Part of the mother nature horror genre, Long Weekend, is the story of a troubled Australian couple, who venture off to the Australian coast for a nice weekend of camping and relaxation. From the very beginning it's clear that John and Marcia have a troubled relationship, as they spend more time antagonizing each other than getting along. Once they arrive it's clear that the couple has little regard for mother nature, whether it's throwing beer bottles into the ocean, cutting down a tree for the fun of it, or even running over a kangaroo, albeit not on purpose. Nature has seen enough, and wants it's revenge. This is not an exploitative horror film by any means, as it relies much more on Hitchcockian filmmaking to create a startling experience. Using tons of animal sounds, voyeuristic shot selections and well-designed editing, the film creates a brilliant foreboding tension in which it's very clear that nature is watching and planning its revenge against this couple. The music comes off a little too overbearing for my personal taste, and the amount of venom between the two even gets frustrating to the viewer but the film does a great job at slowly unraveling the inner workings of this couple, as we come to learn the true reason in which they share so much animosity. If you don't want any minor spoilers, skip this sentence: In fact, the film is a great anti-abortion advertisement, as we learn this is the main reason for such animosity, and one could easily conclude this as a crime against nature as well. *End of Spoilers*: Long Weekend is without a doubt one of the best films of this genre, making a clear statement about how humanity is a part of nature, not above it. 8.5/10
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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