Uncle Scoopy's Fun House

Aussie VHS classics:

Contagion

(1987)

Contagion is a 1987 horror thriller made in Queensland where a meek real estate agent Mark (John Doyle of Roy and HG) is driving home one night and sees a hitchhiking girl being attacked on a dark road by a murderous redneck. He gets out to help and finds that the redneck wants to rape the girl, but is willing to give Mark a go too (!!). He fights the redneck, but another redneck comes along and shoots him with an arrow and rapes Mark (!!). When Mark wakes up, he kills the rapist redneck then blacks out, wakes up and is helped to a house by a beautiful blonde woman, inhabited by a reclusive millionaire Bael (Ray Barrett) and two beautiful blonde women Helen and Cleo (Pamela Hawkesford and Nathalie Gaffney - credited as Nathy Gaffney...) who help him get his bearings and invite him back with the promise of money and that he can have his way with Helen and Cleo. When he wakes up again, he is in hospital greeted by his fiancée Cheryl (Nicola Bartlett). Mark now knows what he has to do, go back to the house and be the man he always wanted to be. He has his way with Helen and Bael tells him what he has to do next: get his money and put it on shares and get rid of all the obstructions in his life, meaning kill them, which he does, including his work rival and boss. Mark is finally living the life he's always wanted, but there's one more obstruction that is stopping him from being a completely new man and that is Cheryl. But, worried about Mark's erratic behaviour, Cheryl has discovered that everything isn't as it seems. Also, Mark has tampers with her plane. Can Cheryl save Mark before Mark gets rid of her? Can she survive the plane ride?

Baffling horror movie that pertains to be extreme, but cuts away at every chance it gets. It's all promise and no follow through. Also, only Cheryl seems to notice Mark's behaviour and his actions go mostly unnoticed by the police or anyone else for that matter. Contagion seems to want to be more than the usual slasher film, but the plot and the plan aren't all that coherent and at times it just seems to be an excuse to increase the body count. Hell, I've got no idea what the rednecks have to do with it, they just seem to be there to represent the opposite of the house occupants and to add to the body count when need be. Contagion tries hard, but is done in by an undercooked story and incoherent plot.

Donna Jan Newby film clip (sample below)

Pamela Hawkesford and Nathalie Gaffney film clips (collages below)

Hawkesford

Gaffney

Talk

(1993)

Talk is a 1993 but released 1995 drama about two women Stephanie and Julia (Angie Milliken and Victoria Longley), who work together writing graphic novels. Stephanie is just back from a holiday, and she is desperate for a man as she tells Julia in quite graphic detail. On the other hand, Julia suspects her husband Mac (John Jarratt, you don't even have to blink to miss him, suggesting his role was on cut out) possibly with an unknown girl (Jacqueline McKenzie). Meanwhile, Stephanie gets someone to fix her television, Jack (Richard Roxburgh) and he listens to their non-stop talk while taking forever to fix the television.

Well, the title is entirely accurate because that's pretty much all there is and a fair bit of it is quite graphic talk about sex and sexual needs, hence the R rating it received (although I think that's a bit harsh). Not all boring, but tough to recommend a talkfest at any stage, even one with acted out inserts from the graphic novel which are related to the woman's lives.

Angle Milliken film clips (collages below)

As always, VHS updates are of a lower quality than the new updates although these two aren't that bad. Seriously doubt either will get a DVD release, possibly Contagion at a stretch because it's a genre movie, but forget about Talk, it barely got a release as is.

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