Snapshot

I agree with the posters who liked Snap Shot, and I appreciate some of the things they pointed out. In fact, it might deserve more than six stars, but I'd have to see it again sometime and decide more if comparisons to some of the depth of Mulholland Dr. hold water.

I chanced upon it on TCM cable channel, not knowing anything much in advance. It's not a horror or slasher flick, and it's neither terrifying (well, maybe the little sister...) nor exactly campy/fun. And bad pan-and-scan movement got distracting toward the end of the movie. That seemed strange because the image didn't fill the TV screen anyway, yet clearly there was still a bunch of frame missing.

Call it a bracing slice-of-(weird)-life coming-of-age melodrama with horror aspects. Don't expect a great film and don't expect an exciting film, but you'll find an interesting film with truly odd characters and touches and a sort of jauntily grim look at one young woman's options.

A reviewer mentioned that Thornton, the actress playing the central character, is like a cross between Elizabeth McGovern and Jennifer Jason Leigh. I didn't consciously notice that while watching, but seeing it pointed out, it's quite right. And JJL is one of my favorite actresses.

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.

"Snapshot" is like one of those pretend-cautionary tales churned out in England in the '70s about the dangers of whatever flashy lifestyle teens have probably heard about on the news. See "Groupie Girl", "Cool it Carol", and a bunch of other things directed by the likes of Pete Walker for some examples.

The hilarious thing about these movies was that they were always at least as exploitative as the practices and individuals they were supposed to be condemning.

"Snapshot" continues this fine trend in international cinema. There was no reason to make it except to show a very young Sigrid Thornton topless, and there is no reason to watch it except to see a very young Sigrid Thornton topless.

The movie is some nonsense about a struggling hair dresser who is thrown out of home by her bitchy mother but is then offered big money to be a model. She does one topless photo shoot, is promised many more, but the phone stops ringing unless she submits to the sleazy wiles of another photographer and finally her lesbian-in-disguise best friend.

With twenty minutes to spare, the movie remembers it is supposed to be a horror flick, perhaps because it doesn't know how else to resolve the dilemma it poses for the heroine other than killing off a bunch of the characters.

All the finger wagging, this is what happens when you dare to dream big stuff is so tedious and trite you will just be waiting for it to be over. The sleazy photographer guy invites Thornton over to his house for a nice dinner - just the two of them. But wait, he wants to take photos, and he wants her to take off her clothes! There is at least one good piece of advice in there for any model wannabes: if a photographer tells you to take off your clothes but is so desperate to sound classy that he asks you in French, you're really in trouble.

The horror stuff at the end also sucks. There is no attempt at scares or suspense or tension. It's just a boring forced ending, though you can't help but smile at someone getting run over by their own Mr Whippy van.

Some movies seem to have evolved into finished product that's quite different from original script. This is one of them. I'll bet at one time, as writer's brainchild, this was a comedy-drama about a young woman trying to find her own place in the world, beset with oppressive upbringing and surrounded by shark-swarm of modern urban reality. As that, there are some scenes that sizzle, like the heroine's confrontation with her mother. Sigrid Thornton has long been a favorite of mine - a gutsy, resourceful actress who always manages to rise above or enhance her material. In that scene of familial combat (there are none more savage in our lives ), this feels like a completely different movie. ...A better one.

I think sometime pre-production or even after filming began, "Halloween" was released to bang-up box office, and some brilliant producer or studio exec got a brainstorm to turn this into a splatter/horror thriller. The result is a schizoid mess, and the "Godfather" shock moment is practically unforgivable. Some fine actors, led by Thornton, are utterly wasted. A few nice bits of drama, and some drolly funny send-up of the self-obsessed fashion business, don't make this one worth the effort.

I imagine that the Americans and Canadians who went to see this Australian movie in theaters in the 70s felt ripped off. For starters, it was retitled "The Day Before Halloween", yet it has NOTHING to do with the John Carpenter movie of 1978. The only similarity it has is with some of the piano music, which sort of sounds like Carpenter's score at times. But even if the movie had been released over here under its original name, viewers would have felt ripped off. For large chunks of the movie, absolutely NOTHING of consequence happens. All that you'll get out of the movie is that the modelling business can be a cold and cutthroat experience, something I think that any viewer would know already. The trivia section for this movie says that the script was written in ten days. It shows.