Connect with us

Home Video

[Blu-ray Review] ‘Dark Age’ or John Jarratt: Crocodile Hunter

Published

on

I am by no means an expert on Ozploitation or Australian cinema. I love the films dearly and Ozploitation icon Brian Trenchard-Smith is firmly cemented in my top five favorite directors but my overall knowledge is rather limited. Much like the country that is home to this renegade cinema, Ozploitation is a vast oasis that will take me years to fully explore. The great thing about that is it leaves plenty of “new” films for me to discover. By new of course, I mean new to me. My newest Australian discovery is 1987’s Dark Age.

The wonderful John Jarratt stars as Steve Harris, an Australian park ranger tasked with maintaining Australia’s crocodile population. Basically he’s a wildlife conservationist and he’s specifically looking out for the crocodiles. They’re magnificent creatures that have been around centuries dating back to the dinosaurs, hence the film’s title, but in just 200 years man has pushed them to the brink of extinction. Steve wants to see to it that crocodiles are protected and continue thrive and live for countless centuries to come.

One evening a trio of poachers are out hunting crocodiles when they come across a massive 25 foot beast unlike anything they’ve ever seen before. Being that they are gross poachers they are determined to kill the croc and take its head as a trophy. Unfortunately for them this croc is no pushover and kills two of them. The surviving poacher, an awful man named John Besser (Max Phipps), wants the crocodile dead and city officials, including Steve’s boss, are in agreement that the giant croc must die.

Steve doesn’t want to kill the crocodile, which makes sense because as mentioned he is an animal conservationist, so he sets out to find the crocodile. Unfortunately Steve isn’t able to find the crocodile before it kills again. This time the prey is a small little boy and the crocodile eats him in a scene that is shockingly gruesome. Now three people have been killed and government officials aren’t messing around — this killer croc must be stopped! A price is put on the croc’s head in an effort to have it killed before it kills again. With a number of shady poachers now hoping to claim a quick buck, Steve must race to save the crocodile and move it to a safe sanctuary.

There are a couple of reasons why Steve doesn’t want to kill the animal. Crocodiles have been around for thousands of years, long before people arrived, so it’s the responsibility of humans to learn to live with crocs, not the other way around. Plus the croc only killed the first time in defense. The child’s death is hard to overcome, but Steve is informed by Oondabund (Burnam Burnam), an Aboriginal Australian, that the crocodile only killed the small child because he was very sick. Oondabund also informs Steve that this particular crocodile is very important to the Aboriginals because it contains the spirit of their past. Steve, with the help of Oondabund and Oondabund’s son Adjaral (David Gulpilil), must find the croc before the poachers do.

Dark Age is fascinating for a lot of reasons. On the surface it’s basically Jaws but with a crocodile, which is a pretty good premise. It’s a violent, gory and sometimes shocking B-movie. All of that is just at the surface level. Once you dig deeper you find the film has a lot of layers. This is something I’ve found to be true of a lot of Ozploitation over the years. These films aren’t just gory genre cinema, they’re often times a social commentary and Dark Age is no different.

A couple of things I picked up on right away. The film touches on man’s relationship with the environment. We treat animals like they’re a problem when we encroached on them. Of course animals are going to fight back, we’ve taken their homes. Steve talks about this very point when asked by his boss why he wants to save the crocodiles. It’s important to respect nature because if we don’t nature will bite back.

The film also touches on the relationship between the Aboriginal Australians and the white settlers who have now taken over. The Aboriginals respect the animals and nature and this is a big theme throughout the entire movie. Oondabund talks about how the crocodile won’t hurt Aboriginals because they have learned to live with one another and have developed a mutual respect. The crocodile doesn’t know have that same respect for the white man. Oondabund does point out that Steve is the exception. At one point Oondabund states that the crocodile will not hurt Steve because Steve is good to the Aboriginals.

There is this wonderful moment in the film where Steve is arguing with his boss about why they can’t kill the croc. One of Steve’s main points is that it means too much to the Aboriginals. Steve’s boss responds to this by saying you can’t go anywhere without “some black” saying you’re on sacred ground. It’s such a casually delivered but highly important line. Not only is it extremely racist, just hearing the phrasing “some black” strikes a chord, but it let’s you know how little respect the white men have for Aboriginals.

The special features get into the social aspects of the film a lot more. There is a great panel discussion between four Australian film critics and they really get into the heart of the matter. One of the things they discuss that I didn’t know is this film was released around the time Australia was celebrating its bicentennial. According to these critics there was a lot of talk during that time about how Aboriginals wouldn’t be around much longer so their culture and tradition wasn’t viewed as important. It’s really fascinating as an outsider that doesn’t know a lot about Australia and wasn’t aware of any of this. It’s amazing how a movie about a giant crocodile can be so socially aware and teach you something.

The Blu-ray has a number of other great special features to go with the panel discussion. There is an extended interview from Not Quite Hollywood with Jarratt discussing Dark Age. Jarratt gets into the film quite a bit and talks about how during filming he kept begging the director to do the film as a comedy because he thought the whole thing was absurd and figured the movie would be terrible. There is also an audio commentary with Jarratt, a little documentary on crocodiles, various trailers and more.

Dark Age is a wonderful film that has a bit of everything. It’s an adventure movie inside a creature feature — with an animatronic crocodile by the way — that is also very socially aware. Now the film is finally available on a great Blu-ray thanks to Umbrella Entertainment. It’s loaded with special features and the picture quality is superb. I love the movie and the Blu-ray is one of the year’s best. I cannot recommend this one enough.

Dark Age is available on region free Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment.

Chris Coffel is originally from Phoenix, AZ and now resides in Portland, OR. He once scored 26 goals in a game of FIFA. He likes the Phoenix Suns, Paul Simon and 'The 'Burbs.' Oh and cats. He also likes cats.

Home Video

‘Herencia Diabólica’ – 1993’s “Mexican Child’s Play” Finally Has a Blu-ray Release [Review]

Published

on

Did you know that there is a Child’s Play-inspired film from Mexico? If you didn’t, you can thank Vinegar Syndrome’s new label Degausser Video for making 1993’s Herencia Diabólica available for the masses to watch. Or at least for the VS hardcore fanbase, Chucky completists and anyone else who needs something like this in their lives.

Director Alfredo Salazar, known for his writing connection to the 70s Santo film series, also serves as the writer here to bring us a film seemingly inspired from the Child’s Play franchise. While it has been recently labeled as the “Mexican Child’s Play” (there’s a special feature on the disc with that very title), the killer doll concept is where the comparison should start and end. Despite having some seeds planted by that franchise, Salazar delivers a story that blossoms into something unique.

Tony (Roberto Guinar) receives a letter informing him that his aunt has died, and he has inherited her estate in Mexico. He quits his job and uproots his life in New York with his wife Annie (Holda Ramírez) to relocate south of the border and move into his new crib. Now I know what you’re thinking, what person just quits their job and drags their wife to another country without having reliable monetary income? Tony does, everyone, Tony does.

And what’s the first thing they do once they arrive in Mexico and check out the estate? They hit the bedroom, naturally. We are treated to a sex scene with an erotica song that feels like a knockoff of “Sadness” by Enigma (remember them?). Sounds fun and all, but the scene takes place completely in the dark and we see absolutely nothing. Maybe that’s why the sexy-time tune was pumping, so we could know what was exactly going down.

While Tony goes on a job interview, Annie explores the estate’s grounds in a tedious chore to experience, going room by room, plodding along. But it does lead us to her discovery of our antagonist—the evil clown doll, Payasito! Of all the things in the house, she decides to bring this monstrosity down to show Tony when he gets home. What an exciting way to celebrate (sic)! Then out of nowhere, she spouts off some exposition about rumors that Tony’s aunt dabbled in the dark arts and now we know where our title Diabolical Inheritance (the English translation for Herencia Diabólica) originates. For those of you who keep score for things like that.

Before proceeding with this review, you really need to visualize what Payasito looks like to truly embrace the rest of the film’s shenanigans. While Chucky resembles a cute ginger child, Payasito resembles a small clown that is much larger in stature than Chucky. That’s because Payasito is performed by an actor (Margarito Esparaza) in clown cosplay whenever he’s on the move (like Mannequin 2), and makes some really horrible facial expressions. Chucky dresses in “Good Guys” overalls and a striped shirt, but Payasito wears a new wave Santa hat while sporting a Sgt. Pepper jacket and Peter Pan tights. As you can now tell, he is quite beautiful.

Back to our story, Payasito begins to spook Annie cerebrally until she becomes unnerved to the point of having a complete mental break down, making her easy prey to eliminate. She dies but the unborn child survives, with Tony believing that her death was caused by her mental instability. Fast forward some years later and the couple’s surviving spawn has grown into child Roy (Alan Fernando), who at this point has already bonded with Payasito to help him over the loss of his mother. Dun-dun-duuunnn!

Meanwhile wealthy Tony remains single, still grieving his late wife, until his blonde assistant Doris encourages him to move on with his life and start seeing other people. And by other people, she naturally means herself. As the old Kanye West song lyric goes, “I ain’t saying she’s a gold digger…”, and it seems that she might be until we learn more about her character. Doris is played by the stunning Lorena Hererra who has an extremely extensive resume in Mexico, and she carries most of the film quite well during the feature’s second half. The singer and former Playboy centerfold for their Mexico edition is by far the most recognizable face in the cast.

Doris and Tony do indeed hookup and she moves into La casa de Herencia, where she does her best to impress Roy and lessen his obsession with the doll. There is a scene where they go to a nearby park without Payasito that is filled with famous fairytale figures, such as Pinocchio, Cinderella and King Kong! What, you didn’t know King Kong is a fairytale? Me neither. But Roy continues to be obsessed with Payasito after their trip, much to Doris’ chagrin.

Her actions to separate him from Roy gets Payasito angry, setting up the film’s most memorable scene. We already know that Payasito is a devil doll like Chucky, but now we learn he also has the power to invade people’s dreams like Freddy Krueger! Does Payasito enter the dream world and concoct a creative way to kill Doris in her sleep? No, he harnesses his power to sexually assault her instead. Yes that actually happens. After she awakens, Doris grabs the doll and tosses him into a lake, only to find him waiting for her by the time she gets back to the house. So now we know he also maintains the ability to “transport” like Jason Voorhees too. This doll is the total package!

More insanity happens before we close out the film with the longest victim chase sequence ever. It makes the previously mentioned painful house search scene seem like an eyeblink. It feels like it’s the film’s entire third act, filled with so much padding that you could soundproof an entire three-story house.

So how’s the transfer? Considering it was created using a mix of VHS and film source elements from 1993, they did one heck of a job! The work they put into it is especially noticeable in the dream invasion sequence, with the pulsing multi-colored psychedelic visuals. Super trippy stuff. Even the film’s score provides a pretty chill vibe, during the times when Payasito isn’t on the prowl.

If anything you read has piqued your interest in the very least, you should give it a shot. But if not, it is best to leave this doll on the shelf.

Herencia Diabólica is now available to purchase at VinegarSyndrome.com.

Continue Reading