Mervyn Drake Movies

The Australian Afraid to Dance features two young social misfits who seek to make their lives "worthwhile" via crime. Nique Needles plays a loser with few prospects for a decent life. After committing a few petty crimes, he graduates to the "big time" by attempting to steal a car. The car's owner turns out to be a chronic pickpocket, played by Rosey Jones. Needles and Jones fall in love, then embark on a Bonnie-and-Clyde series of misadventures. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Laurel and Emma are sisters, two young women who are, for a change, extremely happy exactly where they are, which is in a college town in the Blue Mountains of Australia. Their happiness is rudely ended when their mother, Anna, decides to relocate them to the spare and (to the girls) grossly uninteresting bush country of Australia. Their new school is extremely backwards and boring, and what is worse, their mother seems to have grown quite erratic, given to emotional fits and bouts of drinking. They lack the experience and imagination, perhaps, to understand the toll World War II is taking on her. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Before he directed the cult classic Highlander (1986), music video creator Russell Mulcahy adapted this stylish, tongue-in-cheek horror film from the novel by Peter Brennan. Gregory Harrison stars as Carl Winters, a grief-stricken American husband who has come to a remote corner of Australia to seek answers in the death of his wife, a TV journalist who was investigating a story on kangaroo poaching. Carl meets Jake Cullen (Bill Kerr), a man obsessed with hunting down what he says is an enormous razorback boar that consumed his grandson. Although he was acquitted, most of the locals believe that Jake murdered the boy himself and invented the crazy story about a giant pig. Jake tells Carl that he believes the razorback is also responsible for his wife's death. At first skeptical, Carl becomes a believer when he encounters the beast. He and Jake track it to a dog food processing plant, where the owners are illegally butchering kangaroos for industrial use. The factory operators are also feeding the dog food to the gigantic razorback, increasing its size and carnivorous appetite. Joined by farmer Sarah Cameron (Arkie Whiteley), Carl and Jake set out to kill the powerful mutant. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

In this Australian film, the married, financially secure Rob (Bryan Brown) meets up with drug-addicted prostitute Lou (Judy Davis) and tries to help her crawl out of the dead-end life she's created for herself. However, when Rob's wife discovers who he's been spending his time with, his marriage and his stable life are threatened. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi