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Strange Country - Episode 04: The Exploitation Years.
The Exploitation Years
In 1981, the Australian government introduced a tax rule called Division 10BA, and accidentally funded the most prolific horror decade this country has ever produced.
The deal was simple: put money into an Australian film, write off 150% against your tax. Which meant a film could be a complete disaster and you'd still come out ahead. The worse the film, in a sense, the better the investment. Not a sentence you want anywhere near the founding document of a national cinema.
But here's what came out of it. A man who kills with his mind. A couple hunted by the bush itself. Corporate vampires running a blood dairy. The most famous scream queen in America on the side of the Nullarbor Plain, because two blokes happened to share a lecture theatre at USC in 1968. And a quarter-million dollars of broken robot pig.
This episode is about how the taxman accidentally built a horror industry, what that horror secretly confessed about Australia, and why the country spent thirty years pretending it didn't exist.
Films covered: Patrick (1978), Long Weekend (1978), Thirst (1979), Roadgames (1981), Razorback (1984).
Every film in this episode is in the Video Vault at vault.strangecountry.com.au — posters, trailers, streaming data, and Ricky, who has opinions about all of them.
strangecountry.com.au
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By Mat DalbyThe Exploitation Years
In 1981, the Australian government introduced a tax rule called Division 10BA, and accidentally funded the most prolific horror decade this country has ever produced.
The deal was simple: put money into an Australian film, write off 150% against your tax. Which meant a film could be a complete disaster and you'd still come out ahead. The worse the film, in a sense, the better the investment. Not a sentence you want anywhere near the founding document of a national cinema.
But here's what came out of it. A man who kills with his mind. A couple hunted by the bush itself. Corporate vampires running a blood dairy. The most famous scream queen in America on the side of the Nullarbor Plain, because two blokes happened to share a lecture theatre at USC in 1968. And a quarter-million dollars of broken robot pig.
This episode is about how the taxman accidentally built a horror industry, what that horror secretly confessed about Australia, and why the country spent thirty years pretending it didn't exist.
Films covered: Patrick (1978), Long Weekend (1978), Thirst (1979), Roadgames (1981), Razorback (1984).
Every film in this episode is in the Video Vault at vault.strangecountry.com.au — posters, trailers, streaming data, and Ricky, who has opinions about all of them.
strangecountry.com.au