DESOLATION ANGELS
Australia, 1982, 85 minutes, Colour.
Kim Trengrove, Marie O'Louglin, Kerry Mack, Karen West, Jay Mannering.
Directed by Chris Fitchett.
Desolation Angels is an Australian variation on a genre that was quite popular at this time – especially in the wake of Halloween and Friday the 13th.
In this film three young girls decide to leave their posh school and go away for a weekend – but they find themselves at Portsea, on the Mornington Peninsula, where a group of psychopaths have taken over the town – threatening all the people there, especially the three girls. It is another one of those women in terror films.
It is small-budget, has some excitement but also touches of the ludicrous. It was directed by Christopher Fitchett who made a short film in 1980, Blood Money, with Bryan Brown. He co-wrote the screenplay with celebrated cinematographer, Ellery Ryan (That Eye the Sky, Cosi, Angel Baby).
A curiosity item for the Australian film industry of the 80s.
1. An enjoyable thriller? Competent thriller or not? The quality of the small budget film? For what audiences?
2. The use of the thriller and horror conventions? The social background, the weekend holiday? Menace, terror and deaths? The combining of the conventions - how effectively?
3. The background of the girls, the fashionable girls' school? Cars and jobs? The intercutting of the story of big business, embezzlement? The technique of the voice-over, realism, lack of realism? The tongue-in-cheek touches - or taken seriously? The melodramatics of the voice-over - making the plot seem more melodramatic? The title - its reference, meaning?
4. The establishing of the characters: Liz, school, home, her mother? The girls doing the exams? The introduction to each of the girls: Jilly, Jo? The car and the weekend away? The travelling, the calling in to the hamburger shop - with the imitation Elvis Presley type? The menacing cars? The police and the road blocks? The frights, the chases? The weekend for the girls - and their not telling the truth to family etc.?
5. The focus on Pamela: the cheque, cashing it, the bank and the interrogation, the meal? Her going home, changing her appearance, the discussion with her friend and the university? Her going on holidays? Her being a neighbour to the girls? The friendship with Jilly? Her isolation, wandering and reflection? The attack? Her death and the confrontation with the killer - and his vengeance?
6. The men and their cars? The ironic number plates: END 666? The black diabolical cars? The unknown drivers? The initial attack? The attack on the man in the shop? Menacing the girls? Deaths? The final chase and vengeance? The hotel corridors? Their final defeat and the ugliness of their deaths?
7. The man at Portsea with the masks, the attack and being thrown into the water, his final rescue?
8. The girls and their holidays? The atmosphere of terror, the dark, chases, fears? The sea? Injuries?
9. The special effects for the attack, the shock, fright, suspense? Effective?
10. Ludicrous aspects: characterisation, plot, voiceover?
11. Flavour, Melbourne, the Peninsula, Portsea, isolated holiday houses? Comparisons with similar low-budget thrillers especially from the United States?
