NIGHTMARES (1980)

Jenny Neumann and Gary Sweet

NIGHTMARES (aka Stage Fright/1980). Director: John D. Lamond. 

Helen Selleck (Jenny Neumann) has wrongly felt responsible for her mother's death in a car crash years ago when she was a child. She gets a part in a stage production of an avant garde comedy and it isn't long before people connected to the production are being sliced and diced by an unseen assailant wielding broken pieces of glass. Potential victims and suspects include soap opera actor and new boyfriend Terry (Gary Sweet), the bitchy director George (Max Phipps), the even bitchier critic Bennett Collingswood (John-Michael Howson), stage manager Angela (Briony Behets), ever-horny Bruce (Edmund Pegge), actress Judy (Nina Landis of Four of a Kind), and others. As opening night arrives, the body count grows ever higher ... 

Who's the bitchier? Max Phipps and John-Michael Howson

Nightmares is an oddball Australian slasher film that has some decent acting, lots of nudity and boobs, several bloody (if not too graphic) murder sequences, and a strange plot. Throughout the film there is a steady attempt to conceal the identity of the killer even while making it pretty clear who it is in all other ways. Therefore the suspense is minimized and there is absolutely no final twist. Brian May's music score tries very hard to drum up excitement in key moments, but ultimately the picture is somewhat slapdash and generally uninventive, although there are attempts to make it more cinematic. The critic Collingswood is called an "old queen" more than once, grabs Helen's breast at one point, and later on comes on to Bruce, who seems to briefly contemplate putting out for a good review. 

Verdict: Mediocre Aussie horror film with some zesty moments. **1/4. 

ROGUE

Michael Vartan

ROGUE (2007). Produced, written and directed by Greg McLean.

Pete McKell (Michael Vartan), an American travel writer, goes on a boat tour in the Northern reaches of Australia and gets a lot more than he bargained for. The pretty tour guide, Kate (Radha Mitchell), is heading back to their point of origin when she turns the boat around to investigate what might be a distress flair. Instead she and a boat load of panicking tourists encounter a huge man-eating crocodile that smashes into and incapacitates their boat. Seems they have inadvertently wandered into its territorial waters. The motley group is now trapped on an island that will be completely underwater when the tide goes up in a few hours -- and nighttime is coming. The crocodile can see in the dark, but they can't ... 

Radha Mitchell and Sam Worthington

Rogue is a stand-out in the monster movie sweepstakes. It has sweeping and often stunning cinematography (Will Gibson) of beautiful and eerie Australian vistas, rivers, mountains and jungle areas, not to mention underground caverns. The characters are much better developed than usual, and there's an atmospheric score by Francois Tetaz. Handsome Vartan, famous for the TV show Alias, and Mitchell give very good lead performances, and there is fine back-up from such as Sam Worthington as a wannabe boyfriend of Kate's and a host of good character actors. The final section of the film has Pete in the creepy underground den of the huge predator, fighting for his life against all odds. If the movie has one problem -- aside from a few slow spots -- it's that some of the sequences are under-lit, possibly to hide the fakeness of the animatronic crocodile. CGI appears to have been employed as well. 

Verdict: Suspenseful and very classy creature feature. ***.  

FOUR OF A KIND

Louise Siverson

FOUR OF A KIND (2008). Director: Fiona Cochran. 

In Melbourne Detective Gina Sturrick (Leverne McDonnell) interviews Anne (Louise Siverson), when her husband's supposed mistress is found stabbed to death in a park. Gina then goes to see her therapist, Glenda (Gail Watson), and she confesses something quite startling to her shrink. Meanwhile the shrink goes to see her best friend Susan (Nina Landis), and discovers that she, too, is holding back a terrible secret. In the final segment, Gina is back in a police interview room after there's another murder. Just who is guilty of what? 

Leverne McDonnell

I won't say much more about the plot of Four of a Kind, as it's the type of movie that should reveal its secrets to the viewer as the film goes along, but I will say that its main strength is the superb performances from a talented ensemble cast.  The screenplay by Helen Collins (I'd be surprised if this wasn't originally written for the stage) intelligently examines and dissects these four interesting women, making this a fascinating character study. Each segment is broken up by a brief performance by the rock-jazz group Joe Camilleri and the Black Sorrows, which is less distracting than you might imagine (their music is catchy, for one thing). Four of a Kind reminds me of one of Woody Allen's better pictures with its incisive characterization and its intermingling of what may seem like separate story lines. Although some may be put off by the somewhat ambiguous if insinuating ending, this is a worthwhile and unusual movie made in Australia. 

Verdict: If you're in the mood for something different, you may find this absorbing. ***.