FRENCHMAN'S FARM

Australia, 1987, 100 minutes, Colour.
Tracy Mann, David Reyne, John Meillon, Norman Kaye, Ray Barrett.
Directed by Ron Way.

Frenchman's Farm is in Australian Gothic horror thriller, a ghost story. While the premises may seem far-fetched, the screenplay takes them at face value and carries the audience along with them. The film has a background of the French Revolution and a French settler, hidden gold. It also uses the time-warp device with a girl in the present being taken back to witness a murder forty years earlier. There is also a ghost who appears murderously.

The setting is Queensland, with a background of summer and bushfires. It is leap year, 1984, 29th February, which, has some significance.

The film features a number of Australian veterans including Ray Barrett, John Meillon, Norman Kaye as an organ-playing vicar. Tracy Mann is quite effective as the heroine. Singer David Reyne has an opportunity to sing and, to a lesser extent, to act.

The film is contrived. - but carries the audience along and demands their attention to work out complexities of the plot.

1. An Australian thriller? Gothic horror? Ghost story?

2. Queensland in the '80s, the re-creation of the '40s? Atmosphere? The farm, the town? Contrast with police headquarters and computers? The French Revolution footage and its insertion?

3. The plausibility of the plot: the bushfires and heat, the creation of the time warp, the soldier settlers after World War II, the atmosphere of the war, the contrast with the '80s? The ghost and his vindictiveness?

4. The intelligibility of the plot: the building up of the detail, the intricacies, the solution? The irony about 20th February in Leap Years?

5. Jackie and her family, studying law, the bushfires, her driving, going off the main road, involved in the time warp, her car stopping, the clock going backwards? The '40s van and music? The farm and her witnessing the killing? her escape? The return? Ringing Barry and involving him in the puzzle?

6. The killing, the background of the Hatchers in the prisoner-of-war camp, Arthur Hatcher and his arrest, his being in the asylum, suicide? The tracing of the information back to the French Revolution, the French document on the computer, the order for executions, the money and its transportation to Australia? The background of Australian settlement in the 1820s? The building of the house, the floods, the moving of the house? The various people digging for the money? The Reverend Aldershot and his guarding of the tombs? Barry and his investigations? Doran and his investigations, the various murders, Jackie's mental - collapse? Benson's internment? 29th February? The warning at the end for the policeman -to be killed in 1988?

7. Jackie, a plucky character, vigour, her search? Involving Barry? Their relationship? her persuasion? Going to see Reverend Aldershot, his explanations, the visit to the crypt? Barry's return and arrest? The visit to the museum, the coin? Encountering Benson? The photo, the newly-built farm? Jackie awaking, going out, discovering Barry dead? Going into shock? Barry, law, music, relationship with Jackie, the mystery, his arrest in the tomb ? With Benson, the digging, his murder?

8. Benson and his drinking, the farm? Jackie and Barry, the digging? His thinking they took the money? His arrest and mental collapse?

9. Doran and his investigations, anti-computer, following hunches, the mystery of too late? the case, the computer exploding, tracking the information, His death? His assistant, the research, knowledge of the previous deaths, the computer foretelling his own death?

10. Aldershot and his place in the parish, playing the organ, showing people round, the cemetery, the explanation of the French, as a prisoner-of-war chaplain, the money, talking to the ghost, his death?

11. The ghost, cruel and brutal, the continued murders?

12. The effectiveness of the film as a ghost story, in a Queensland town? Contemporary investigations? The Gothic yarn?