Red Billabong

I'm upset about how bad this movie is. As an Australian I worry for Australian sci-fi. Much like Occupation (2018), that other awful Aussie sci-fi, the cgi and camerawork was good, but the story, and particularly the script, was unnatural and difficult to bear. Red Billabong may have worked if this were about a reunion of two estranged brothers (no unexplained horror). Or, Red Billabong may have worked if this were solely about two brothers, not estranged, battling an unexplained horror. I'm not kidding, the mish mash of two estranged brothers battling each other and an unexplained horror was just plain irritating. The theme may sound familiar, and others may argue that relationship colour alongside adversity is a common and highly popular theme. I'll grant that, but for me, it seemed that the script had been written by a 13 year old with no real experience of what he/she was writing about. I'm not kidding, there are unrealistic stereotypes, sexism, male bitchiness, horrible initial portraits of young women, loads of cliches, potty mouths throughout, and way too many attempted classic lines. It's awful. At a certain point about 50 mins in a young man with a beanie appears and converses casually with one of the brothers. This beanie guy has appeared from nowhere in the forest, and is not seen again, nor was he seen previously in the movie. I actually clicked on all the pics above to try and figure whom the hell he was! Awful and irritating. Please Australian film, please check your work better!

The acting is really poor here - there are a couple of good scenes but for the most part it just seems to fake and unreal. The plot is just useless - it starts off good and I was hoping for a good movie but as it continues you realise that the script is like something a bunch of kids put together - and that is how it ends. Do not waste your time on this movie. The CGI is third grade/ low budget. Its a B class movie - and they haven't been able to pull it off. The script could do with a much better plot and a more scarier story as opposed to three women needed to complete the cycle - really? I liked the dog the most - really expected better.

I had high hopes of this flick as Australian creature features of the past such as rogue and razorback were well constructed. This however fell dry and flat with scheduled cliché Aussie songs and slang sayings. The generic character stereotypes were spot on the money for this sort of movie however they were mostly all overacted and generally unbelievable at best. as a fond fan of the horror genre this movie seemed to cross over to the action genre after approximately 50 minutes of boring character building. There were no scare scenes nor shock factor moments. There were no real comedic moments which are usually familiar within Australian films however I did find myself having a giggle at the terrible creature effects and the unrealistic script. The one star for this movie is attributed to the stunning Queensland scenery and most of the outdoor backdrop shots. To conclude, this could have been an extended episode of home and away which may have had a better reception among those viewers.

This is a two hour movie about an Aboriginal monster in which nothing happens for more than an hour. Then everything comes crashing down, but without any sense or reason. Has no one read the script and realized that the guy from the beginning could have explained and solved everything before anything bad happened? Also there were so many details in the beginning of the movie that went nowhere. Honestly the first half of the movie could have been 15 minutes. I can confidently suggest you skip to 1:15 and watch the film from there.

The acting is pretty bad, too. You can immediately tell Felix Williamson is the only professional actor there. The others weren't terrible, but the entire film feels like a student experiment.

Being a low budget film I didn't expect much in the way of special effects and in that regard they did a decent job, except the fight at the end which was ridiculous.

Bottom line: I have no idea why I chose to watch this movie, but I can tell you it was a bad decision :) This film has almost nothing redeemable. And sorry about making fun of Jessica Green, she's really cute and was decent in Outpost, but she is just an extra here.

Absolutely dumbfounded as to how this is getting anything higher than 3 - 3.5 stars

As one of the previous reviewers suggested, it does look like it was made by Uni students during their lunch break. There are a number of painful scenes where the actors really are unsure of what they're supposed to be doing or how they should be acting.

Also, with regards to CGI, if you don't have the budget to do it well, don't do it at all. It was laughable. We didn't really need to see as much as we did, it would have been better leaving more to the imagination.

Wooden acting at best with lackluster direction. The idea and potential could have been great with thorough execution but this just left us all feeling like we wanted 2 hours of our lives back.

The dog was great.

Funny thing with some of the other 10/10 reviews.... check the profiles, one gold coast actor (supporting his friends in the industry) the others all created recently and only reviewing this film ... I smell a rat! ;-)