Pillars of society both.
Reg and Lindsay Morgan are pillars of the small town of Yandoit. As small business owners they supply fertilisers and organic material to local farmers and gardeners. Their own vegetable produce – abetted by their own natural accelerants – are the envy of others at the local fair.
Reg and Lindsay take pride in this and their town. They keep the roads clean and are eager to help the townsfolk in any way they can. They even have a new radio ad on the airwaves, something that makes them both beam with pride.
But running a small business in a competitive market brings pressure. With customers becoming more discerning the pressure to ‘bring it’ becomes oppressive, leading to acts borne of desperation. When the usual materials for the famed ‘blood ‘n’ bone’ aren’t available, Reg decides to help out a few young city folk on the way to a music festival.
While Reg is an amiable enough bloke and eager to please, he is also pretty dumb. Lindsay on the other hand is a brooding type, gruff and menacing and far more decisive and deceptively quick to move. Over the years this yin and yang approach has worked wonders, now though it seems that it may create conflict for the first time…
100 Bloody Acres isn’t quite a comedy but has aspirations of being one, albeit a very dark one. When most of the jokes fall flat though the result is a film with far more in common than Wolf Creek than a horror/comedy. The presence of John Jarrett in a cameo role lends further credence to the comparison.
There are a couple moments of levity, and a few sequences where the local special effects guys get the chance to get their Troma on, but for those exalting this film as Australia’s answer to Hollywood horror, I have some sad news for you.
Final Rating – 6 / 10. 100 Bloody Acres is merely 90 Bloody Minutes of average.
