The Alexander Pearce story is so well known and obviously exploitable that it’s a mystery why it took so long to become a horror movie – perhaps due to difficulties of filming in Tasmania. But here it is, with a decent budget and two horror “names”, Nathan Phillips and Leigh Wannell. Wannell is a likeable actor with an honest open face, even if he doesn’t have much of a character to play apart from “nice guy”; Phillips has a bit more to chew on, but unfortunately he becomes boorish. The pretend Irish female lead is irritating but the other girl quite nice and Billie Brown makes his outlandish character convincing.
It looks terrific with some great Tasmanian scenery and is quite slick. There are some effective shocks too, especially those involving a little girl. Script wise things get a shifty after the little girl turns up – the actions of the characters become increasingly illogical and there are contrivances with the characters hooking up again.
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