Australia's answer to the first two POLTERGEIST films with a couple teaspoons of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Now give it a stir. You get the same sort of supernatural story, pinching plot details here and there (damn those greedy building developers), as the outskirts of suburbia meets Indigenous dreamtime horror. A group teenagers living on the same street in a suburban housing development find themselves haunted by the spirit of a Kadaicha Man (an elder aboriginal witchdoctor) through their dreams, which when they awake, they are in possession of an ancient crystal stone. This souvenir symbolizes that they are targeted for death.
To begin teenagers are killed off one by one in what looks like freak accidents caused by dangerous wildlife (and the body count is very small), while minimalistic in execution with its tame use of cutaways and aftermath mutilation; there's a charm to these coarse attacks and decent effects. Outside the slightly eerie first death, I thought remaining lot were silly. Still the natural sound design along with the piercing didgeridoo / synth score do a better job implementing the uneasy atmospherics around the thrills.
Obvious plot tropes are used to advance the story, engineer the threat and to keep you invested, yet for the majority of the time these docile characters seem less concern in trying to figure out how not to become the next victim. Some of their actions are questionable, even their own state of mind when they begin dropping like flies. Then at the backend the material rushes through and decides to throw out the overt shocks, changing its M.O to ghostly apparitions, poltergeist activity and possession leading to a flimsy power play over the life of the final girl. It's everything, but the kitchen sink... done on the cheap. Stereotypical performances don't hurt and the script might not be the greatest, but you get amusing lines like this;
"A dog savage enough to kill a teenage girl. A spider with the fasted venom in history and now a giant eel that thinks it's a boa constrictor. What... the hell... is going... on?????"
The delivery of the line was just priceless. Actually a lot of the choice dialogues, and sincere banter, especially between the coppers got a laugh from me.
Not the best Ozploitation had to offer, quite clunky, but you could do a lot worse.
