12 Australian Thrillers Guaranteed To Ruin Your Evening

Wolf Creek

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.

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.

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.

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.