Inspired by the terrific documentary Not Quite Hollywood (now available on DVD in the UK, but sadly, not in the U.S.), the Screengrab is proud to present Ozsploitation!, our own survey of the golden age of Australian drive-in movies. Pop a tube, throw another shrimp on the barbie and try not to chunder.

The bushranger movie is the Australian equivalent of the American western, and the earliest such films date back at least to 1906’s The Story of the Kelly Gang, which is considered by many to be the world’s first feature film. (It runs about 60 minutes, if you want to nitpick.) It’s true that there aren’t quite as many classic Australian bushranger movies as classic American westerns, and it’s also true that most of them turn out to be about Ned Kelly. But let’s at least give them credit for longevity.

Mad Dog Morgan is a bushranger movie from the Ozsploitation era that turns out not to be about Ned Kelly. Instead it’s about Dan Morgan, who was never known as Mad Dog Morgan and, as it happens, wasn’t even really named Dan Morgan. Born John Fuller in 1830, this Irish-Australian horse thief, mean drunk and all-around desperado would churn through such aliases as John Smith, Sydney Native and Down the River Jack before settling on the name that became legend. Or if not quite legend, at least a Dennis Hopper movie from the mid-70s.

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Welcome to the Unwatchable Halftime Report! Yes, we’ve made it halfway through our journey up the IMDb Bottom 100 list and it’s time to look back at all the good times we’ve had so far. It all began on April 3, 2008, when I reported here on an article from The Guardian by Sam Richards, who subjected himself to a handful of titles from the list he says “exists to catalogue films that have been viewed out of error, obligation or last-turkey-in-the-shop desperation.”

As I said upon launching the Unwatchable project on April 28 of last year, “Any moron can sit through a few of these godawful pictures; it takes a special kind of idiot to watch all 100 of them. And I’m here to tell you, loyal Screengrab readers, I am that idiot. For your entertainment and my own detriment, I am going to watch and review them all, starting with #100 and working my way to the top. Of course, the IMDb list is constantly changing based on the whims of the voting public, but I will be sticking with the Bottom 100 I downloaded on the day I decided to tackle this most awe-inspiring task.”

And it’s true, I am still working from that very list. All this week I’ll be offering you the chance to catch up with Unwatchables you may have missed. I’ve already blocked many of these from my memory, so it should be quite a treat for me, too.

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Inspired by the terrific new documentary Not Quite Hollywood, the Screengrab is proud to present Ozsploitation! For the next ten or twelve weeks, or however long it takes you or me to get sick of them, we'll be checking out classics from the golden age of Austrailian drive-in movies. As you may or may not know, Australia was one of the few countries outside the United States to develop a thriving drive-in culture. They love their cars as much as we do, and apparently they also share our fondness for bare breasts, dangerous beasties, exploding heads and good old-fashioned automotive mayhem. If any of our friends down under are reading this, please bear in mind that I'm seeing most of these films for the first time and feel free to weigh in with your own memories and expertise.

We begin with 1987's Dark Age, which was screened this week at Fantastic Fest as part of a mini-Ozploitation retrospective centered around Not Quite Hollywood.  Our director is Arch Nicholson, who was given the job based on his work as second unit director on the hit Razorback (which we'll be checking out next week). As it turns out, none of the footage he shot was actually used in Razorback, but I'm sure he didn't mention that in his interview. John Jarratt, who much later played the very creepy Outback killer in Wolf Creek, stars as wildlife ranger Steve Harris. Steve is an advocate for the protection of the endangered saltwater crocodile, but his cause is undermined when a giant croc turns up in the river and starts eating people, including a small child.

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