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ABSTRACT
The horror genre is a particularly fraught category in academic and mainstream critical discourse about Australian film genres. Australian horror films are often framed as either ‘Australian Gothic’ or ‘Ozploitation,’ terms that prioritise issues of national identity, class and taste rather than genre. The oppositional relationship of these terms presents an obstacle to the widespread acceptance – both scholarly and popular – of local horror films. This is illuminated by a comparison of two recent Australian horror releases and their domestic receptions, Wolf Creek 2 (McLean, Greg. 2014. Wolf Creek 2. Film. Adelaide: Duo Art Productions and Emu Creek Pictures) and The Babadook (Kent, Jennifer. 2014. The Babadook. Blu-Ray DVD. Melbourne: Umbrella Entertainment). Wolf Creek 2 was one of the most lucrative Australian films of 2014, however it was critically panned in large part due to its perceived commercialism and low-genre status. By contrast, The Babadook was the most critically praised Australian film of 2014, however the film received a limited domestic release. This paper explores how both The Babadook’s meagre domestic release and its near-universal critical praise can be related to its association with the high-art Australian Gothic tradition. Yet the film unsettles firmly entrenched art/genre, nationalism/commercialism dichotomies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Dr Jessica Balanzategui is a Lecturer in Cinema and Screen Studies at Swinburne University of Technology. Jessica’s research examines the intersections of childhood, trauma, and national identity in transnational horror cinema, and the formal and aesthetic properties of the horror genre across different cultural and mediated contexts. She has published on horror media and childhood in refereed journals such as Horror Studies, M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture and Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media and in edited collections published by Lexington, McFarland and Palgrave Macmillan.
Notes
1. Throughout this essay, I will generally use the term ‘criticism’ to refer to the work of film reviewers published in Australian news media, and typically use the term ‘scholarship’ to refer to academic work. However, as King, Verevis, and Williams (Citation2013) have shown, in Australia journalistic film criticism exists on a continuum with academic film studies, and the two fields often engage with each other.
2. Notably, the sequel was not quite as lucrative as the original Wolf Creek. Wolf Creek earned a total domestic gross of just over A$6 million, while Wolf Creek 2 earned a domestic gross of A$4.7 million (Screen Australia Citation2015). While the sequel performed well at the domestic box office, it attracted little of the critical approval and interest that surrounded the original.
3. This process of academic reappraisal was sparked largely by the influential work of Wood, followed by that of Carroll (Citation1990), Clover (Citation1993) and Creed (Citation1993), among others.
4. However, it must be noted that Fury Road is difficult to define in terms of nationality having been co-produced by Kennedy Miller Productions, and the Australian and US arms of Village Roadshow Entertainment, and filmed largely in Namibia with a predominantly international cast.
5. This issue tends to manifest in slightly different ways in academic scholarship and mainstream criticism. In the work of reviewers, such as those cited, the terms Australian Gothic or Ozploitation are not typically discussed in a sustained manner, and in some cases are not even explicitly stated. However, they do appear – for instance in Beks (Citation2014) Wolf Creek 2 review, he writes ‘where Wolf Creek’s Ozploitation influences were subtle and reprimanded, Wolf Creek 2 shoves the Aussie slasher flick tropes down our throat at every opportunity.’