endearing. (The one exception may be Sargeant, who will put Generation X’ers offside with his hateful dissing of the collected works of the great John Hughes. What the hell!?!)

Directors Gavin Bond and Ian Abercromby (who get Screen-Space onside from the opening scenes, in which they wax lyrical about a personal fave, The Pope of Greenwich Village) were part of the creative team behind the rough-around-the-edges public-access film show Flicktease for close to decade. Their spirited japery, combined with their own buff-ness, is part of the film’s charm (ageing fans will enjoy seeing some footage of the Teaser team in their prime). Less successful are the part-recitations/part-improvised skits that actors Sam Longley and Damon Lockwood perform to provide bridging moments between the natter. Perhaps they exist in lieu of the production’s inability to afford copyright fees on scene clips, though Buff is peppered with movie moments, so that can’t be entirely true.

Given not all contributors are instantly recognisable and some have a less than compelling onscreen presence, Buff feels a little stretched even at 62 minutes. With no particularly stringent point to be made, the ‘I love this!/I hate this!’ to-and-fro wears thin. That said, it is still a joy to get an insight into the generational influence that films have had, to hear that films as diverse as El Cid and Working Girl had the same profound impact on the hearts and minds of those of us sharing a lifelong love affair with the movies. As love stories go, it is one to which many of us can relate.

WONDER WOMEN! THE UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICAN SUPERHEROINES

Features: Lynda Carter, Lindsay Wagner, Gloria Steinem, Jane Espenson, Kathleen Hanna, Mike Madrid, Andy Mangels, Shelby Knox and Katie Pineda.
Writer/Director: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan

REVELATIONS FILM FESTIVAL Screening – Thur July 12, 7.15pm; Sun July 15, 7.30pm

Rating: 4/5

 

Though no one will feel short-changed by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan’s enriching, inspiring doco Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines, there is a lingering regret that the whole thing is wrapped in a tight 62 minutes. Not because I felt that there was more to be said; more that I didn’t want it to end.

The film’s main aim is to highlight the crucial role that superheroine characters have played in pop culture, with specific reference to the supporting and forwarding of women’s issues. Taking as its focus the development and representation of artist William Moulton Marston’s iconic amazon princess, Diana of Themyscira, aka Wonder Woman, since her creation 70 years ago, the film also warmly recalls the impact of such favourites as The Bionic Woman, Charlies Angels, Sarah Connor, Ellen Ripley, Buffy Summers, Dana Scully and Thelma and Louise.

The film fascinates on this level, chronicling how panel-pages (and, subsequently, the big and small screens) have reflected the prevailing mood towards women. Created at the height of the 1940’s war effort, when women were keeping the home fires burning in non-traditional roles, Wonder Woman was a fierce, independent figure; by the 1950’s, with the men back home and the ladies pushed into domestic servitude, Wonder Woman became a weaker figure. It was not until the emergence of the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s did she regain her strength and take on symbolic pertinence.

Guevara-Flanagan’s collection of scholars, pop-artists and empowerment advocates (notably the always quotable Gloria Steinem) give fascinating insight, their accounts peppered with personal recollections and humour. Accompanying the talking heads are a geek’s dream collection of historical comic-book covers, scene clips and convention floor opinions.

But the most profound achievement of Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines is captured in the scenes of the young girls and working class mums who look to the superheroines to establish values and overcome hardships. If it was the production’s intention to finally kill-off any non-believers who still consider the fantasy genre a worthless artform peopled by slackers dodging a real life, it is a goal achieved. The deeply human role our mythical figures continue to fulfil in our society, on many levels, is honoured triumphantly.

THE CARETAKER

Stars: Lee Mason, Mark White, Colin MacPherson, Anna Burgess, Kerri-Anne Baker and Clint Dowdell.
Writer / Director: Tom Conyers

REVELATIONS FILM FESTIVAL Screening - Sat July 14, 11.10pm.

Rating: 2/5

Clearly inspired by the small-town setting and big genre vision of The Spierig Brothers’ 2003 surprise horror hit Undead, Tom Conyers’ bloodsucker-uprising flick The Caretaker looses sight of the inherent sense of fun that made that dusty Ozploitation shocker such a hoot. Instead, we get a pretty dour bunch of unlikable stereotypes trapped in an overwrought melodrama with lofty ambitions it never attains.

There is little wrong with the film from a production perspective, despite what is clearly a low-budget labour of love for the Melbourne-based filmmaker (he also EP’s and edits his debut feature). Images captured by cinematographer Matt Wood are crisp and often inventively framed; flavoursome set design, especially a sequence shot in a creepy cellar that doubles as a vamp lair, exhibits quality artistry. Gorehounds, despite having seen it all before, may still find merit in some of the more graphic stagings of vampire action.

Conceptually, the premise has merit. The group of misfits in a remote rural enclave taking a stand against an evil uprising is an old one (Romero’s Night of the Living Dead being the most obvious in this case), but of more interest is the device that posits a vampire-warrior type (a commanding Mark White) as their protector in a dark alliance that threatens to collapse as the pressure to survive mounts. Subplots, though, are meagre; the final reel twist, unconvincing and confusing.

The film’s greatest liability is the pretentious ambitions of the script, especially in a first act that sets in motion an underlying anger towards women that permeates the film. We meet anti-hero Ron (Lee Mason) as he delivers an impassioned, bitter diatribe (to a pub full of blokey best mates) against the unfairness of the modern divorce laws; the words exude an all-too-convincing mean-spiritedness (the speech recalls Tom Cruise’s pro-male empowerment rant in Magnolia).

Additionally, the sole female protagonist in the film, Annie (Anna Kate Burgess), is a snide princess who early on chides her loving partner, Guy (Clint Dowdell) despite his best efforts at romance. Her character’s devolution from a selfish shrew into a simpering victim does neither Burgess nor the film’s credibility any favours. Noteworthy also is that the film’s nastiest vampire baddies are almost exclusively women.

Conyers exhibits some deft touches with his lensing and pacing only to be undermined by his bloated and bitter script. One senses his time will come under a stronger producer’s guiding influence, working with a more seasoned and disciplined writer’s screenplay.