A Dark New World : Anatomy of Australian Horror Films

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).

ii KEY WORDS

Australian horror films; horror films; horror genre; movie genres; globalisation of film production; internationalisation; Australian film industry; independent film; fan culture

iii 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.

iv 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

v 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

vi 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

vii 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: ______

viii 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

ix 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.

x 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

5 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

Budget ranges Spheres of production

$30 mil High-end Rogue Mainstream horror Daybreakers production Wolf Creek $1 mil High-end indie production Undead Gabriel $100, 000

Underground horror Reign in Darkness production I Know How Many Runs …

Killbillies $1, 000 Low-end

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 Wolf Creek (2005) Director, Emu Creek Pictures Writer/Director/Producer Rogue (2007) (Victoria) David Lightfoot Wolf Creek (2005), Rogue (2007) CEO, Ultra Films (Victoria) Producer Moloch (2000), Scratch (2000) Line-Producer Pete Ford Storm Warning (2006) Director, Resolution Independent Producer (Victoria) Jon Hewitt Acolytes (2007) Independent filmmaker Director/Writer Bloodlust (1992) (New South Wales) Richard Wolstencroft Bloodlust (1992) Independent filmmaker and Director/Writer Director of MUFF (Victoria) Elizabeth Howatt- Prey (2008) Co-Director, Top Cat Films Jackman (Victoria) Producer Todd Fellman Daybreakers (2008) Director, Paradise Production Producer Services (Queensland) Michael Robertson Black Water (2008) Executive Producer, Producer Prodigy Movies (New South Wales) Kieran Galvin Feed (2005) Head of Development, Screenwriter All at Once (New South Wales) Rod Hay Night of Fear (1972) Co-Director, Terryrod Productions Producer Inn of the Damned (1975) (New South Wales) Shayne Armstrong and Acolytes (2007) Partners, Shayne Armstrong and Shane Krause Shane Krause Screenwriting Screenwriters Partnership (Queensland and Singapore respectively) Clint Morris Howl (2008), Condition Dead (2008) Co-director, Shorris Films Producer Rampage (2008), Dead Country (2008) (Victoria/Los Angeles) Daniel Scharf Body Melt (1993) Director, Daniel Scharf Producer Productions (Victoria) Stuart Simpson Demons Among Us (2006) Director, Lost Art Films (Victoria) Writer/Director/Producer Doug Turner I Know How Many Runs You Scored Co-Director, Media 42 (New South Writer/Director/ Last Summer (2006) Wales) Producer Alix Jackson When Evil Reigns (2006) Director, Mr Grim Productions Producer/Co-Director (Victoria) Luke C. Jackson When Evil Reigns (2006) Writer, Mr Grim Productions Screenwriter (Victoria) Co-Director Duke Hendrix The Killbillies (2002) Directors, Liquid Monkey Director/Producer Bloodspit (2004) Productions (New South Wales) Leon Fish Writer/Producer Aaron Cassidy The Horror of Cornhole Cove (2006) Independent filmmaker Co-writer/Co-director (Queensland) Matthew Scott In Blood (2002), Questions (2005) Independent filmmaker Producer/Director The Subject (2006), Bring Her Home: (New South Wales) Dead or Alive (2008) Efisia Fele Lost Not Found Independent filmmaker Producer/Director (In development) (Victoria) Ben Warner Parallels (2006) Director, Digicosm (South Writer/Director/Producer 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- International examples Australian examples genres Zombie films Dawn of the Dead (1978; 2004) Undead (2003) 28 Days Later (2002) Dead Country (2008) Resident Evil (2002) Vampire films Under World (2003) Daybreakers (2008) Blade (1998) Bloodlust (1992) Dracula (1992) Bloodspit (2004) Werewolf films The Howling (1981) The Marsupials: Howling 3 (1987) Dog Soldiers (2002) Slasher films Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) Wolf Creek (2005) Halloween (1978) Safety in Numbers (2005) Friday the 13th (1980) Cut (2000) Scream (1996) Bloodmoon (1990) Teen horror Scream I (1996), Scream II (1997), Cut (2000) Scream III (2000) Gone (2007) I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) Final Destination (2000) Satanic/ End of Days (1999) Cubbyhouse (2001) Demonic The Omen (1976; 2006) Devil’s Gateway (2007) possession The Exorcist (1973) Psychological Silence of the Lambs (1991) Lost Things (2003 horror The Blair Witch Project (1999) The Sixth Sense (1999) Gothic horror Sleepy Hollow (1999) Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) Nosferatu (1979) The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1962) Supernatural The Haunting (1999) Visitors (2003) horror The Sixth Sense (1999) Lake Mungo (2007) Sci-fi horror Alien (1979), Alien II (1986), Alien III Subterano (2003) (1992), Alien IV (1997) Parallels (2006) Predator I (1987), Predator II (1990) Event Horizon (1997) Creature feature The Birds (1963) Rogue (2007) Eco-horror Jaws (1975) Razorback (1984) Anaconda (1997) Black Water (2007) The Thing (1982) Long Weekend (1978; 2008) Body horror Blood Feast (1963) Body Melt (1993) Splatter/gore Dawn of the Dead (1978; 2004) Demons Among Us (2006) films Torture porn Saw I (2004), Saw II (2005), Saw III Storm Warning (2006) (2006), Saw IV (2007) Defenseless: A Blood Symphony Hostel I (2005), Hostel II (2007) (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

31 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 Releases by majors’ Subsidiaries as a less releases by subsidiaries percentage of majors subsidiaries 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.

34 (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 Worldwide US$ 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 $6 mil $63,257,940 Family Reunion (2006) 6 Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get n/a $55,204,525 Married (2007) 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 $ 5.5 mil $50,633,099 Woman (2005) 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 1967- 1972- 1977- 1982- 1987- 1992- 1997- 2002- Overall No. 71 76 81 86 91 96 01 04 Average Action 239 16 19 24 33 36 40 42 48 31 Adventure 163 14 15 18 25 16 20 30 42 21 Comedy 328 35 26 51 47 54 41 47 45 43 Crime 93 11 18 7 12 22 9 9 8 12 Drama 285 50 53 26 33 36 44 27 27 38 Family 121 12 16 10 14 18 15 21 25 16 Fantasy 91 2 3 13 11 15 12 17 30 12 Horror 54 3 6 9 5 10 5 13 5 7 Musical 47 9 11 8 7 4 6 2 0 6 Romance 110 12 6 16 15 18 18 17 13 14 Sci-fi 94 6 6 15 14 13 10 14 27 12 Thriller 175 10 19 17 14 29 37 28 35 23 Mystery 46 5 4 4 4 3 8 12 10 6 Animation 46 4 3 3 1 5 7 11 12 5 Western 32 12 9 1 1 4 3 2 0 4 War 31 9 2 4 2 5 3 3 5 4 Source: 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 Total Gross Average Market No. Genres Movies US$ Gross US$ Share (%) 1 Comedy 1,206 $28,330,477,851 $23,491,275 24.37 2 Adventure 352 $23,083,680,018 $65,578,636 19.85 3 Drama 2,055 $22,868,269,160 $11,128,112 19.67 4 Action 369 $18,614,261,462 $50,445,153 16.01 5 Thriller/suspense 297 $7,687,878,419 $25,885,113 6.61 6 Romantic comedy 247 $6,610,130,461 $26,761,662 5.69 7 Horror 223 $5,585,774,520 $25,048,316 4.80 8 Musical 88 $1,194,719,967 $13,576,363 1.03 9 Documentary 519 $1,102,208,062 $2,123,715 0.95 10 Black comedy 54 $516,246,320 $9,560,117 0.44 11 Western 24 $348,995,849 $14,541,494 0.30 12 Concert 20 $78,863,847 $3,943,192 0.07 13 Genre unknown 5 $1,401,418 $280,284 0.00 14 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 Movies Inflation- Top- Market Gross Gross that Year in Adjusted Grossing Share US$ Year US$ Release Gross US$ Movie 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 Halloween: 1998 16 4.72% $318,151,658 $421,941,002 $55,041,738 H2O The Blair Witch 1999 16 6.49% $477,746,379 $587,269,268 $140,539,099 Project 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 Freddy vs. 2003 17 5.46% $505,051,037 $520,964,771 $82,490,748 Jason 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:

58 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

60 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

61 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.

62 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:

63

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

64 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

65 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:

66 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).

67 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,

68 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):

69 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

70 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-

71 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

73 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:

76 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.

79 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 Average per Increase/decrease Annual Average horror annum** no. of films on production annual films previous decade expenditure budget produced A$ expenditure A$ 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– 62 8 +43 $107.7 mil*** $15.8 mil 2007/08 **Rounded up to the nearest number. *** Aggregate total for both mainstream and underground production (see text).

22 Announced before the end of February 2008.

80 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.

81 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. Box Prod. Box Prod. Box Prod. Box Prod. Box Prod. Box Rates off. Rates off. rates off. rates off. rates off. Rate of. (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) s (%) 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

82 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 Mainstream and underground horror Average 2001–02 to 2005–06* production budget ranges 2000–07 Range Austn Co-prods Int. financed Independent Co-prods ($M) Horrors Horror production 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. Less $1–3 mil $3–6 mil $6–10 $10–20 More titles than (%) (%) mil (%) mil (%) than $1 mil $20 mil (%) (%) Australian 162 26.0 27.0 22.0 17.0 6.0 2.0 prod. Australian 17 n/a n/a 2.0 12.0 41.0 35.0 co-prods. Horror 34 44.0 26.5 17.5 6.0 0 6.0 prod.* * 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 No. Year % of % of % of Contribution films No. A$ No. total A$ mil total total A$ mil invested films mil films finance finance finance in 1995/96 36.8 41.4 16 36.5 41.0 7 5.7 6.5 10 1996/97 54.4 41.5 18 39.7 30.2 8 16.1 12.3 15 1997/98 32.7 19.8 16 108.8 66.0 12 12.9 7.8 17 1998/99 36.5 31.1 19 48.1 41.0 16 19.9 17.0 9 1999/00 26.0 18.5 15 91.9 65.4 10 16.1 11.5 16 Five- year 37.3 29.0 17 65.0 50.5 11 14.2 11.0 13 average 2000/01 46.0 28.3 14 94.6 58.1 13 8.5 5.2 10 2001/02 31.7 18.6 17 92.5 54.3 11 29.2 17.1 18 2002/03 29.9 42.3 11 13.0 18.4 7 21.1 29.8 10 2003/04 34.5 15.4 12 109.5 48.7 7 11.2 5.0 11 2004/05 33.0 29.8 14 46.7 42.1 8 20.3 18.3 15 Five- year 35.0 23.7 14 71.2 48.2 9 18.0 12.2 13 average 2005/06 50.9 41.6 22 42.6 34.8 12 9.0 7.3 15 2006/07 44.9 16.6 18 197.8 73.2 13 13.3 4.9 13 Source: 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 Cubbyhouse (2001) generic films 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

86 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

87 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

88 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’:

89 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

90 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

91 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.

92 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.

93 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

94 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.

95 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.

96

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 Strictly Ballroom: Special 7 Fox 23 Apr 2003 Edition 8 Boytown Roadshow 21 Feb 2007 Strictly Ballroom: Fabulous 9 MGM 1 Nov 2006 Edition 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).

97 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).

98 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

99 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

100 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

101 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

102 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.

103 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,

104 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].

105 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.

106 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).

107 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

108 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

109 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

110 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

111 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.

112 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.

113 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

114 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.

116 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 Production models

Rogue • Internationally financed Mainstream horror Daybreakers production production • Co-productions (A$30 mil–$1 mil) • Sales agent/distributor driven production

Wolf Creek • Low-to mid-range independent production High-end indie production Undead Gabriel • High-end indie filmmaking traditions (A$100,000–$1 mil) (with greater access to networks and finance) Reign in Darkness Underground horror • Indie filmmaking traditions production I Know How Many Runs … (blurring with pro-am production) (A$1,000–$100,000) Killbillies

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

117 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.

119 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

120 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.

121 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

122 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.

123 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 Europe only DVD release Through UK’s Crypt Keeper

Bloodspit (2004) – $4,000 Troma Entertainment (worldwide DVD release)

When Evil Reigns (2006) – $5,000 www.whenevilreigns.com (producer-led distribution model)

Watch Me (2006) – $6,000 Maxim Media (US DVD release) 10,000 to 20,000 The Horror of Cornhole Cove (2006) – n/a $10,000 (plus deferments for labour) 20,000 to 30,000 Demons Among Us (2006) – $20,000 Troma Entertainment (worldwide DVD release)

Parallels (2006) – $20,000 www.filmannex.com 30,000 to 50,000 I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last n/a Summer (2006) – $37,000 Worldwide DVD release Reign in Darkness (2002) – $49,000 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

125 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.

126 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).

127 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).

128

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).

129 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) n/a US/Australia (unofficial)

Howl (2008) n/a US/Australia (unofficial)

Gone (2007) A$10 million UK/Australia (official co-production)

Voodoo Lagoon (2006) US$1 million UK/Australia (official co-production)

130 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.

131 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 Global box IMDB listing budget US$ office (country of returns US$ origin) House of Wax (2005) $40 mil $68 mil Australia/USA The Reaping (2007) n/a $62 mil USA Constantine (2005) $100 mil $231 mil USA/Germany Ghost Ship (2002) $20 mil $68 mil USA/Australia Eight Legged Freaks (2002) $30 mil $46 mil USA/Australia Valentine (2001) $29 mil $36 mil USA/Australia Darkness Falls (2003) $11 mil $47 mil USA/Australia Queen of the Damned (2002) $35 mil $45 mil USA/Australia Disturbing Behaviour (1998) n/a $17 mil 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

132 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

133 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.

134 Table 19: The box office records of Australian directors behind successful international horror films Director Film (year) Budget Box office (filmmaker) US$ US$ Russell Mulcahy Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) $45 mil $122 mil James Wan/Leigh Saw (2004) $1 mil $103 mil Whannell Saw II (2005) $4 mil $147 mil Saw III (2006) $10 mil $164 mil Saw IV (2007) n/a $111 mil Jamie Blanks Urban Legend (1998) $14 mil $72 mil Valentine (2001) $29 mil $36 mil Stephen Hopkins Predator II (1990) $35 mil $57 mil The Reaping (2007) n/a $62 mil Nightmare on Elm Street 5 (1989) $6 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.

135 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

136 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

137 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.

138 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

139 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

140 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

141 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

142 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

143 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.

144 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

145 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.

146 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.

147 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.

148 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/ $9 mil $2.1 mil Family Danny Deck Chair Comedy $10 million (In excess of) $ 1 mil The Extra Comedy $5.5 mil $636,934 You and Your Stupid Comedy n/a $600,481 Mate Peaches Drama $5.5 million $373,861 Deck Dogz Drama $4 million $124,302 The Illustrated Family Drama/ $3.8 mil n/a Doctor thriller 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.

149 Table 21: FFC investment in Australian horror films45 Film Year Budget FFC proportion Details A$ of budget A$ Dying Breed 2008 Financed through the FFC’s $1,018,000 $2,900, 000 Marketplace door. Gone 2007 Official UK/Aust $2,969,000 $11,000, 000 Co-production

Daybreakers 2008 Financed through the FFC’s $5,000,000 $25,000, 000 Marketplace door.

Acolytes 2007 Financed through FFC’s $2,700,000 $3,866, 000 evaluation door finance. Storm Warning 2006 FFC Marketplace Door $1,900,000 $4,200,000 finance, announced December 2005 Wolf Creek 2005 Screen West development $800,000 $1,380,000 funding and production finance came from the SAFC and the FFC. Subterano 2003 FFC production funding $4,110,000 no theatrical $6,300,000 approvals for April 2000 release Cubbyhouse 2001 FFC funding approvals for $3,400,000 no theatrical $5,200,000 February 2000: funded release under the working title – ‘The third circle’ Visitors 2003 n/a $5,900,000 $3,300,000 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.

150

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

151 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 Public Private Details $AU funding 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 AFC TFI (UK) Received AFC’s IndiVision million Indivision Production finance funding Visitors 2003 n/a FFC, Film Showtime n/a Victoria Digitimij Cut 2000 $5.2 South MBP The SAFC provided million Australian (German production finance for the film Film Production after a special Sate Cabinet Corporation Company) meeting was held to consider Beyond Films the request in December Mushroom 1998. Pictures Body Melt 1993 $1.65 AFC, n/a Reportedly the first Australian million Film splatter film funded by public Victoria 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.

152 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.

154 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

155 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).

156 Table 24: The performance of horror films at the Australian box office, 2007 Film Budget Opening Weeks at the Australian Worldwide A$/US$ screens cinemas box office box office gross A$ 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 US$45 mil 136 5 $2.6 mil $147.7 mil Evil: Extinction 28 Weeks n/a 160 6 $2 mil $64.2 mil Later 30 Days of US$30 mil 137 6 $2 mil $75 mil Night 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 n/a 52 4 $457,731 $4 .6 mil Sheep 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.

157 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 Domestic International Total A$ box office box office box office returns US$, UK£, A$ US$, UK£, A$ A$ Wolf Creek 2005 $1.4 mil $ 6 mil US$21.6 mil US$27. 6 mil (approx) 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 A$320,763 (UK box office)52 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 Budget Presales/ Details sold into A$ Int sales/ video revenues Wolf Creek54 2005 every $1.4 mil US$15.38 mil Gross US video rental saleable (video) figures territory in the as of 06/11/2006. world Undead55 2003 40 regions $1 mil US$4.2 Mil US video rental figures (video) only as of 2005. Reign in 2002 27 regions $49,000 A$7 mil Gross revenue from Darkness (All revenue) domestic and international rental and sell-through video and secondary markets. Storm 2006 42 territories $4.2 mil A$4.2 mil Presales only. Warning (In excess of) Recouped its production (presales) budget and went into profit before release. Black Water 2007 76 countries $1.2 mil A$1.2 mil Presales only. (in excess of) Recouped its production (presales) budget before release. Feed 2005 Every major $1mil – Almost All revenue as of late territory $1.5 mil A$1mil -$1.5 2006. DVD revenues mil (Approx) comprise a large (all revenue) 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

159

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.

160 Table 27: Australian horror film releases 2003–08 Year No. of Release Title Release type56 titles 2003 3 September Undead Cinema release

November Visitors Cinema release

n/a The Killbillies European only DVD release 2004 3 November Lost Things Cinema release

n/a Aussie Horror Pt 1 US only DVD release (compilation of classic Aussie horrors)

n/a Aussie Horror Pt 2 US only DVD release 2005 1 November Wolf Creek Cinema release 2006 5 May Feed DVD release

August Savage Cinema Down Under US DVD compilation release only (Films of Mark Savage)

September Safety in Numbers DVD release

n/a Bloodspit DVD release (US premiere)

n/a Defenseless: A Blood Online DVD release: Symphony http://www.subversivecinema.com 2007 9 June When Evil Reigns Online DVD release: www.whenevilreigns.com

Mid-2007 Parallels Online DVD release: www.filmannex.com

June Voodoo Lagoon Germany DVD release June; Japan release July

July Gone Cinema release

July Nailed US and South Africa DVD release

November Demons Among Us DVD release

November Rogue Cinema release57

November Gabriel Cinema release

December Silence is Golden DVD release 2008 5 February Storm Warning DVD release (premiered straight (as of to DVD in the US) May) February Black Water Cinema release (UK release) Australian release – April

July Watch Me US DVD release

October Dead Country US DVD release

November Dying Breed 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.

161 Table 28: A breakdown of Australian horror film release patterns: 2000–0758 Domestic Straight-to-video International Alternative No release cinema release (domestic and video release distribution international only release) 10 10 12 2 5 Dying Breed Storm Warning Dead Country Parallels (2006) Stygian (2000) (2008) (2006) (2008) When Evil Reigns In Blood (2002) Back Water Demons Among Nailed (2007) (2006) Ozferatu (2005) (2007) Us (2006) Watch Me (2006) A Nocturne (2006) Rogue (2007) Safety in Numbers Voodoo Lagoon The Horror of Gone (2007) (2005) (2006) Cornhole Cove Gabriel (2007) Feed (2005) When Evil Reigns (2006) Wolf Creek (2005) (Int cinema (2006)59 Undead (2003) release) Bloodspit (2004) Lost Things Subterano (2003) Defenseless: A (2003) Reign in Darkness Blood Symphony Visitors (2003) (2002) (2004) Cut (2000) Cubbyhouse Savage Cinema (2001) Down Under (int. cinema (2006) release) Aussie Horror Part Moloch (2000) 1 (2004) Scratch (2000) Aussie Horror Part Silence is Golden 2 (2004) (2006) To Become One (2002) The Killbillies (2002)

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].

162 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 Details territory Watch Me 2006 US Released by Maxim Media under the Brain Damage label Nailed 2007 US Distributed in the US by Trinity South Africa Home Entertainment and represented by Antony Ginnane’s sales agent IFM World Releasing Voodoo 2007 Japan Released in Japan as Hunt. Lagoon Brazil Germany When Evil Reigns 2006 US Released into the US by Day-by- Day Entertainment Savage Cinema 2006 US DVD compilation US DVD compilation release Down Under 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 2004 US DVD compilation Compilation of classic Aussie Pt 1 horrors from the 1970s and (compilation of 1980s: Thirst; Patrick and classic Aussie Strange Behaviour horrors) Aussie Horror 2004 US DVD compilation Compilation of classic Aussie Pt 2 horrors from the 1970s and 1980s: The Dreaming; Voyage into Fear; The Survivor and Snapshot Defenseless: A Blood 2004 US Sold through the US online Symphony 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.

163 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.

164 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:

165 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.

166 Table 30: Total profits for contemporary Australian horror films Film Year Budget Presales/ Cinema Total Details A$ int sales/ revenue video A$ revenues (to date) Wolf 2005 $1.4 mil US$15.38 mil US$27.6 mil $50 mil Gross Creek62 (video) revenue Reign in 2002 $49, 000 A$7 mil n/a $7 mil Gross Darkness (total revenue) revenue Undead63 2003 $1 mil64 US$4.2 mil A$215, 488 $4.4 mil Gross US (video returns) approx video rentals (in excess and box of) office revenue Storm 2006 $4.2 mil A$4.2 mil n/a $4.2 mil Presale Warning (In excess of) (In excess figures only (presales) of) Rogue 2007 $28 mil n/a A$3.1 mil $3.1 mil Gross box- (approx) office to date Black 2007 $1.2 mil A$1.2 mil A$320,763 $1.5 mil Presale Water (in excess of) (in excess figures and (presales) of) 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.

167 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.

168 • ‘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).

169 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.

170 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.

171 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).

172

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

173 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

174 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.

175 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.

176 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.

177 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

178 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.

179 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

180 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

181 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

182 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.

183 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

184 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

185 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

186 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

187 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).

188 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.

189 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

190 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.

191 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-

192 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.

193

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.

194 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

195 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

196 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?

200 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 20 And the Word Was Made Flesh (Dusan Marek, 1971) Experimental Homesdale (Peter Weir, 1971) (50 mins) beginnings 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 48 The Chain Reaction (Ian Berry, 1980) The 1980s Harlequin (Simon Wincer, 1980) horror push 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 19 Bloodmoon (Alec Mills, 1990) An Dead Sleep (Alec Mills, 1990) underground Demonstone (Andrew Prowse, 1990) aka Heartstone existence 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 62 Moloch (Ernest (Ernie) Clark, 2000) The boom in Cut (Kimble Rendall, 2000) contemporary Stygian (James Wan and Shannon Young, 2000) Australian Scratch (Michael Ralph, 2000) horror Cubbyhouse (Murray Fahey, 2001) production 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 3 Savage Cinema Down Under (Mark Savage, 2006) International Aussie Horror Part 1 (2004) (Classics compilation: Thirst; Patrick Aussie horror and Strange Behaviour) compilations Aussie Horror Part 2 (2004) (Classics compilation: The Dreaming; Voyage into Fear; The Survivor and Snapshot)

203 Appendix 2: Budget expenditure on Australian horror production: 2000–08 Mainstream production Underground horror production76 (Budgets above A$1 mil) (budgets below A$1 mil) No. Film Budget Budget No. Film Budget Budget source source 1. Rogue $28 mil Lightfoot 1. Gabriel $150,000 Herald Sun, (2007) 16 November 200777 2. Daybreakers $25 mil FFC 2. Reign in $49,000 Dolan (2003) Darkness

3. Gone $10 mil IF 3. I Know $37,000 Interview magazine How Many Nov 2005 Runs You Scored Last Summer 4. Subterano $6.3 mil FFC 4. Rosebery $30,000 IMDBPro 7470 5. Visitors $5.9 mil FFC 5. Family $22,000 Interview Demons 6. Cut $5.2 mil* FFC 6. Demons $20,000 Interview Among Us

7. Cubbyhouse $5 mil FFC 7. Parallels $20,000 Interview

8. Storm $4.2 mil FFC 8. Watch Me $6,000 IMDBPro Warning 9. Acolytes $3.8 mil FFC 9. When Evil $5,000 Interview Reigns 10. Dying Breed $2.9 mil FFC 10. Bloodspit $4,000 Interview IMDBPro 11. Wolf Creek $1.4 Shore 11. The $2,000 Interview mil** (2007) Killbillies 12. Lake Mungo $1.4 mil IMDBPro 12. To $1,900 IMDBPro Become One 13. Black Water $1.2 Interview 13. In Blood $1,500 Interview million 14. Devil’s $1 mil IMDBPro 14. Nailed $1,000 IMDB Gateway 15. Dead Country $1 mil IMDBPro 16. Voodoo $1 mil Encore78 Lagoon 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 Internationally Non-cultural and Aussie Co-productions (A$) financed horrors horrors (A$) $0 to 500,000 Gabriel $150,000 n/a 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 $500,000 to Undead $1 million n/a 1 million (just under $1 mil) $1 to 3 million Feed $1–1.5 million Voodoo Lagoon Wolf Creek $1.4 million $1 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 $3 to 6 million Cut $5.2 million Visitors $5.9 million n/a (predominantly Cubbyhouse $5 million internationally financed) Storm Warning $4.2 million Acolytes $3.8 million Dying Breed $2.9 million $6 to 10 Subterano $6.3 million Gone $10 million million $10 to 20 n/a million $20 million + Rogue $28 million Daybreakers $25 million

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