TWO HEADS CREEK

Stars: Jordan Waller, Kathryn Wilder, Helen Dallimore, Gary Sweet, Kevin Harrington, Stephen Hunter, Don Bridges, Madelaine Nunn, Kent Lee, David Adlam and Kerry Armstrong.
Writer: Jordan Waller
Director: Jesse O’Brien

AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE: Saturday October 12 at Cinema Nova as part of Fangoria x Monster Fest 2019 | Melbourne.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Under the guise of a raucous, bloody horror-comedy, writer/star Jordan Waller and director Jesse O’Brien nail some timely social commentary in their wildly entertaining collaboration, Two Heads Creek. A risky rumble with the Ocker archetype, the likes of which have fallen hard in the past (remember Welcome to Woop Woop?), this U.K./Australian co-production instead rips into racial stereotypes as incisively as it does muscle and bone.  

Bolstered by high-profile Oz acting talent not usually associated with this type of splattery romp, Waller and O’Brien expose the pink underbelly of systemic bigotry through broad satire, taking to it with all manner of barbed tools, literally and figuratively. At a time when the thinly disguised politics of hatred has infiltrated the mainstream, films that take the perpetrators down a peg or two are more important than ever.

In a remarkably assured left turn from his plummy work in the TV series Victoria, Waller stars as Norman, the sole remaining proprietor of a family-owned British butcher shop facing its final days. Despite his toffee Brit blonde-ness, Norman cops constant verbal and occasionally faecal abuse from his pro-Brexit working-class community (he’s Polish, it seems). When the opportunity presents itself to head Down Under and reconnect with his birth mother, he follows the spirited guidance of his fiery sister Annabelle (the terrific Kathryn Wilder, sharing convincing sibling chemistry with her co-star) and is soon in transit to the titular township.

Arriving in the rotting remnants of a once thriving rural life along with the ubiquitous Asian tour group, Annabelle and Norman soon become acquainted with the residents - boisterous blonde Apple (Helen Dallimore); her under-the-thumb hubby Noah (Kevin Harrington); displaced German aristocrat Hans (Gary Sweet); cranky old racist Uncle Morris (Don Bridges); and, effeminate publican Eric (David Adlam). The townsfolk represent the ugly elements of old Australia, an Anglo-European enclave of entitlement and inflated self-worth, ignorant of their life collapsing around them.

With only the highbrow sci-fi Arrowhead (2016) on his feature resume, O’Brien proves a naturally gifted director of anarchic yet pointed storytelling and the perfect conduit for Waller’s fish-out-of-water protagonist. By the time the third act kicks in, and thematic subtext of ugly racism meets the gory narrative trajectory of small-town cannibalism, O’Brien and Waller’s pacing and delivery is skilfully syncopated.

A smart, yet deliriously insane take on our dangerously ridiculous modern society, Two Heads Creek plays like a Monty Python-meets-Peter ‘Braindead’ Jackson reworking of Wake in Fright; a journey into the dark heart of ugly Australian culture by way of Sideshow Alley. The redemptive ray of light at the end of the horror tunnel is the notion that prejudice and intolerance can’t win and that, ultimately, ugly racism will eat itself.