- Directed by Ted Kotcheff
- Written by Evan Jones, Kenneth Cook, Ted Kotcheff
- Stars Donald Pleasance, Gary Bond, Chips Rafferty
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 49 Minutes
- Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
If you push it, you might be able to call this horror in an existential dread kind of way, with a man trapped in a place he doesn’t much like, with a job he’s contracted to and can’t quit, with people that he generally endures the company of. But it’s really more of just an intense drama and mild thriller. It’s mighty good and worth checking out.
Synopsis
Australia. John Grant dismisses class for the holiday from the tiny one-room school in Tiboonda. They all seem to vanish into the desert landscape as he hurries home to pack his bags. Credits roll. He boards the train and goes to Bundanyabba. The taxi driver says, “The Yabba is the best place in the world.” He’s going to fly to Sydney in the morning, and the hotel costs $4 a night.
He stops in the ultra-crowded bar that legally closed two hours ago. He meets Jock Crawford, an old guy who knows the area and buys him a beer. John complains that he’s essentially held hostage due to his contract, but Crawford isn’t really listening. A drunk sings “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and two people applaud. Everything stops while they do a remembrance ceremony for fallen soldiers.
The two men go out for a steak in a grimy looking cafeteria; $1 for a huge steak and eggs. John watches a bunch of guys gambling on a huge heads-or-tails game called “Two up.” While he’s eating, John meets Doc Tydon, who seems quieter than most of the locals. Doc’s counting the odds on the coin tosses, so John puts in a big bet and he wins a few rounds. After turning $50 into $400, he’s pretty pleased with himself. “Just one more spin,” and he can quit teaching and leave Tiboonda. He loses it all. He then cashes out his entire paycheck of $290, and tries again. He loses again.
He wakes up the next morning sweaty, naked, and broke. He goes to the Department of Labor, but they’re closed. He goes in for a final drink, and a man insists on buying him one. Then another. John goes home with old Tim for lunch and meets Tim’s daughter Janette. Dick and Joe come over, and Tim suggests that John hang around, nothing for him to worry about.
As Tim and his friends talk and drink all day, John gets closer with Janette. She’s pretty desperate for sex, and he obliges. He stops in the middle to vomit, which she takes a little personally. When they go back to the house, Doc Tydon and a bunch of other guys are all there drinking heavily, so John joins them.
The next afternoon, Doc laughs that they’ve all had little episodes with Janette. Doc cooks up some kangaroo for John’s breakfast. Doc explains that he doesn’t really have any money and hasn’t for more than five years. “You don’t need money in the Yabba.” Being a doctor, he barters his services instead of charging for them. He isn’t really licensed, but who cares?
They go hunting for kangaroo with Dick and Joe. It’s a frantic scene with a lot of drunken lunatics driving at high speed through the desert with shotguns. The dog kills one, and they run over another in their car. They stop to have a few dozen drinks, then they go out to kill kangaroos with the spotlight on their car, which hypnotizes them.
Joe fights one and kills it with his bare hands. Can John do it? He tries but doesn’t enjoy it. Later, they all get even more drunk and fight and trash the bar/store they’re at. John and Doc go home and fight some more, though they start looking mighty friendly as they calm down. Eventually, John wakes up with the worst hangover in recorded history and decides it’s time to continue on to Sydney. John takes the gun Joe and Dick gave him and heads to town.
He eventually runs into Jock Crawford again. He asks “What went wrong?” Jock helps him get cleaned up, and John continues on his trip through the desert. He trades his rifle to a truck driver for a ride to town. Except it’s not Sydney– the driver takes him back to Yabba but gives him back his gun.
Out of his mind by this point, John goes back to Doc’s place to kill him. He changes his mind and shoots himself just as Doc comes in. Later, John wakes up in the hospital with Jock there, who has a police report explaining “The accident.” Doc then takes him to the train station and sends him back to Tiboonda.
Charlie asks, “Did you have a good holiday?” John replies, “The best!”
Commentary
I really doubt this film did much for the Australian tourist trade, but I could be wrong. Apparently, everyone in Australia wants you to drink with them, and they never know when to stop. If poor John had a dollar for every time someone drank in this film, he wouldn’t be stuck in the Yabba. Watching this movie as a drinking game, taking a swallow every time someone in the movie does, you probably wouldn’t make it to the end.
All the kangaroos we saw being shot were really killed for this, none were special effects, and there were a bunch of them. There’s a note at the end explaining that this was done by licensed hunters, but it’s still pretty graphic. It was meant to raise awareness that their population was getting endangered, or at least threatened, at that point in time.
It’s really strange watching the usually classy and refined Donald Pleasance doing something this raw. He alternates between talking about Socrates and being a raving lunatic.
I’m not sure if this really qualifies as horror, but it’s definitely intense. John makes one wrong decision and it spirals out of control and he ends up losing everything financially. But he does make some new friends.