Snapshot

"Snapshot" is one of those odd and different kind of films that show a side of the world that is uncommon, and within this film that is the world of a young fashion model. During this showcase of a different world the film blends well as a comedy and drama spoof. This is the type of movie you view late night on TCM's underground in which I did. Anyway overall for a late 70's independent low budget film it wasn't bad as it entertained.

Set in an international country I believe Australia it involves Angie a young girl who's unhappy she works as a local hairdresser. Yet upon meeting a fashion model Angie is convinced she will give the fashion world a try. And against her mother's wishes she moves out and gets ready to travel the world. Soon Angie sees snapshots of sunny sand beaches, all night dance parties, topless shots and also plenty of alcohol and drugs.

Also the downside of the job is the struggle with weight and depression most alarming is the many perverts and creeps she will encounter. As the mystery and suspense arrives in this film when a strange and mysterious stalker arrives. Overall pretty good B film to watch one late night to pass the time, a pretty good take on the highs and lows of the fashion model world.

Australian cinema has always been somewhat schizophrenic. On one hand, you have your lofty art-house efforts made by the likes of Peter Weir or Peter Noyce, though both of these pillars of pictorial culture have been known to let their hair down on occasion. Thankfully, these are balanced out by a heaping helping of what has now affectionately become known as "Ozploitation" : kinda like the Down Under version of quintessential drive-in fodder. Likewise, they mostly thrived throughout the '70s and '80s and were given a lucrative second life in the early days of VHS. These were the flicks that put bums in seats domestically, frequently featuring enough sex 'n violence to satiate the Saturday night crowd.

Producer Antony Ginnane proved a key figure in the history of them Aussie "aberrations", cheerfully bankrolling Richard Franklin's sexploitation classic FANTASM (and its inevitable sequel FANTASM COMES AGAIN!) as well as both versions - 1982 original and 2014 remake - of British Brian Trenchard-Smith's notorious survival slasher TURKEY SHOOT. Clearly, this is a guy who can coax otherwise respectable filmmakers out of their comfort zone. Case in point being dependable dullard Simon Wincer who went on to fail-safe family features like D.A.R.Y.L., the Disney-funded OPERATION DUMBO DROP and the phenomenally successful FREE WILLY. With a background in domestic cathode ray crime drama like HOMICIDE and CHOPPER SQUAD, Wincer was seriously prepared to "slum" it when Ginnane gave him the opportunity to leap from to small to big screen which resulted in a pair of practically impossible to pigeonhole genre flicks : the quirky fantasy HARLEQUIN (1980) and its predecessor SNAPSHOT.

Posing as a routine slice 'n dicer (its US release title was THE DAY AFTER HALLOWEEN!), this is actually anything but. Apart from an unsettling opening scene, telegraphing its conclusion with the remnants of an as of yet unidentified charred corpse and a female crime scene interloper hysterically calling out for "Angie", it takes more than half the film's running time before anything overtly horrible takes place. What viewers get instead is a surprisingly engrossing character-based drama about a naive young innocent (Sigrid Thornton's tellingly named Angela) in the big bad city, in this case Melbourne. A former child actress, Thornton would proceed to become one of the Continent's most revered thespians, this particular oddity a singular "blot" on an otherwise spotless state of service. If she realized this was time spent in the "gutter", her effortlessly engaging performance certainly doesn't bear any traces thereof.

A timid little hairdresser at the salon of domineering Mr. Plunkett (Jon Sidney, who played General MacArthur in Philippe Mora's DEATH OF A SOLDIER), Angela makes an immediate life-changing decision at the behest of worldly model Madeline (exceptionally well-portrayed by Greek-born Chantal Contouri who hit a career high in '79 with this and Rod Hardy's oddball vampire flick THIRST) to "give it all up" in pursuit of a modeling career with "outré" fashion photographer Linsey (Hugh Keays-Byrne, yep, MAD MAX's indelible Toecutter himself). Finding her suitcase packed and the locks changed by her overbearing mother (respected UK actress Julia Blake who has but one, albeit absolutely unforgettable scene) in the wake of a nude photo spread, Angie moves into Linsey's studio where several hapless "professionals" seem to pass through on their way up or down the social ladder.

Notwithstanding her apparently harmless shutterbug, men in general seem to spell bad news for the up 'n coming cover cutie. There's older ex-boyfriend Daryl (creepy Vincent Gil, another MAD MAX alumnus) who stalks her all across town in his Mr. Whippy ice cream van (a curiously effective choice of vehicle) and even Madeline's film producer husband (the late veteran character actor Robert Bruning) can barely keep his hands off once his wife's back is turned. Meanwhile, she's receiving strange threats and someone may indeed want her dead but who ? Bearing in mind the movie's unsettling start, you just know there will be tears before bedtime.

Fairly unpredictable screenplay by Everett De Roche, who wrote the cult favorites ROAD GAMES (Franklin, 1981) and RAZORBACK (Russell Mulcahy, 1984), keeps the audience guessing by cleverly turning clichés upside down. This doesn't always hit the bullseye (a final twist prefiguring Gordon Willis' notorious WINDOWS leaves a bad aftertaste) but at least blocks out boredom setting in. Composer Brian May, whose ivory-tinkling score sounds like a cross between '70s TV show cues and Golden Age porno music (awesome, if you're like me, or awful, if you're not), is NOT the guy from Queen but one of Australia's busiest soundtrack suppliers of the period, adding atmosphere to the MAD MAX movies (again!) and assorted genre treats such as David Hemmings' THE SURVIVOR and Manny Cotto's DR. GIGGLES. Two pathetic pop songs by the band "Sherbet" (cool name...NOT!) are just icing on the cake. The boobs 'n blood quotient is rather mild but fans will be pleased to know that Thornton bares 'em without shame. This is one flick that knows its target audience better than they know themselves and treats it with more respect than you'd expect from exploitation entrepreneurs.

Snapshot (1979)

** (out of 4)

Angela (Sigrid Thornton) is a rather timid 19-year-old who lives in fear of her mother. Her model friend talks her into taking a job where she will be shot by a famous photographer. The job requires nudity, which Angela is talked into but soon afterwards her mother kicks her out of the house. Angela soon finds herself living with friends and all is going well until she begins getting stalked.

This Ozploitation movie also goes under the titles ONE MORE MINUTE, THE DAY AFTER HALLOWEEN and THE NIGHT AFTER HALLOWEEN. The "Halloween" titles were an obvious attempt to try and cash in on John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN and it's those titles that probably gave this film its cult following. With that said, you're best to just forget all about that because this film isn't a slasher and it barely contains any horror elements.

So, what is SNAPSHOT? Well, it's basically a drama and a sometimes dark one at that. The film is really a character study of this young lady as we see her go from this weak child to somewhat of a stronger adult. She makes a few bad mistakes, finds herself on her own and she must fight to get everything back and oh yeah, there's the stalker aspect that turns up around the hour mark. Is this a good movie? I would say no but there are at least some interesting things that make it worth watching.

For starters, the performance by Thornton is one that I really enjoyed and for the most part I thought the supporting players were good as well. The film does a nice job with this woman's story but the director just never brings any real drama or tension to the film. You're basically mildly entertained by what you're watching but at the same time you're not really connected to any of it. The stalker stuff pretty much comes out of nowhere and it really doesn't pay off as one would hope.

SNAPSHOT is an interesting film and a mildly entertaining one but that's pretty much as far as the praise will go.

A young model is terrorized by a creeper in an ice cream truck (not kidding!) and a predatory lesbian. Why won't people just leave her alone?

The threat of violence looms over most of Snapshot, but it never really delivers until the end and, by that point, we've all been bored to death. But hey, it does come with a cool theme song called "Angela, Have You Gone Too Far This Time?" No, she didn't go far enough.

Snapshot is a little slow and patience testing at times, but it's better than its bad reputation would lead you to believe. If you're expecting a slasher (as the American title "The Day After Halloween" would suggest), you'll probably hate it, but the acting is pretty good, it's well shot, and the music score is pleasant. Unfortunately, it does lack scares or thrills, which makes one wonder why make a horror film without any genuine horror?

Quite recently I watched a marvelous documentary on Australian exploitation cinema entitled "Not Quite Hollywood: the True, Untold Story of Ozploitation" – which I highly recommend to anyone – and it really stimulated me to track down a lot of titles I've never even heard about before. "Snapshot" is one of them; a peculiar psycho-thriller/melodrama hybrid that coincidentally came out shortly after the huge box office success of "Halloween" and thus had to be re-titled "The Day After Halloween" in order to make extra money and cash in on the success of John Carpenter's classic. Obviously this movie has absolutely nothing to do with Halloween, Michael Myers or Haddonfield and hopefully not too many people will be beguiled by this cheap marketing scam. I'm not even too sure "Snapshot" fully qualifies as horror, since the film barely features any genuine moments of fright. Despite the still relatively low number of independent cult movies produced in Australia around that time, "Snapshot" is an adequate and professional accomplishment with proper production values, respectable performances and ambitious story contents. Heck, the film is so ambitious that the drama overrules and the thriller elements never really even come through. "Snapshot" is much more of a satiric portrait of the sleazy and dishonest advertising/modeling industry than it is a nail-biting suspense thriller. Director Simon Wincer ("Harlequin", "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man") seemingly never ceases to enlarge the melodramatic universe surrounding the main character Angela, but actually there's very few action. 19-year-old Angela is lurid into shooting a topless modeling ad by an eloquent and she promptly gets offered a job as the face of a perfume brand. Angela is very enthusiast and moves in with her photographer, especially since she's tired of her domineering mother and dead-end job at the hair dresser salon. She rapidly adapts to her new classy life and doesn't even have to bother anymore about her stalking ex-boyfriend and his (not-so) inconspicuous ice cream van. However, she learns this is predominantly a rotten world full of greed, betrayal, false promises, sexual harassment, blackmail and danger. As said, "Snapshot" is a plain straightforward coming-of-age drama falsely advertised as a genuine horror movie. There are two noteworthy sequences near the very end, but they hardly seem worth waiting for. This could be an interesting and compelling viewing experience, but then you better know beforehand to expect a serious-toned film instead of a brainless slasher imitation.