Long Weekend (1979)

* Warning Spoiler Alert * ... This Movie Is Listed (Genre) As Horror, Mystery, Thriller ... Thriller Maybe But I Didn't See Any Elements Of Horror Or Mystery ... I Did Like This Movie ... I Thought It Was Paced Well And The Story (Although I Am Sure I Saw It Differently) As I Saw It Was Interesting ... A City (NYC) Couple Going Through A Rough Patch In Their Relationship Decide To Go To The Country To Repair The Relationship (After All 2 Modern Day City Slickers Can Handle Nature) But Mother Nature Has Other Ideas ... I Don't See This Movie As "Mother Nature" Strikes Back (Ala The Happening) ... I See It More As 2 City Folk Go To The Country Not Knowing What To Expect Or How To Deal With It And As A Result Mother Nature Puts A Whopping On Them Big Time ... Colin Eggleston's Direction Was Good ... Acting Was Also Good But It Was Simplistic Since Nothing About The Plot Was Complicated ... The Scenery Was Spooky At Times And Beautiful At Others Which Fit The Setting Nicely ... All In All A Good Movie ...

Got sucked in by the IMDb rating for what turned out to be a long bit of disjoint rubbish, and stupid scene after stupid scene with Lousy acting, even for it's time, albeit for an interesting storyline/plot. And typical of many Australian movies of the period, trying to impress the overseas audience, with a couple of gratuitous scenes of all of the famous Australian wildlife, kangaroos, koalas, blue tongue lizard, wedge-tail eagle, cockatoos and the elusive Tasmanian Devil: and for those who don't know their Australian natural history very well, it doesn't really matter what the elusive Tasmanian Devil (which is called that because it is ONLY found in Tasmania), is doing on a mainland Australian beach. The man is an environmental vandal and the woman a typical frustrated/nagging suburban cliché, both are out of their comfort zones in the wild (nature). Man with a gun, as an answer to whatever he doesn't understand, whose answer is to shoot willy nilly in the direction of any nightly sound: and one of the stupid scenes is- down comes a woman's shoe when he shoots in the night sky. Both the man and woman manage to drive round in circles, woman at night, and man during the day. and don't even wonder, What's the point of having a 4wheel drive, if after you get bogged, you (man) simply abandon the car and run around like a chook without a head. This is not a movie of nature reaking revenge on two city slickers, but more a movie of two city slickers way out of their element.

I honestly don't understand why this movie flopped when it was first aired in 1979. It is one of the best films in the horror genre. I saw it years ago as a child and it was one of the films that stayed with me.Long Weekend is a very low key horror. The tension is not ramped up straight away, but builds slowly and steadily. Like Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, there is no pat answer to what is actually happening, only that Peter and Marcia, (John Hargreaves and Briony Behets) are not welcome in their part of the bush. And for good reason, neither Peter or Marcia show any respect towards the bush or it's inhabitants. They carelessly start bushfires, slaughter animals with their negligence and destroy their surroundings.Peter and Marcia are not a very likable couple either, they constantly bicker and it is clear to see that their marriage is in serious trouble.The acting from both John Hargreaves and Briony Behets is excellent, both give a brilliant performance as the rapidly estranging couple that literally come under siege by their surroundings.The final scenes of this film are truly harrowing and I promise, ones that you won't forget. do yourself a favour, see the original before you see the remake. This is what Aussie cinema used to be like. Brilliant and original.Long Weekend is considered to be an Ozploitation film and even though is was a commercial flop in Australia, it was a huge hit overseas.

The reviews on this site for "Long Weekend" are positively hyperbolic: "the epitome of Australian horror" opines one gushing reviewer; who goes on to proclaim it as the "best horror film to come from down under" "lost Aussie masterpiece!!!" asserts another, who must really mean it, as they have punctuated this statement with three exclamation points! I'm sorry to say that I found this film to be fatuous, fatuous with at least 5 exclamation points. The plot is basically thus: Aussie bloke takes his frigid wife on a mini-break out of town for the weekend. His wife is the biggest whinger OF ALL TIME a bold move then, that the writer should choose to play against type and make her...English. Yes, she's whinging AND she's a pom - you learn something new every day.So this unlikable couple, who I cared not a jot for, reach their deserted getaway; en route they run over a roo on the highway, which subsequently turns out to be a rather bad move because this act (and some other crimes against nature) has made nature....very angry! an eagle attacks the Aussie bloke, then a possum bites his finger, something moans in the distance (creepy, apparently) but really, I didn't care, as after about 40 minutes of this film I had reached the critical mass point; a point where I know that the chances of the the film getting any better, are virtually nil, as the stall has been set, the cards have been dealt and you realise you are watching a stinker.