Tommy Dysart Movies

The owner of a posh Australian health clinic uses the residents of a small suburban community named Pebble Court as a test market for some revolutionary new vitamin supplements. Unbeknownst to the locals, the pills have some particularly unpleasant side effects, as illustrated by the messy death of her boyfriend after he discovers the truth and is given a lethal dose. Before long, the locals are beginning to mutate, melt, explode, or turn into deformed psychopathic monsters. As Pebble Court becomes a miniature apocalypse, a pair of detectives plod their way through one bloody massacre after another before finally stumbling onto the diabolical Dr. Carrera (Ian Smith), inventor of the lethal vitamins and numerous other medical disasters. The odd, disjointed and episodic feel of this film is due to the script being assembled out of four separate stories by director/co-writer Philip Brophy. Without a solid framing story or sympathetic lead to give them cohesion (aside from the obvious premise that Carrera's drugs are not particularly healthy), the disparate vignettes fall apart faster than the doctor's victims. That said, there is enough wry humor, frantic pacing and boisterous gore effects to sustain horror audiences' interest for the abbreviated running time. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

In this children's drama, Steven Wilson (Andrew Shephard) has been sent from his country home to stay with his grandmother Pearl (Pat Evison) in Melbourne. She earns her keep working in the boxoffice of a theater, and Steven spends most of his time with her at the theater. For the most part, he has delightful encounters with the actors and theater workers, but the theater owner is a charmless and mean old fellow who only very reluctantly allows him on the premises. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A limp storyline refuses to go taut throughout this sci-fi adventure that patches together bits and pieces from its famous, multi-genre predecessors (the Indiana Jones series, The Deer Hunter, The Philadelphia Experiment, and others). The premise has John Hargreaves as Harris fly his plane through a time warp and land on Easter Island. Harris soon encounters the evil "Savage" (Max Phipps) who is looking for a magic stone -- left by spacemen -- that was used to erect the Aku-Aku giant heads and the enormous boulders of Stonehenge. "Savage" does not want to build a monument, the stone also gives its owner the power to destroy. Heroine Melanie Mitchell (Meredith Phillips) more or less stands around, as Harris and "Savage" duke it out. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Inspired by an epic poem by A.B. "Banjo" Patterson, The Man From Snowy River was a major step forward for the regenerated Australian film industry of the early '80s. This "down-under Western" spotlights Tom Burlinson as Jim Craig, a headstrong young man who goes to work for a powerful cattle baron. Burlinson falls in love with Jessica (Sigrid Thornton), his boss' daughter, and becomes enmeshed in a bitter land feud. Kirk Douglas has a high old time in the dual role of hard-hearted landowner Harrison and grizzled, one-legged old prospector Spur. Previously filmed in 1920, The Man From Snowy River was directed by the other George Miller, not the director of the same name who helmed Mad Max (1979). A monumental moneymaker, the film inspired a 1988 sequel, confusingly titled Return to Snowy River, Part II. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide