Latest news with #Ozploitation
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Australian thriller packed with twists that has fans hooked is now streaming free in the UK
A twisty thriller dubbed "disturbing" and "gripping" by fans is finally available to stream for free in the UK. The Secrets She Keeps, starring Jessica De Gouw and Laura Carmichael, follows lonely pregnant woman Agatha (Carmichael) who meets successful online influencer Meghan (De Gouw), who also happens to be pregnant and is due to give birth around the same time. They are led down a dark and dangerous path when Agatha becomes obsessed with Meghan's seemingly perfect life and the secrets they both share. Based on the psychological thriller novel by Michael Robotham, the thriller series first aired in 2020 on 10Play in Australia before a second series hit Paramount+ two years later. For TV fans in the UK, all 12 episodes across season one and two are now available to stream for free on Channel 4 - so cancel your weekend plans and settle in. Related: Those who have seen The Secrets She Keeps said they binged it all and were left hooked, with one IMDb user calling the show "disturbing" while another said it was "a tense, gripping watch". While many praised the performances of De Gouw and Carmichael, others branded the narrative "predictable" in many ways despite its "unexpected" twists. The Secrets She Keeps currently holds an impressive 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with saying in its review: "A very watchable, albeit slightly shallow, exploration of how femininity and motherhood intertwine and toxify." Paste Magazine added: "Without performances as layered and emotionally sound as the ones Carmichael and De Gouw give, The Secrets She Keeps would be little more than the aforementioned pulpy ride. It's still pretty cockamamie, but in a way that is also fully believable." Related: The Guardian added: "The bedrock of the show is credible, serious drama, though this is undercut from time to time by pulpy genre elements more befitting old-school Ozploitation thrillers - such as 1979's Snapshot." Speaking to Radio Times, Downton Abbey star Carmichael opened up about the drastic difference between her role as Agatha and as Edith Crawley in the smash hit period drama. "You can't control what other people think of you," she says. "I enjoy a challenge, and I'm keen to try on different hats. When you do something for a long time, things become comfortable – you want to push yourself. "It's been such a gift being in Downton. It's opened so many doors. If another period drama came across my desk... if I loved the script, I wouldn't be too nervous of entering that world. But at the moment I'm drawn to things that feel different." The Secrets She Keeps is available to stream now on Channel 4. Digital Spy's first print magazine is here! Buy British Comedy Legends in newsagents or online, now priced at just £3.99.£18.99 at at Audible£99.00 at Amazon at at at EE at at £328.00 at at at at at EE at at at at at at at Amazon at at Sky Mobile£29.98 at at at Pandora£219.00 at at EE£19.00 at Game at at at at at at Game£259.99 at at Three at at at at at Pandora at at at AO at at at at at £199.99 at Fitbit£49.99 at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at John Lewis£39.97 at at at at John Lewis at at at Amazon at at John Lewis & Partners£90.00 at at at £44.99 at at at at Amazon£119.99 at at Fitbit at at Three$29.85 at at Amazon at at at at John Lewis & Partners at at at £699.00 at at at Amazon at at Apple at at at at at at Three£379.99 at at at Audible at at at at EE at at John Lewis£49.99 at at at at at at John Lewis at EE at at £379.00 at at at at Amazon at at at Apple at at at at Apple at at Microsoft at Three at at at John Lewis at £79.00 at Samsung at crunchyroll£1199.00 at AO£79.00 at Samsung£449.00 at John Lewis£79.98 at at Amazon at at at at at at John Lewis & Partners£79.98 at at Microsoft at at at Microsoft at at at at at at at Amazon£369.00 at John Lewis at at John Lewis & PartnersShop now at at at at at at Microsoft£399.00 at John Lewis at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at You Might Also Like PS5 consoles for sale – PlayStation 5 stock and restocks: Where to buy PS5 today? IS MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 7 THE BEST IN THE SERIES? OUR REVIEW AEW game is a modern mix of No Mercy and SmackDown
Irish Times
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Dangerous Animals review: Jaws meets Wolf Creek in this watery Ozploitation movie
Dangerous Animals Director : Sean Byrne Cert : 16 Genre : Horror Starring : Jai Courtney, Hassie Harrison, Josh Heuston, Rob Carlton, Ella Newton, Liam Greinke Running Time : 1 hr 38 mins Jaws meets Wolf Creek in a watery Ozploitation movie that seems to ask what would happen if Steve Irwin were a demented serial killer with a camcorder and mommy issues. The movie's villain, Tucker, played with operatic derangement by Jai Courtney of Terminator Genisys and Suicide Squad, runs a gnarly Gold Coast shark-dive business that is not what it seems. After luring unsuspecting tourists on to his boat, he sails into shark-infested waters, dangles his passengers overboard and films their deaths for his VHS snuff collection. New to town, Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) is a nomadic lone-wolf American surfer chick with a militant resistance to emotional intimacy. When she hooks up with a sensitive Aussie named Moses (Josh Heuston), she stays in her van and disappears before breakfast. Unhappily, that's when she gets nabbed by Tucker. READ MORE Zephyr's lock-picking girlboss survivalist isn't always enough to counter the film's fetishised female suffering or its subplot sending Moses to the rescue. For all the Oedipal signalling, Nick Lepard's script can't reconcile Tucker's strangely desexualised sadism with his desire to decorate his torture-porn tapes with locks of hair from his victims. The sharks – best when they are rotoscoped from nature footage – are demoted to junior partners in this crazy man's gendered trauma. They, of course, are not the dangerous animals of the title. A surprise inclusion at Cannes' Directors' Fortnight strand last month, Sean Byrne's third feature is neither as gripping as The Loved Ones, his prom-night horror, nor as intriguing as The Devil's Candy, his supernatural heavy-metal thriller, but it rattles along as effective B-movie gore. It even manages to include a rendition of Baby Shark without descending into the pointless camp of Sharknado. [ 'Incredible - real David Attenborough stuff': thousands of young sharks discovered off Ireland's west coast Opens in new window ] Harrison is a game final girl, Courtney is an imposing villain, and their two-step is a masterclass in look-out-behind-you dramaturgy. See it with an audience for the biggest possible splash. In cinemas from Friday, June 6th
Sydney Morning Herald
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
The movie about Aussie surfers being mean to Nicolas Cage is finally here. Is it good?
THE SURFER ★★ (MA15+) 101 minutes I imagine tales of Maroubra's Bra Boys may have helped inspire the tribe of Australian surfers giving Nicolas Cage a hard time in this film by Irish filmmakers Lorcan Finnegan and Thomas Martin but in this case, fiction is much stranger than truth. These boys have colonised their beach so completely that Cage's character can't get so much as a toe in the water. He's a divorced businessman who has been in the US for years, but now he's back in Australia harbouring an urgent desire to buy a house overlooking the break he surfed as a kid. He has brought his son with him so they can see the house and have an introductory dip. However, the exaggerated earnestness that makes Cage such an impersonators' delight has already kicked in and he's wallowing so deeply in nostalgia that he hasn't realised his boy doesn't share his euphoria. Having spotted the dirty looks locals are casting in their direction, he'd rather be at school. It came as no surprise to learn that Finnegan and Martin are fans of the Ozploitation films of the 1970s. Those were the days when certain Brits and Americans cherished the myth of Australia as a place where sharks leapt out of the surf at sunbathing tourists and kangaroos hopped along city streets challenging shoppers to boxing matches. And the human inhabitants were just as savage – hence the success of Canadian director Ted Kotcheff's adaptation of the Kenneth Cook novel Wake in Fright, the story of a gormless English schoolteacher barely surviving his first weekend in an Outback town. You know from the start that Cage is going to fare just as badly. His doggy-eyed histrionics guarantee it. But naturally, he doesn't see it that way. If he did, he'd go home to reconsider his real estate purchase and there would be no film. Instead, he stays on after his son leaves, waiting for his real estate agent to confirm the house's sale. And in just one day, he falls apart before our eyes, mocked by kookaburras, menaced by snakes and abused by the locals. They're all in thrall to Scally (Julian McMahon), the surfers' insufferable tribal leader, who has moulded the group into a cult devoted the kind of alpha-male pretensions we now know as toxic masculinity. In practice, this means that Cage is subjected to much nudging, sneering and spitting before the boys start going to work on his Lexus, which he's unwisely but typically left in the carpark.
The Age
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
The movie about Aussie surfers being mean to Nicolas Cage is finally here. Is it good?
THE SURFER ★★ (MA15+) 101 minutes I imagine tales of Maroubra's Bra Boys may have helped inspire the tribe of Australian surfers giving Nicolas Cage a hard time in this film by Irish filmmakers Lorcan Finnegan and Thomas Martin but in this case, fiction is much stranger than truth. These boys have colonised their beach so completely that Cage's character can't get so much as a toe in the water. He's a divorced businessman who has been in the US for years, but now he's back in Australia harbouring an urgent desire to buy a house overlooking the break he surfed as a kid. He has brought his son with him so they can see the house and have an introductory dip. However, the exaggerated earnestness that makes Cage such an impersonators' delight has already kicked in and he's wallowing so deeply in nostalgia that he hasn't realised his boy doesn't share his euphoria. Having spotted the dirty looks locals are casting in their direction, he'd rather be at school. It came as no surprise to learn that Finnegan and Martin are fans of the Ozploitation films of the 1970s. Those were the days when certain Brits and Americans cherished the myth of Australia as a place where sharks leapt out of the surf at sunbathing tourists and kangaroos hopped along city streets challenging shoppers to boxing matches. And the human inhabitants were just as savage – hence the success of Canadian director Ted Kotcheff's adaptation of the Kenneth Cook novel Wake in Fright, the story of a gormless English schoolteacher barely surviving his first weekend in an Outback town. You know from the start that Cage is going to fare just as badly. His doggy-eyed histrionics guarantee it. But naturally, he doesn't see it that way. If he did, he'd go home to reconsider his real estate purchase and there would be no film. Instead, he stays on after his son leaves, waiting for his real estate agent to confirm the house's sale. And in just one day, he falls apart before our eyes, mocked by kookaburras, menaced by snakes and abused by the locals. They're all in thrall to Scally (Julian McMahon), the surfers' insufferable tribal leader, who has moulded the group into a cult devoted the kind of alpha-male pretensions we now know as toxic masculinity. In practice, this means that Cage is subjected to much nudging, sneering and spitting before the boys start going to work on his Lexus, which he's unwisely but typically left in the carpark.
