12 Australian Thrillers Guaranteed To Ruin Your Evening

You don't get grittier than the Aussie outback. It's not the place to be if you're a clean-freak. This is probably the reason why Australia do gritty thrillers so well—dirty, dusty and wholly unpleasant movies that you need a shower after watching. So what with The Rover—a bleak, mucky future thriller—just completing a run at the cinema and Mad Max: Fury Road coming up next year, we thought we'd celebrate Australia's love of the hard-hitting thriller, and run through a list of their best entries. They'll be some you've heard of, some you haven't, we've got critically acclaimed and critically derided (they're wrong), but make no mistake, they all pack a punch.

Let's start off with the most well-known film on the list—chances are you even saw this one in the cinema. And for good reason too, it's pretty damn good. It follows a trio of (admittedly annoying) youngsters off on a (admittedly stupid) trip to the outback, and the events that follow when they meet 'Mick'. Mick you see, is a nutcase of the highest order and doesn't take too kindly to three smarmy youts being all alive and everything, so he makes it his duty to put an end to them. He does this using the worst means available—the 'head on a stick' scene will have you quivering in your Jordans. A sequel is due out on DVD in September.

Nicole Kidman and Billy Zane, two actors with remarkably different career trajectories—we'll let you figure the exact directions out yourself. However, at one time, they were both on a par, and that time was during the making of Dead Calm. This thriller set on a boat (well, two boats) follows a couple (Kidman and Sam Neill) who gain an unwanted passenger in the form of Billy Zane, who puts his surname to good use by putting in a suitably zany performance as a madman. Those were the days, Zane as a madman, Kidman not being famous, Sam Neill being Sam Neill. All on a boat.

Jokes aside though, Dead Calm is a genuinely effective thriller and it'll certainly make you think twice next time you think about picking up a hitchhiker (in your car or in your boat).

Revenge is a dish best served cold. Well, the revenge in The Horseman is about as cold as the Antarctic. Look up 'bleak' in the dictionary and you'll see a picture of the DVD case for this film. It follows a father vowing (and subsequently getting) revenge on the people who killed his daughter. It's not fun at all (ok, the revenge scenes are fun), and it'll ruin your evening quicker than a power-cut. Humour is absent and depression is rampant—this is one straight-faced flick. Seek this one out, you won't be disappointed. Unless of course you wanted to watch a comedy—you'll be extremely disappointed in that case.

Here's another nasty one for you—you thought The Hunger Games was mean-spirited? This one surrounds a bunch of prisoners deliberately hunted by the rich elite, and showcases a fine platter of gore to put across its point (a point we're not sure we could locate). Starring Olivia Hussey and Steve Railsback as prisoners, it's a classic slice of low-budget low-culture and an important entry in the Ozploitation genre that Australia pumped out in the '70s and '80s. When it was first released in the UK, it was cut by six minutes for violence, but don't worry your pretty little heads, it's available uncut now.

When it's based on a true story, it's never as fun is it? You can't ever enjoy the film, regardless of whether it's a nice story or a horrible one. The one that Snowtown is based on is most definitely a horrible one—in this case the murders of a number of people in a poor suburb of Adelaide. What makes it worse is that most of the actors are actually locals from around the area where the real life atrocities occurred. It's about as harrowing as it gets, and not only will it ruin the evening on which you choose to watch it, it'll most likely ruin every evening for about a week. It sticks with you and it won't leave. Is this even a recommendation? Who knows...

This is a PG-rated film, so you'd think the chances of any lasting effect would be minimal, but you'd be WRONG. Although there's no violence, gore or swearing, it's still a highly unsettling film. Mainly because it's based on a true story again, this time the disappearance of a number of schoolgirls and a teacher at Hanging Rock in Victoria. It's all very mysterious and ambiguous, and it's lent an ethereal and celestial air by director Peter Weir (who went on to direct Hollywood flicks like The Truman Show). It's a bit easier to digest than Snowtown, but it'll still have you thinking about it for days afterwards. Also, picnics are now ruined forever.

You can either go for the remake or the original, but as always, it's wise to go for the original (even though the remake isn't that bad). This film centres on a nurse who forms an otherworldly relationship with a comatose patient named Patrick. Or more accurately, Patrick forms a relationship with the nurse. Patrick, you see, can communicate with her through an electric typewriter (computer in the remake), has telekinetic powers and can influence people into committing horrendous acts of violence. There's something really unnerving about seeing a static body causing all hell to break loose around him. Also, he sleeps with his eyes open—​no thanks.

Here's a nice bit of comedy to lighten things up a bit. But don't get too complacent—things kick off big time towards the end. Laughter will stop, guaranteed. What starts as a teenage prom flick, eventually descends into a hellish torture nightmare (much like most school proms, then). There is humour yes, but it's jet-black and will only appeal to the muckiest of pups out there—the story of an obsessive girl stopping at nothing to get her desired prom date will delight some but disgust others. Whichever camp you're in will depend on how well you can stomach a girl in a party hat boring an electric drill into someone's skull. That and whether or not you managed to get a prom date at school in the first place...

We're back in the outback for this dusty thriller, which thankfully isn't based on a true story, and so is a bit more fun. It concerns the unwholesome adventures of a giant boar that roams the countryside, eating the shit out of people and knocking down houses (he's really big). This was Russell Mulcahy's first feature film before he went on to direct the first two Highlander films, and eventually the 'classic' Resident Evil: Extinction. Either way, the Aussie outback is depicted in all it's sparse, grimy glory and our big bad pig is just as imposing to behold. There's nothing like a giant monster movie, and the Aussies do it well—you could check out Rogue for an Australian take on the killer crocodile, while you're at it.

Inspired by a true story is a little bit better than 'based on a true story', right? The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was 'inspired' by a true story, but nothing that happened in the film ever happened in real life – the same goes for Dying Breed. It's inspired by the story of Alexander Pearce, an Australian escaped convict who made the snappy decision to become a cannibal and eat his fellow escapees. This film concerns his descendants, who are also cannibals, and have their sights set on a group of youngsters looking to find the Tasmanian Tiger. It's nicely gory and horrible, so evening plans will be, as promised, ruined. It also stars Leigh Whannell, the writer of Saw, so there's that too.

There was another Australian movie based on the actual events that occurred as a result of Alexander Pearce's meal plans called Van Diemen's Land, but we haven't seen that yet, so can't possibly comment on its quality, sorry.

It's not often you hear a film recommended to you that is essentially a feature length warning against littering. Well, Long Weekend is just that—it's about a couple who go on a camping trip and throw their weight around, showing scant regard for nature. They do this by littering, killing a poor dugong (Google it) and generally just being solid assholes. Obviously, mother Nature isn't too happy about this, and she strikes back in her own inimitable way. It sounds silly but it's really worth a watch, and will make you think twice about throwing that Cheestring wrapper in the bush, you thug.

There was also a remake made in 2008 that met with overwhelmingly negative reviews, so you can probably skip that, but you could check out The Ruins instead, which involves a bunch of snotty teenagers getting eaten by deadly vines. Basically, Australians want you to be nice to nature, otherwise the trees will eat you or something.

Here we've got a subtle meditation on the dangers of drugs. Ok, the dangers of wandering into a drug dealer's weed farm. Ok, it's not subtle in the slightest either – someone gets all the skin ripped off their penis for fuck's sake. But hey, sometimes subtle isn't enough, sometimes you've just got to go the whole hog and rip a few dicks in pursuit of your goal, and Storm Warning does just that. In the tradition of Straw Dogs and The Hills Have Eyes, it follows two normal people who stumble upon a redneck family home and subsequently have to go to extreme lengths to survive (and to extreme lengths they most certainly go). This is exploitation through-and-through, but it's very well done exploitation, so it's ok.