Some more Australian Classics for today's update, a bit more expansive than yesterday's update. Strangely, all three movies involve the main character having a traumatic experience involving their father, which is not something I chose, it just panned out that way.

Carmilla Hyde

2010, 720p

Johnny's comments:

Carmilla Hyde is 2010 Adelaide set Jekyll and Hyde influenced revenge thriller where Millie (Anna Lindner), a shy, socially anxious young woman shares a house with Sara (Nina Pearce) who has a casual boyfriend Nathan (Cameron Hall) who she offers to Millie and he's very keen but she doesn't take up the offer. Sara's party-loving friend Britt (Georgii Speakman) wants to move into the spare room but Millie doesn't want her mainly because Britt laughs at her awkwardness. One night, Sara convinces Millie to join them as the drink and take drugs in the lounge room and helps her get dressed up. Britt drugs her wine glass and Nathan makes a play for her and the next thing Millie knows is she wakes up having lost her virginity and the sense that she's been drugged. It also turns out that Sara and Britt filmed her having sex on Britt's phone. Millie decides to see a psychiatrist named Dr. Charles Webster (Sam Tripodi) who recommends hypnosis which ends up unleashing a new personality that Millie names Carmilla after the vampire novel, her favourite book. The personality is set to come out when she drinks a glass of wine and Millie goes about crafting Carmilla into a wild woman she always wanted to be. First, she has her way with Nathan again and then at a sex club she comes across Ed (Cale Morgan) who is brutally beating up a man and robbing him and she starts having sex with him in the alley way. Carmilla moves onto Britt which makes Nathan jealous, so he decides to follow her and sees her having sex with Ed. Nathan still wants her but Carmilla is bemused by his attempt to seduce her, so he attacks her, which she seems to have planned because Ed saves her and then she uses hypnotic suggestion to get him to go away. But her partnership with Ed leads to consequences, first he has unwanted sex with Britt and then he sets his sights on Sara, who he tries to rape when she's left alone in the house, but Carmilla stabs and kills him and the girls dump him at the beach where Carmilla again uses hypnotic suggestion to make him forget. But Carmilla hasn't forgotten about her revenge and sets up Britt by putting a video of her having sex while drugged with Ed on a slut-shaming site and this causes Britt to commit suicide. Dr Webster remembers where he knew Millie from and it turns out that he did some very bad things to her when they last met and Carmilla is still hungry for revenge.

A surprisingly long (almost two hours) revenge thriller that threatens to be good but but lets itself down by having too many plot contrivances involving druggings and a ludicrous fascination with hypnosis which leads to way to many conveniences including a very silly ending which feels like it goes on forever. There's also two instances of men given hypnotic suggestion while unconscious (is that even possible?) which conveniently removes them from the movie. And the psychiatrist does things with hypnosis which would surely land him in trouble, particularly brushing off what seems to be undiagnosed schizophrenia. The revenge plot seems to take a while to kick in, well over an hour into the movie and it seems to ignore Sara who was very much a part of the night where Millie unwillingly lost her virginity. I suppose you could make a case for rapist Ed being the revenge but it's never suggested that is the case and Mille/Carmilla is friendly with Sara at the end of the movie. There's a solid revenge thriller somewhere here but too much silliness gets in the way.

Nina Pearce film clip (collage below)

Crackers

1998

Johnny's comments:

Crackers is a 1998 dysfunctional family Christmas comedy where young Joey (Daniel Kellie) climbs on top of a school building and in a seemingly depressive state jumps off the building but luckily lands in a bush. His frazzled mother Hilary (Susan Lyons) doesn't know what to do with him but Christmas is coming up and they decide to go to her Dad's place for the annual Christmas party, but this time with her new boyfriend Bruno (Peter Rowsthorn) and his angry son Angus (Christopher Chapman), both of whom Daniel hates. After an eventful car ride where they almost die, the four arrive at Hilary's parent's house and are greeted by her dad Jack (Terry Gill), her mother Vi (Maggie King), Vi's sister Dottie (Valerie Bader) and a barking dog Bomber. After lunch, they are joined by her wacky grandfather Albert (Warren Mitchell) who causes immediate havoc with his rooster. Joey is sent out to sleep in the garage with Albert, who farts a lot and just generally smells, which he is not looking forward to. Things get off to a great start for them when they steal the car and go to a pub and piss off some skinheads, ending with the skinheads chasing them off. Albert then unveils the long forgotten boat gathering dust in the shed and plans to get it up and running once more and teaches him a few moves to protect himself from attacks by Angus. At the barbeque lunch the next day, Jack is doing a good job burning the sausages while perving on Dottie and then shoots a rat just for fun. Bruno takes Joey out fishing which goes terribly ending with Joey losing a fishing rod and swimming back to the shore. Turns out it was Angus' rod and he takes it out of Joey who is drilling holes in Bruno's boat. Later while Bruno is cooking on the barbeque, Joey sets Bomber loose which sets off a series of events that ends with Bomber dying and Jack takes it out on Bruno.

They bury the dog in the backyard and Joey has a strange fascination with the grave and decides to dig one of his own and lie in it while breathing through a snorkel. This puzzles the family and Angus decides to jump on the grave hoping to collapse it but Joey gets out, only to be attacked by Angus who rubs dog shit on his face. Joey tries to fight back with a shovel but is stopped by Albert. While mucking around with the hose, Joey and Albert cause Jack to destroy his prized flower and Jack tells Albert to leave after Christmas dinner. Joey sees his mother and Bruno smoking a joint and making out in the cubby house so Joey stabs Bruno in the bottom with his pocket knife and gets a hold of the drugs which he places in one of Vi's mince pies. While filming around the place, Joey films Jack having sex with Dottie and then Angus steals the camera and it ends up with Vi. Albert is disappointed he can't get the boat up and running so Joey apologises to Bruno and gets him to help finish the boat all night. Vi watchs the video and sees the footage of her husband and Dottie and loses it. Hilary announces that she is pregnant but is not getting married to Bruno which her father disagrees with. Turns out Bruno eats the drugged mince pie and starts acting erratically causing Jack to kick him out and in the commotion, Vi shoots off a shotgun and shows them the tape. Albert has a heart attack which cause Joey to remember how his father died, a light plane accident and seems to be the reason he climbs up onto the edge of buildings. Dottie leaves. Joey tries to convince the family to go on a boating trip but with Albert hospitalised and everyone angry with one another, Joey takes matters into his own hands and steals Jack's car and drives off with the boat. He picks up Albert and they go to sea for a sail. Hilary, Jack and Vi find out where they are going and get Bruno back to go after them in his boat. Joey and Albert make it back to shore but Bruno runs out of petrol and then starts sinking from the holes Joey drilled into the boat. Joey and Albert and Angus go back so save Bruno, which they do, but on the way back to shore, Albert dies. Next Christmas at a carols event, Joey and the rooster cause mayhem.

Billed as the next big Australian comedy after The Castle was a big hit, Crackers didn't quite live up to expectations and it's not hard to see why. The Castle is a lovable, knockabout comedy while Crackers goes for crude jokes and is surprisingly hateful with a lead character who while distressed by the death of his father, acts like a complete shit and it's hard to have a lot of sympathy for him. He's also bullied mercilessly by Angus, also a terrible person and while Bruno is seen as a hapless foil, he hits Joey at one stage is more than a little off. There's not a lot of love in this family but the Joey and his great-grandfather have a moment at the end before he dies which while sweet, seems unearned and Joey's redemption is rushed and selfish at best. While dysfunction can be funny, when mixed with a healthy dose of hatefulness, it doesn't seem so funny.

Susan Lyons film clip (collage below)

WillFull

2001

Anne Looby film clip (sample below)