With a bit more of brimstone & treacle, Ian Coughlan's ALISON'S BIRTHDAY could have made an impression. Unfortunately the movie is ultimately a bit too low-keyed and tasteful for it's own good -- a common problem with a lot of Australian made horror outings. However, it is well written, competently made, and does contain a couple of nice, evocative little scenes. Joanne Samuel plays "Alison", a somewhat mousy looking young lady who first learns of the things to come at age 16 when during a Ouija game her friend becomes possessed by the spirit of her long dead father who warns the girl of evil things to come on her 19th birthday. The possessed girl is killed in a freak accident, and then the story fast forwards three years to the week before Alison's fateful day. She finds herself invited to a private party for her to be thrown by her relatives out in the country, compelled to attend, and then discovers she cannot leave.
This comes much to the consternation of her boyfriend, played by cult Aussie actor Lou Brown. An interesting screen presence who seems to have made a small career by being bland, Brown finds himself scorned by Alison & the family, and engages in some background research that the Sydney Public Library that would have made the gang from "Scooby-Doo" proud. Eventually he pieces together the bits of the mystery: Alison was born on the 19th hour of the 19th day in the Celtic calender, and on her 19th birthday will be eligible for some kind of bizarre work study exchange program involving a 103 year old "relative" who has made a special trip to be present for Alison's birthday.
If you're afraid I have given everything away don't worry, the story is told in a rather labyrinthine manner with plot twists and scenes out of nowhere. Director/writer Ian Coughlin channels two American hits of the occult horror genre: ROSEMARY'S BABY provides the basis for the reclusive family "cult" complete with odious herbal drink concoctions, and THE OMEN provides the basis for a kind of conspiracy involving a stolen baby, a murdered family, and a secret clique of high-society cultists who have been waiting almost 20 years for Alison's birthday to arrive.
Spain's Jose Ramon Larraz would troll through the same material a year later for his BLACK CANDLES, and while ALISON'S BIRTHDAY is without a shred of doubt a better film, Larraz' picture proves to have more resonance by overtly providing what jaded horror audiences of the time expected out of films like this -- Sex, gore, mind-blowing satanic blasphemies, drugs, and a nonstop barrage of nudity & amoral behavior. By contrast, Coughlin's cult are much better behaved even when about to skewer someone & toss their body into a shallow grave, and sadly the film suffers for it. A cinematic release is cited for the film's production credits but to me this has "made for cable TV" written all over it.
The film does have a couple of great scenes & bizarre touches, specifically a chase through an overgrown, weed-infested cemetery made up of forlorn gravestones stacked one next to the other like eggs in a carton. The initial burst of demonic skulduggery with the 16 year old girl talking like Freddy Kreuger is good for a chuckle, and Lou Brown drives yet another absurd automobile that is supposed to be "cool" or "hip", this one an open-windowed dune buggy type contraption with a folding roof on it that makes it look like a golf cart. There are some freaky dream sequences, intrigue involving a Stonehenge circle out back of the old house, and the cult members have a kind of sinister duality about them that proves a nice touch, with their dapper tuxedos and doctors who learned the Vulcan Nerve Pinch.
So what the film may lack in the more lurid areas of sex or gore are more than compensated for by decent plotting, credible acting and an offbeat, self-composed musical score that no doubt features Mr. Coughlin on nylon string Spanish guitar. It's all in very good taste, up to and including the absence of any kind of "satanic" influences: These are Celtic mystics, portrayed here as kind of a militant form of the Druids in perhaps an allowance to Australia's notorious censorship laws.
Sadly what movies like this require is content in as poor taste as can be mustered, and the closest the movie comes is in the form of actress Lisa Peers' bra-deprived occult freak former girlfriend, not to mention the outrageous cover design for the British home video release with a naked chick kneeling before a satanic altar ... They made the movie about the wrong girl, maybe, but fans of occult thrillers who would perhaps prefer to avoid the usual exploitation angle will probably like this one more than some. I like how it defied formula while still being derivative, and along with Coughlin's later STONES OF DEATH script speaks volumes for his respect of American horror & desire to emulate it. Nothing wrong with that, nothing at all.
5/10
This comes much to the consternation of her boyfriend, played by cult Aussie actor Lou Brown. An interesting screen presence who seems to have made a small career by being bland, Brown finds himself scorned by Alison & the family, and engages in some background research that the Sydney Public Library that would have made the gang from "Scooby-Doo" proud. Eventually he pieces together the bits of the mystery: Alison was born on the 19th hour of the 19th day in the Celtic calender, and on her 19th birthday will be eligible for some kind of bizarre work study exchange program involving a 103 year old "relative" who has made a special trip to be present for Alison's birthday.
If you're afraid I have given everything away don't worry, the story is told in a rather labyrinthine manner with plot twists and scenes out of nowhere. Director/writer Ian Coughlin channels two American hits of the occult horror genre: ROSEMARY'S BABY provides the basis for the reclusive family "cult" complete with odious herbal drink concoctions, and THE OMEN provides the basis for a kind of conspiracy involving a stolen baby, a murdered family, and a secret clique of high-society cultists who have been waiting almost 20 years for Alison's birthday to arrive.
Spain's Jose Ramon Larraz would troll through the same material a year later for his BLACK CANDLES, and while ALISON'S BIRTHDAY is without a shred of doubt a better film, Larraz' picture proves to have more resonance by overtly providing what jaded horror audiences of the time expected out of films like this -- Sex, gore, mind-blowing satanic blasphemies, drugs, and a nonstop barrage of nudity & amoral behavior. By contrast, Coughlin's cult are much better behaved even when about to skewer someone & toss their body into a shallow grave, and sadly the film suffers for it. A cinematic release is cited for the film's production credits but to me this has "made for cable TV" written all over it.
The film does have a couple of great scenes & bizarre touches, specifically a chase through an overgrown, weed-infested cemetery made up of forlorn gravestones stacked one next to the other like eggs in a carton. The initial burst of demonic skulduggery with the 16 year old girl talking like Freddy Kreuger is good for a chuckle, and Lou Brown drives yet another absurd automobile that is supposed to be "cool" or "hip", this one an open-windowed dune buggy type contraption with a folding roof on it that makes it look like a golf cart. There are some freaky dream sequences, intrigue involving a Stonehenge circle out back of the old house, and the cult members have a kind of sinister duality about them that proves a nice touch, with their dapper tuxedos and doctors who learned the Vulcan Nerve Pinch.
So what the film may lack in the more lurid areas of sex or gore are more than compensated for by decent plotting, credible acting and an offbeat, self-composed musical score that no doubt features Mr. Coughlin on nylon string Spanish guitar. It's all in very good taste, up to and including the absence of any kind of "satanic" influences: These are Celtic mystics, portrayed here as kind of a militant form of the Druids in perhaps an allowance to Australia's notorious censorship laws.
Sadly what movies like this require is content in as poor taste as can be mustered, and the closest the movie comes is in the form of actress Lisa Peers' bra-deprived occult freak former girlfriend, not to mention the outrageous cover design for the British home video release with a naked chick kneeling before a satanic altar ... They made the movie about the wrong girl, maybe, but fans of occult thrillers who would perhaps prefer to avoid the usual exploitation angle will probably like this one more than some. I like how it defied formula while still being derivative, and along with Coughlin's later STONES OF DEATH script speaks volumes for his respect of American horror & desire to emulate it. Nothing wrong with that, nothing at all.
5/10